ABSTRACT
Legal positivism shared with classical doctrinal science an essentially Protestant view of the human condition, but the law is not viewed as directly instantiating a moral ideal but rather a framework of rules that allow for the coordination and regulation of conduct in a context of disagreement about the nature of the human good. This chapter aims to recover a tradition of moral reflection upon the nature and significance of law, understood as a body of rules. The form of legal science presupposed by this conception of law, although differing in numerous respects from that of classical doctrinal science, is nonetheless revelatory of important aspects of the human condition. The chapter offers some thoughts about the relationship between rules and the rule of law, considered as embodying a moral ideal. Legal writing in the century after Hobbes reflected a concern with the nature of black-letter law, and its relationship to 'equity'.
