Gray's Legal Origin Theory Research

John Chipman Gray(1839-1915)was an outstanding jurist who lived in the 19 th to 20 th centuries in the United States.His theory of legal origin is concentrated in his book "The Nature and Origin of Law".Gray's theory of legal origin is actually an annotation of its theory of legal nature,that is,the law is created by the court.Because the power of the court needs to be restricted,the state has indicated the legal origin for the court,and formed a constraint on the court's action to create the law through the legal origin.Therefore,Gray's theory of legal origin is a theory established on the basis of describing the internal connection between legal origin and law.However,because Gray studied the origins of law and law from the perspective of the court,this scheme of describing the internal connection between the origins of law and the law also caused incoordination within his theory.Therefore,at the end of this article,I will re-recognize Gray's theory of legal origin for this plan.This article is divided into four parts except for introduction and conclusion:The first part introduces the ideological foundation of Gray's legal origin theory,including the philosophical foundation of pragmatism and the influence of Austin's legal thought on Gray.The second part introduces the basic proposition of Gray's legal origin theory.In this part,the author summarizes Gray's basic position in understanding the law and its origins: the law originates from the creation of the court,and in addition there is no law;the legal origin and the law are intrinsically linked,and they can constrain the court's action to create the law.Further,the author introduces the specific forms of legal origin in this theory and the application of various legal origins,and extracts Gray's basic position on the application of legal origins: the enacting law has the priority of application.The third part introduces the discussion of Gray's legal origin theory in western legal science.Specifically,these discussions summarize Gray's theory of legal origin as a dichotomy of rule skepticism and legal origin and law,and comment on it.The fourth part is the author's reflection on Gray's legal origin theory.First,it points out that the legal origin of Gray's legal origin theory is not self-consistent with its theory in the sense of application.In addition,through historical investigation of the semantics of legal origin,the author pointed out that Gray adopted an inappropriate way to understand the legal origin.Based on this,the author based on the historical meaning of legal origin,borrowing from Petzenick's point of view,pointed out that legal origin is an authoritative reason.Taking this as a starting point,it responds that this plan can correctly understand the historical meaning of legal origin and the relationship between legal origin and law.