The Analytical School of Jurisprudence, also known as Legal Positivism or the Imperative School, is a major school of thought that emerged in the 19th century. Its primary goal is to analyze and define law as it is (lex lata) without reference to its moral, historical, or sociological context.

Core Principles and Focus

• • Focus on Positive Law: The school is exclusively concerned with positive law—the law actually laid down by a politically superior authority (the State). It adopts a scientific and objective approach.
• • Separation of Law and Morality: A defining feature is the rigid separation of law (what is) from morality (what ought to be). Analytical jurists argue that a rule is a valid law regardless of whether it is just or unjust.
• • Law as Command: Law is essentially viewed as the command of the Sovereign (the State), backed by the threat of sanctions (punishment) for non-compliance.
• • Emphasis on Legislation: It considers legislation to be the most important source of law, rather than custom or tradition.
• • Methodology: The approach is analytical; it seeks to break down the fundamental concepts of the existing legal system (such as right, duty, command, sanction, and sovereignty) into their simplest elements for systematic understanding.

Key Exponents and Theories

Jurist	Key Concept	Law Defined as...
Jeremy Bentham (Founder of Positivism)	Utilitarianism (Greatest happiness of the greatest number)	An assemblage of signs declarative of a volition conceived or adopted by the sovereign.
John Austin (Father of the Analytical School)	Imperative Theory	The Command of a Sovereign backed by Sanction.
H.L.A. Hart	Concept of Law	A union of Primary Rules (rules of conduct) and Secondary Rules (rules of change, adjudication, and most importantly, the Rule of Recognition).
Hans Kelsen	Pure Theory of Law	A hierarchy of norms, where validity is derived from a superior norm, ultimately resting on a hypothetical Grundnorm (Basic Norm).