366 AiJtAiTCEMEJ^T OF LteABiflM. [book Vltl. 



pealing of sentence by appeal, writ of error, rehearing, &c. 

 8ome are ot 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 inierior nature ; but would rather have both the 

 judgment stand and its execution proceed, provided a caveat 

 be put in by the deiendant for costs and damages if the sen- 

 tence should be reversed. 



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

 Oi that digest we propose, and have in hand.^ And thus we 

 conclude the head of civil doctrine, and with it human philo- 

 sophy ; 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 con- 

 cert 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 ;y and carefully reflect how well she finds us pre- 

 pared and lurnished with all kinds of helps, the sublimity and 

 penetration of many geniuses of the age, those excellent monu- 

 ments 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 numerous experi- 

 ments, 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 Koraans, through 

 the extensiveness of their empire ; the peace at present 



* Though the design itsell was not executed by the author, some pro- 

 gress was made in the history of the nature, use, and proceedings of the 

 laws ol England. Shaw. 



y Alluding only to the two famous ones, among the Greeks ancj 

 ■Romans. 



* He might have added the discovery of a new world. £d* 



