ABSTRACT
William Graham Sumner's recognition within the sociological community likely began in 1876 when he taught the first course entitled "sociology" in the English-speaking world. Sumner's contemporary critics, who were far more numerous, objected assiduously to his unvarnished faith in and defense of laissezfaire economics coupled with social Darwinism; this latter approach he couched in terms of social selection in the "competition of life." Sumner described sociology as "the science of life in society" and believed its main concern to be the study of how people and groups engage in "the competition of life" under challenging and changing social conditions. If Sumner's is a proto-sociology, then his commentary on the social workings of law consists of a proto-sociology of law-one that is rudimentary and amorphous, but that nonetheless deserves recognition for the contributions it can make to understanding law in social contexts.
