Abstract

It is the contemporary belief, in American legal circles at all events, that law or jurisprudence, whatever it may have been in the past, has now the status of a social science. This is an assumption easier to make than to substantiate, and in view of the increasing insistence upon this point, it is now appropriate to inquire whether or not it possesses a tangible foundation. This requires a consideration of the distinctive characteristics of social science, the determination whether or not jurisprudence exhibits these characteristics, and, if not, if it is possible for it to assume them. It will be convenient to begin, briefly and concisely, with an examination of the characteristics of modern legal thought.