ABSTRACT
The study of law has always involved some consideration of the general character of social institutions and societies. Traditionally, however, legal theory in Europe was based upon a philosophical conception of natural law, and was thus closely associated with moral philosophy and theology. The beginnings of a sociology of law can be traced to Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois (1748). Montesquieu still discussed law partly in terms of ‘natural law’, but he also described and compared the laws of different societies, and related the differences to the diversity of conditions, both geographical and social, of these societies.
