ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 407 



when they are awake, and not when they sleep. But let it 

 be the privilege, not of judges in the courts of equity, but 

 of kings, solemn councils, and the higher powers, to over 

 rule later statutes found prejudicial to public justice, and to 

 suspend the execution thereof by edicts or public acts, till 

 those meetings are held which have the true power of re 

 pealing them, lest otherwise the safety of the people should 

 be endangered. 



New digests of laws 



LIX. But if laws heaped upon laws shall swell to such 

 a vast bulk, and labor under such confusion as renders it 

 expedient to treat them anew, and reduce them into one 

 sound and serviceable corps, it becomes a work of the ut 

 most importance, deserving to be deemed heroical, and let 

 the authors of it be ranked among legislators, and the re 

 storers of states and empires. 



LX. Such an expurgation and new digest of laws is to 

 be effected by five particulars; viz., 1. By omitting all the 

 obsolete laws, which Justinian calls ancient fables; 2. By 

 receiving the most approved contradictories, and abolishing 

 the rest; 3. By expunging laws of the same purport, and 

 retaining only one, or the most perfect; 4. By throwing out 

 such laws as determine nothing only propose questions, 

 and leave them undecided; 5. And lastly, by contracting 

 and abridging those that are too verbose and prolix, 



LXI. And it would be very useful in such a new digest, 

 separately to range and bring together all those laws re 

 ceived for common law which have a kind of immemorial 

 origin, and on the other side the statutes superadded from 

 time to time; because in numerous particulars in the prac 

 tice of the law, the interpretation and administration of the 

 common law differs from the statute law. And this method 

 was observed by Trebonianus in his digest and code. 



LXII. But in such a second birth of the law, and such a 

 recompilement of the ancient books and laws, the very words 

 and text of the law itself should be retained; and though it 

 were necessary to collect them by fragments and small por- 



