Laws proper, or properly so called, are commands; laws which are not commands, are laws improper or improperly so called. Laws properly so called, with laws improperly so called, may be aptly divided into the four following kinds.
1. The divine laws, or the laws of God: that is to say, the laws which are set by God to his human creatures.
2. Positive laws: that is to say, laws which are simply and strictly so called, and which form the appropriate matter of general and particular jurisprudence.
3. Positive morality, rules of positive morality, or positive moral rules.
4. Laws metaphorical or figurative, or merely metaphorical or figurative.
(John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined and The Uses of the Study of Jurisprudence [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998 (book first published in 1832)], 1)
