Natural Law Natural Law is law which is founded on nature.

In other words natural law is that law which is in accordance with nature. What does nature means? Physical nature or biological nature or human nature or psycho-physical nature? J.S. Mill gives his view saying that what exists is nature. All that man observes in this universe can be called as nature. In this sense, it is not meaningful to say that man ought to follow nature since man has no power to do anything else but to follow nature as all actions are done through or, on obedience to natures physical or mental laws. The other meaning of nature is in the sense of how man ought to behave. Man tries to conform behaviour as to what he ought to do with what he observes in nature. This deriving of an ought from is is illogical and irrelevant or irrational. Mill takes the view that man must act to amend natural phenomena rather than to imitate or follow whatever happens. Mans whole moral development is the result of his selfeffort, or acting contrary to natural instinct or tendencies. His conclusion is that it is a great naturalistic fallacy to deduce an ought from an is. Mill endorces the same view given by David Hume which revealed that there is logical fallacy in deriving an ought from an is. Mills essay suggested that nature is not an infallible guide in this regard. Natural Laws Role Natural Law plays an important role in the interpretation of laws. For example, in case of Corbett v Corbett, two persons married each other where the wife was actually a male who had undergone a sex operation and married the petitioner who also knew about this. The petitioner wanted to annul the marriage. The court ordered the marriage to be annulled on the ground that the marriage between a man and a person who had undergone a sex change was null and void since it could not involve the natural biologically-determined consequences of marriage. Obviously the judge, in this case, based on his judgment on the biological aspect of marriage which was regarded as the very foundation of marriage and since it was lacking in this case the judge found no difficulty in annulling it.

Natural law concept could also be seen in the Sophocle Antigone which is regarded as one of the greatest documents in the history of natural law. Anitigone brother was a rebel and the ruler of the city who happened to be Antigones uncle had passed an order denying a decent burial for her brother. Antigone gave her brother a decent burial. When she was charged with violating the law, her reply was that over and above the written laws there were some which were unwritten, they were eternal and no one knew when they were enacted. None of today or yesterday it is, but live eternal. None can date its birth.