LAVER

(Lat. lavo, to wash; because washed by the waters of the ocean.) A species of ulva which is eaten as a delicacy. « LAW, in Latin Lex; derived from the verb lego, I collect or select. haw, collective and particular. — We employ the term "law "to denote a body of rules, or all the rules applicable to a given subject; e. g. the Roman Law, the Law of Nature. We employ the term " a law " to denote an individual rule. The idea of law, in its strictest sense, comprehends the notion of two parties; a superior imposing it, and an inferior obeying it. "> Laws, improperly or metaphorically so called. — In common language it is usual to apply the word "law " to designate principles or properties wliich can only be thus named by analogy. Whenever certain causes invariably or generally produce like effects, this consequence of effect upon cause is popularly termed " a law." Thus we speak of the law of nature with reference to inanimate or irrational subjects; of the law of gravitation, by which bodies are mutually attracted to each other; of the laws of motion, of the laws which regulate certain proce es in animal and vegetable economy, . In this sense, laws have been defined to mean " the nece ary relations resulting from the nature of things." The analogy is nobly expounded in a well-known pa age of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, at the end of the first book. Law defined. — Law, in its stricter sense, as applied to the voluntary actions of man, comprises the notion of a command i ued by a superior imposing an obligation on a subject. Laws, Divine and Human. — Laws are divided, according to the superior who imposes them, into divine and human: the law of God, and the law of man. Divine Law The Author of our being has declared his will to mankind at various times, through the instrumentality of inspired prophets and teachers. There are also certain rules of right and wrong commonly received, which are generally supposed to have their origin in the nature of man, and to subsist independently of God's revealed will. Thus the term " difine " law signifies, 1. Revealed law; 2: Natural law. Revealed Law — God, as the Lawgiver of tne Jewish nation, dictated to Moses a code of laws for that people, comprising both a confirmation of such laws as are Tt III. During the greater part of that period a constant struggle was carried on between the ecclesiastical lawyers, supported in many cases by the crown, and the popular party in favour of the old customary right, which was defended by the temporal nobility. The final victory of the common law, and its establishment as the rule of the land, except in particular cases, may be dated from the reign of Edward I. 2. The jurisdiction of the lord chancellor of England is a subject considered elsewhere. (See Chancery.) It is sufficient here to observe, that as most of the chancellors under the Plantage net kings were ecclesiastics, and as the matters entrusted to their decision were such as the rules of the common law did not apply to, they generally searched for precedents in that of Rome; which has hence been largely imported into one great branch of modern English law, namely, Equity. 3. In some particular matters the rules of the civil law have always been allowed by custom to prevail in England. These are, such as were taken cognizance of by the courts of honour and chivalry, now fallen into disuse; in the High Court of Admiralty {see Admiralty); and in the courts of the two Universities, which originally were ecclesiastical bodies. 4. The chief influence of the civil law in England has been through the canon law, which was founded upon it. Law, Canon. — The rules which were framed by the Christian church for its own spiritual polity may be supposed to have had their origin in the very earliest periods of Christianity itself; but all the authority and force which they po e ed could arise only from the mutual consent of the faithful to be bound by them, until the establishment of Christianity as a state religion entirely altered the character of its spiritual constitution. The temporal jurisdiction which was then too liberally conceded to the bishopsT^together with the legal force given by several emperors, Just in i an in particular, to the canons of councils, gradually called into existence a new and independent body of legislation. When the Western Empire had been overthrown, the authority of the popes, as temporal governors, was by degrees confirmed in the city of Rome and the adjacent country. At the same time the power of the ecclesiastical body was increased and extended in other countries; and the reverence attached to their authority gave to the spiritual censures with which they visited particular offences a greater force than to the sanctions of the national law. Thus, besides matters of church government, which were at first the particular subject of the pontifical law, it comprehended within its purview numerous and important branches of the civil law of persons and property About the year 1150, the various edicts then in force of the several popes, together with the canons of councils, and the authoritative declarations of fathers and doctors of the church, were collected together by the Monk Gratian, and reduced into a volume called the Decretum, and considered as the earliest authority in canon law. Tt 2 [s. 654]