and said goodbye to the circus

People who write sentences like this:

"Sometimes in such cases a definition of a word can supply such a map: at one and the same time it may make explicit the latent principle which guides our use of a word, and may exhibit relationships between the type of phenomena to which we apply the word and other phenomena."
 

should be wheeled out and shot. I'm just saying.

This is what it actually means, explained through the medium of elephants:

"Basic definitions help us explain complicated stuff by telling us what a thing is and what a thing isn't.

The first function of a basic definition is to clarify the principles we use when deciding when and how to use a word. For example, there are certain factors a thing has to have before we can call it an elephant, such as big ears and a long nose.

The second function of a basic definition is to display and distinguish relationships between things we use the word for and things we don't. For example, we don't call mammoths elephants because they are too different. Mammoths are a bit like elephants, except bigger, hairier, and more extinct.

The reason nobody has come up with a decent definition for "law" is because "law" is a really really complicated thing and, unlike elephants, we're not really sure what it is in the first place."

 

Legal theory could be infinitely improved with the simple inclusion of pachyderms.