ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 289 



the purpose, and then brought in for the general assembly to fix and 

 establish what shall be approved by vote. 



56. But let not an over-diligent and scrupulous care be used in re- 

 conciling the contradictory titles of laws, by subtile and far-fetched 

 distinctions; for this is the weaving of the wit; and whatever appear- 

 ance it may have of modesty and reverence, it is to be deemed pre- 

 judicial, as rendering the whole body of the laws dissimilar and in- 

 coherent. It were therefore, much better to suppress the worst, and 

 suffer the best to stand alone. 



57. Obsolete laws, that are grown into disuse, should in the same 

 manner be cancelled. For as an express statute is not regularly 

 abrogated by disuse, it happens that, from a contempt of such as are 

 obsolete, the others also lose part of their authority; whence follows 

 that torture of Mezentius, whereby the living laws are killed in the 

 embraces of the dead ones. But above all things a gangrene in the 

 laws is to be prevented. 



58. And let courts of equity have a right of decreeing contrary to 

 obsolete laws and statutes not newly enacted; for although, as is well 

 observed, nobody should be wiser than the laws, yet this should be 

 understood of the laws 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 overrule 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 repealing them, lest otherwise the safety of the people 

 should be endangered. 



New digests of laws 



59. 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 be- 

 comes a work of the utmost importance, deserving to be deemed 

 heroical, and let the authors of it be ranked among legislators, and 

 the restorers of states and empires. 



60. Such an expurgation and new digest of laws is to be affected 

 by five particulars; viz., i. By omitting all the obsolete laws, which 

 Justinian calls ancient fables; 2. By receiving the most approved con- 

 tradictories, 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. 



61. And it would be very useful in such a new digest, separately to 

 range and bring together all those laws received 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 

 practice of the law, the interpretation and administration of the com- 

 mon law differs from the statute law. And this method was observed 

 by Trebnnianus in his digest and code. 



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