DROIT

In French law. Right, justice, equity, law, the whole body of law; also a right. Tb.is term exhibits the same ambiguity which is discoverable In the German equivalent, "recht" and the English word "right." On the one hand, these terms answer to the Roman "Jus," and thus indicate law in the abstract, considered as the foundation of all. rights, or the complex of underlying moral principles which impart the character of justice to all positive law, or give it an ethical content. Taken in this abstract sense, the terms may be adjectives, in which case they are equivalent to "just," or nouns, in which case they may be paraphrased by the expre ions "justice," "morality," or "equity." On the other hand, they serve to point out a rig~t _; that is, a power, privilege, faculty, or demand, inherent ln one person, and incident upon another. In the latter signification,. droit (or recht or rl{lht) ls the correlative of "duty" or "obligation." In the former sense, it may be considered as opposed to wrmg, injustice, or the absenc&.of law. Droit 'has the further ambiguity · 'that it.ta sometimes used to ·denote the exist-, [s. 404]