412 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



upon others, but giving a little taste of all, that when the 

 student comes to peruse the corps of the law, he may meet 

 with nothing entirely new, or without having received some 

 previous notion thereof. But the public law is not to be 

 touched in these institutes, this being to be drawn from the 

 fountains themselves. 



LXXXI. Let a commentary be made of the terms of the 

 law, without endeavoring too curiously and laboriously to 

 give their full sense and explanation; the purport hereof 

 being not to search the exact definitions of terms, but to 

 afford such explanations only as may open an easy way to 

 reading the books of the law. And let not this treatise be 

 digested alphabetically rather leave that to the index; but 

 place all those words together which relate to the same 

 thing, so that one may help to the understanding of an 

 other. 



LXXXII. It .principally conduces to the certainty of 

 laws, to have a just and exact treatise of the different rules 

 of law; a work deserving the diligence of the most ingen 

 ious and prudent lawyers ; for we are not satisfied with what 

 is already extant of this kind. Not only the known and 

 common rules are to be here collected, but others also, more 

 subtile and latent, which may be drawn from the harmonv 

 of laws and adjudged cases; such as are sometimes found in 

 the best records. And these rules or maxims are general 

 dictates of reason running through the different matters of 

 law, and make, as it were, its ballast. 



LXXXIII. But let not the positions or placets of law be 

 taken for rules, as they usually are, very injudiciously; for 

 if this were received, there would be as many rules as there 

 are laws: a law being no other than a commanding rule. 

 But let those be held for rules which cleave to the very 

 form of justice; whence in general the same rules are found 

 through the civil law of different states, unless they some 

 times vary with regard to the form of government. 



LXXXIV. After the rule is laid down in a short and 

 solid expression, let examples and clear decisions of cases 



