2 8 4 BACON 



viz i by proceeding upon analogy; 2. by the use of precedents, 

 though not yet brought into law; and 3- by juries, which decree ac- 

 cording to conscience and discretion, whether in the courts of equity 

 or of common law. 



Application and extension of laws 



11. I. In cases omitted, the rule of law is to be deduced from similar 

 cases, but with caution and judgment. And here the following rules are 

 to be' observed: Let reason be esteemed a fruitful, and custom a barren 

 thing, so as to breed no cases. And therefore what is received against 

 the reason of a law, or where its reason is obscure, should not be drawn 

 into precedents. 



12. A great public good must draw to itself all cases omitted; and 

 therefore, when a law remarkably, and in an extraordinary manner, 

 regards and procures the good of the public, let its interpretation be 

 full and extensive. 



13. It is a cruel thing to torture the laws, that they may torture men; 

 whence penal laws, much less capital laws, should not be extended 

 to new offences. But if the offence be old, and known to the law, and 

 its prosecution fall upon a new case not provided for by law, the law 

 must rather be forsaken than offences go unpunished. 



14. Statutes that repeal the common law, especially in common and 

 settled cases, should not be drawn by analogy to cases omitted; for 

 when the republic has long been without an entire law, and that in 

 express cases, there is little danger if cases omitted should wait their 

 remedy from a new statute. 



15. It is enough for such statutes as were plainly temporary laws, en- 

 acted upon particular urgent occasions of state, to contain themselves 

 within their proper cases after those occasions cease; for it were pre- 

 posterous to extend them in any measure to cases omitted. 



16. There is no precedent of a precedent; but extension should rest 

 in immediate cases, otherwise it would gradually slide on to dissimilar 

 cases, and so the wit of men prevail over the authority of laws. 



17. In such laws and statutes as are concise, extension may be more 

 freely allowed; but in those which express particular 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. 



18. 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. 



19. The solemnity of forms and acts admits not of extension to 

 similar cases: for it is losing the nature of solemnity to go from custom 

 to opinion, and the introduction of new things takes from the majesty 

 of the old. 



20. 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 then in being, a case omitted is deemed a case 

 expressed, if there be the same reason for it. 



