Question:medium

For Roscoe Pound 'jural postulates' are to be discovered:

Updated On: Jul 13, 2026
  • in the law itself
  • outside the law
  • in the juristic thought
  • in all of the above
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

Roscoe Pound's sociological school asks what a given society, at a given time, assumes people can expect from one another, and calls these background assumptions jural postulates. This question is about method: where does Pound say we should look to find them.

  1. in the law itself: Pound's approach is to study the existing legal system, its statutes, judicial decisions and doctrines, as a record of the assumptions a society has already encoded into its rules. The jural postulates are drawn out by close study of that existing law, at a given time and place.
  2. outside the law: this does not reflect Pound's method, he works from within legal materials rather than from external, non-legal sources.
  3. in the juristic thought: juristic writings are secondary commentary, Pound's own method is grounded in the operative law itself, not merely in what jurists write about it.
  4. in all of the above: overbroad, since Pound's stated method centres specifically on the law itself as the primary source.

Let's summarize:

  • Jural postulates are the basic assumptions a civilised society expects its members to honour.
  • Pound says these are uncovered by studying the existing law of that time and place.

For Pound, jural postulates are discovered in the law itself.

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