This thesis examines the minimal foundations of legal systems. It focuses on the minimal levels of regularity which legal theorists typically take to be an implicit factual presupposition of their theorizing, and examines how this regularity is generated and maintained. The perspective which is adopted for this investigation is a Hayekian one, grounded upon the same general themes as are present in the work of F.A. Hayek. This Hayekian approach can be characterized as an investigation into the mechanisms which generate and support conduct regularity at an individual level, and their reflection in and interaction with institutional forms of these same mechanisms. This thesis, then, addresses the question of how order comes to exist, both at the individual and societal level. In doing this it examines the mechanisms by which this order is generated and supported and the relationship between these mechanisms and the resultant forms of social relations. The first chapter discusses two alternative forms of social order and their relationship to the properties of rules of conduct, while the second looks at how social orders evolve and their relationship to the rules of conduct followed at an individual level. The third, fourth and fifth chapters focus on mechanisms used to generate and support rules of conduct, with the emphasis being on those rules which are capable of supporting abstract social relations. The sixth chapter turns to an examination of the relationship between individual and societal conduct governance and its connection to law, while the seventh analyzes the principle of the Rule of Law, a crucial principle which provides a foundation for abstract social order. The eighth chapter points out some limitations on social action implied by an adherence to governance by abstract rules of conduct as manifested in the principle of the Rule of Law, while the ninth and final chapter introduces a model of mind which is used to explain how regularity comes to be embedded in human conduct.