CHAI*. III.] RXTEKSION Otf LAWS. 351 



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 ot state, 

 to contain themselves within their proper cases after those 

 occasions cease ; for it were preposterous to extend them ii? 

 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 ol men 

 prevail over the authority of laws. 



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

 may be more freely allowed ; but in those which express par 

 ticular cases, it should be used more cautiously. For as 

 exception strengthens the force of a law in unaccepted 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 

 afterwards. Neither should the judge make a super-extension 

 where the law has once begun one. 



XIX. The solemnity of forms and acts admits not of ex 

 tension to similar cases : for it is losing the nature of 

 solemnity to go from custom to opinion, and the intro 

 duction of new things takes from the majesty of the old. 



XX. The extension of law is easy to after-cases, which had 

 no existence at the time when the law was made : for where 

 a case could not be described because not thon in being, a 

 case omitted is deemed a case expressed, if there be the same 

 reason for it. 



Precedents and the use of forms. 



XXL 2. We come next* to precedents; from which jus 

 tice may be derived where the law is deficient, but reserving 

 custom, which is a kind of law, and the precedents which, 

 through frequent use, are passed into custom, as into a tacit 

 law ; we shall at present only speak of such precedents as 

 happen but rarely, and have not acquired the force of a law, 

 with a view to show how and with what caution a rule of 

 justice may be derived from them when the law is defective. 



XXII. Precedents are to be derived from good and 

 moderate times, and not from such as are tyrannical, f 



