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esteemed a fruitful, and custom a barren thing, so as to 

 breed no cases. And therefore what is received against the 

 reason of a law, or where its reason is obscure, should not 

 be drawn into precedents. 



XII A great public good must draw to itself all cases 

 omitted; and therefore, when a law remarkably, and in an 

 extraordinary manner, regards and procures the good of the 

 public, let its interpretation be full and extensive. 



XIII. It is a cruel thing to torture the laws, that they 

 may torture men; whence penal laws, much less capital 

 laws, should not be extended to new offences. But if the 

 offence be old, and known to the law, and its prosecution 

 fall upon a new case not provided for by law, the law must 

 rather be forsaken than offences go unpunished. 



XIY. Statutes that repeal the common law, especially in 

 common and settled cases, should not be drawn by analogy 

 to cases omitted; for when the republic has long been with 

 out an entire law, and that in express cases, there is little 

 danger if cases omitted should wait their remedy from a 

 new statute. 



XV. It is enough for such statutes as were plainly tem 

 porary laws, enacted upon particular urgent occasions of 

 state, to contain themselves within their proper cases after 

 those occasions cease; for it were preposterous to extend 

 them in any measure to cases omitted. 



XVI. There is no precedent of a precedent; but exten 

 sion should rest in immediate cases, otherwise it would 

 gradually slide on to dissimilar cases, and so the wit of 

 men prevail over the authority of laws. 



XVII. In such laws and statutes as are concise, exten 

 sion may be more freely allowed; but in those which ex 

 press particular cases, it should be used more cautiously. 

 For as exception strengthens the force of a law in un 

 accepted cases, so enumeration weakens it in cases not 

 enumerated. 



XVIII. An explanatory statute stops the current of a 

 precedent statute ; nor does either of them admit extension 



