416 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



upon it in the lower be entirely laid aside and suspended; 

 while others again would haye the judgment remain in its 

 force, and only the execution to be stopped. We approve 

 of neither, unless the court where the sentence passed were 

 of a very inferior nature; but would rather have both the 

 judgment stand and its execution proceed, provided a caveat 

 be put in by the defendant for costs and damages if the sen 

 tence should be reversed. 



Let this tit]e, of the certainty of laws, serve for a speci 

 men of that digest we propose, and have in hand. 21 And 

 thus we conclude the head of civil doctrine, and with it 

 human philosophy; as with human philosophy, philosophy 

 in general. 



And now standing still to breathe, and look back upon 

 the way we have passed, we seem all along to have been 

 but tuning and trying the instruments of the Muses, for a 

 concert to be played upon them by other hands; or to have 

 been grating men s ears, that they may have the better music 

 hereafter. And indeed, when I set before me the present 

 state of the times, wherein learning makes her third visit to 

 mankind; 22 and carefully reflect how well she finds us pre 

 pared and furnished with all kinds of helps, the sublimity 

 and penetration of many geniuses of the age, those excellent 

 monuments of the ancient writings which shine as so many 

 great lights before us ; the art of printing, which largely sup 

 plies men of all fortunes with books; the open traffic of the 

 globe, 23 both by sea and land, whence we receive numerous 

 experiments, unknown to former ages, and a large accession 

 to the mass of natural history ; the leisure which the greatest 

 minds in the kingdoms and provinces of Europe everywhere 

 enjoy, as being less immersed in business than the ancient 

 Greeks, by reason of their populous states; or the Eomans, 



21 Though the design itself was not executed by the author, some progress 

 was made in the history of the nature, use and proceedings of the laws of Eng 

 land. Shaw. 



22 Alluding only to the two famous ones, among the Greeks and Eomans. 



23 He might have added the discovery of a new world. Ed. 



