NOTE A. [iii] 



Another objection stated by lord Bacon, and that which is 

 perhaps most frequently urged at present, is this : 



That it will turn the judges, counsellors of law, and stu 

 dents of law, to school again, and make them to seek what they 

 shall hold and advise for law and it will impose a new charge 

 upon all lawyers, to furnish themselves with new books of law. 



The reply is For the former of these touching the new 

 labour, it is true it would follow, it the law, (the common law,) 

 were new moulded into a text law, for then men must be new 

 to begin, and that is one of the reasons for which I disavow that 

 course. 



But in the way that I now propound, the entire body and 

 substance of law shall remain, only discharged of idle and un 

 profitable or hurtful matter, and illustrated by order and other 

 helps towards the better understanding of it and judgment 

 thereupon. 



For the latter touching the new charge of books, it is not 

 worthy the speaking of in a matter of so high importance it 

 might have been used of the new translation of the Bible and 

 like works. 



Lord Bacon adds this brief sentence pregnant with a truth 

 too often disregarded a truth of everlasting and universal ap 

 plication. Books should follow sciences, and not sciences 

 books. 



Having urged these reasons for the simplification of the 

 statute law, he lays down the principles upon which it should 

 be conducted. 



For the reforming and recompiling of the statute law it con- 

 sisteth of four parts. 



The first, To discharge the books of those statutes, where 

 the case by alteration of time is vanished ; as Lombards, Jews, 

 Gauls, half-pence, &c. Those may nevertheless remain in the 

 libraries of antiquities, but no reprinting of them ; the like of 

 statutes long since expired and clearly repealed. 



The next is, to repeal all statutes which are sleeping and 

 not of use, but yet snaring and in force ; in some of these it 

 will perhaps be requisite to substitute some more reasonable law, 



