ABSTRACT
Fuller’s The Law in Quest of Itself (1940) contains an exposition of the claims of legal positivism and natural law and suggests that for all persons associated with the law there is a choice to be made between these opposing and competing doctrines of legal thought. Natural law is described as ‘denying the possibility of a rigid separation of “is” and “ought”, and tolerating a confusion of them in legal discussion’. Legal positivism is described as ‘that direction of legal thought which insists on drawing a sharp distinction between “the law that is” and “the law that ought to be”’. Jurisprudential thought remains largely polarised in this area; bridges have been fabricated, but, in general, adherents of the two schools remain far apart. Fuller, a vigorous opponent of legal positivism, believes that it is vital that a choice be made, particularly in view of his contention that the positivists have lost sight of the very purposes of positivism (thereby falling into the error described by Nietzsche as ‘the commonest stupidity’ of forgetting what one set out to do).
