ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 295 



96. For courts to quarrel and contend about jurisdiction is a piece of 

 human frailty, and the more, because of a childish opinion-, that it is 

 the duty of a good and able judge to enlarge the jurisdiction of his 

 court; whence this disorder is increased, and the spur made use of 

 instead of the bridle. But that courts, through this heat of contention, 

 should on all sides uncontrollably reverse each other's decrees which 

 belong not to jurisdiction, is an intolerable evil, and by all means to 

 be suppressed by kings, the senate, or the government For it is a 

 most pernicious example that courts, which make peace among the 

 subjects, should quarrel among themselves. 



97. Let not too easy a passage be opened for the repealing of 

 sentence by appeal, writ of error, rehearing, etc. Some are of opinion, 

 that a cause should be removed to a higher court as a new cause, and 

 the judgment given upon it in the lower be entirely laid aside and 

 suspended; whilst others again would have 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 ex- 

 ecution proceed, provided a caveat be put in by the defendant for costs 

 and damages if the sentence should be reversed. 



Let this title, of the certainty of laws, serve for a specimen of that 

 digest we propose, and have in hand. And thus we conclude the head 

 of civil doctrine, and with it human philosophy; as with human phi- 

 losophy, 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; and carefully reflect how well she finds us prepared 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 supplies men of all fortunes with books; the 

 open traffic of the globe, both by sea and land, whence we receive numer- 

 ous 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 Romans, through the extensiveness of their 

 empire; the peace at present spread over Britain, Spain, Italy, France, 

 and many other countries; the exhaustion of all that can be invented 

 or said in religious controversies, which have so long diverted many 

 of the best geniuses from the study of other arts; the uncommon 

 learning of his present Britannic majesty, about whom, as about a 

 phoenix, the fine geniuses flock from all quarters; and lastly, the in- 

 separable property of time, which is daily to disclose truth: when all 

 these things, I say, are considered by us, we cannot but be raised into 



