Owing to the absence of the element of generality or of class, no one would describe a single individuated act as law. The resolution and action by which I do not rise from my seat at this moment and go eagerly to meet the friend whose coming at the wrong moment interrupts me at my work, is a volitional act, not a law; such as on the other hand would be the volitional act that I might form within myself, consisting in the intention or the programme of receiving my friends seated and in a lukewarm way, whenever they should come to visit me in the hours before noon, in order to make them understand by this act of mine that they disturb me at my work, and that they should abstain from their inopportune visits, unless they wish to submit to the penalty of meeting with anything but a cordial reception from their friend. [Sidenote: _Identity of imperative, prohibitive, and permissive laws._] From the general but not universal character that we must recognize to the content of laws, we have the solution of certain controversies of the greatest importance which have been and are much discussed, hitherto without a satisfactory or duly demonstrated conclusion. In the first place, we must mention the dispute as to whether or no there exist _permissive_ laws, and whether the formula that the law _aut jubet aut vetat aut permittit_ is to be accepted. It has generally been admitted that the law _aut jubet aut vetat,_ and that the permission is nothing but the removal of a previous inhibition, that is, the partial or total abrogation of a law. But in reality, the law, since it is a volitional act, _jubet_ only; to command is to will: to command that a chemical laboratory be opened in every city means to will that one should be opened. And since every willing is at the same time a not-willing, as every affirmation is at the same time a negation, every command is at the same time an inhibition, and every _jubeo_ is a _veto_ (whether the will be expressed in the literary form of positive or negative, of command or of inhibition, is here without importance). [Sidenote: _Permissive character of every law, and impermissive character of every principle._]