250 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XXIII. 49. 



according to the states where they live what is received 

 law, and not what ought to be law: for the wisdom of a 

 lawmaker is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there 

 are in nature certain fountains of justice, whence all civil 

 laws are derived but as streams : and like as waters do 

 take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which 

 they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions 

 and governments where they are planted, though they 

 proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of 

 a lawmaker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, 

 but in the application thereof; taking into consideration 

 by what means laws may be made certain, and what are 

 the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incer- 

 tainty of law; by what means laws may be made apt and 

 easy to be executed, and what are the impediments and 

 remedies in the execution of laws; what influence laws 

 touching private right of meum and tuum have into the 

 public state, and how they may be made apt and agree 

 able ; how laws are to be penned and delivered, whether 

 in texts or in acts, brief or large, with preambles, or with 

 out ; how they are to be pruned and reformed from time 

 to time, and what is the best means to keep them from 

 being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity and 

 crossness; how they are to be expounded, when upon 

 causes emergent and judicially discussed, and when upon 

 responses and conferences touching general points or 

 questions; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or 

 tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity and 

 good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law 

 are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in 

 several courts; again, how the practice, profession, and 

 erudition of law is to be censured and governed; and 

 many other points touching the administration, and (as I 



