ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 405 



tions, but such also as prohibit and restrain things future, 

 which are necessarily connected with things past: so, if any 

 law should prohibit certain artificers the sale of their wares 

 in future, this law, though it speaks for hereafter, yet oper 

 ates upon times past, though such artificers had then no 

 other lawful means of subsisting. 



LI. All declaratory laws, though they make no mention 

 of time past, yet are, by the very declaration itself, entirely 

 to regard past matters; for the interpretation does not begin 

 with the declaration, but, as it were, is made contemporary 

 with the law itself. And therefore declaratory laws should 

 not be enacted, except in cases where the law may be retro- 

 spected with justice. And so much for the uncertainty of 

 laws, where the law is extant. We proceed to the other 

 part, where the laws, though extant, are perplexed and 

 obscure. 



Obscurity of laws 



LII. The obscurity of laws has four sources; viz., 1. 

 An accumulation of laws, especially if mixed with such as 

 are obsolete. 2. An ambiguous description, or want of 

 clear and distinct delivery. 3. A neglect or failure in in 

 stituting the method of interpreting justice. 4. And lastly, 

 a clashing and uncertainty of judgments. 



Excessive accumulation of laws 



LIII. The prophet says, &quot;It shall rain snares upon 

 them&quot;: 19 but there are no worse snares than the snares 

 of laws, especially the penal, which, growing excessive in 

 number, and useless through time, prove not a lantern, but 

 nets to the feet. 



LIY. There are two ways in use of making new statutes; 

 the one confirms and strengthens the former statutes in the 

 like cases, at the same time adding or altering some particu 

 lars; the other abrogates and cancels all that was enacted 

 before, and instead thereof, substitutes a new uniform law. 

 And the latter method is the best: for in the former the 

 decrees become complicate and perplexed, and though the 



19 Psal. x. 7. 



