Auxiliary writings

LXXIX. But let not the knowledge and practice of the law want its auxiliary books, which are of six kinds; viz., 1. Institutes; 2. Explanations of words; 3. The rules of law; 4. The antiquities of law; 5. Summaries or abridgments; and 6. Forms of pleading.

LXXX. Students are to be trained up to the knowledge and higher parts of the law by institutes, which should be written in a clear method. Let the whole of private right, of the laws of Meum and Tuum, be gone over in these elements, not omitting some things and dwelling too much upon others, but giving a little taste of all, that when the student comes to peruse the corps of the law, he may meet with nothing entirely new, or without having received some previous notion thereof. But the public law is not to be touched in these institutes, this being to be drawn from the fountains themselves.

LXXXI. Let a commentary be made of the terms of the law, without endeavoring too curiously and laboriously to give their full sense and explanation; the purport hereof being not to search the exact definitions of terms, but to afford such explanations only as may open an easy way to reading the books of the law. And let not this treatise be digested alphabetically—rather leave that to the index; but place all those words together which relate to the same thing, so that one may help to the understanding of another.

LXXXII. It principally conduces to the certainty of laws, to have a just and exact treatise of the different rules of law; a work deserving the diligence of the most ingenious and prudent lawyers; for we are not satisfied with what is already extant of this kind. Not only the known and common rules are to be here collected, but others also, more subtile and latent, which may be drawn from the harmony of laws and adjudged cases; such as are sometimes found in the best records. And these rules or maxims are general dictates of reason running through the different matters of law, and make, as it were, its ballast.

LXXXIII. But let not the positions or placets of law be taken for rules, as they usually are, very injudiciously; for if this were received, there would be as many rules as there are laws: a law being no other than a commanding rule. But let those be held for rules which cleave to the very form of justice; whence in general the same rules are found through the civil law of different states, unless they sometimes vary with regard to the form of government.

LXXXIV. After the rule is laid down in a short and solid expression, let examples and clear decisions of cases be subjoined by way of explanation; distinctions and exceptions by way of limitation; and things of the same kind by way of amplification to the rule.

LXXXV. It is justly directed not to take laws from rules, but to make the rules from the laws in being: neither must the proof be derived from the words of the rule, as if that were the text of the law; for the rule, like the magnetic needle, does not make, but indicate the law.

LXXXVI. Besides the body of the law, it is proper to take a view of the antiquities of laws, which, though they have lost their authority, still retain their reverence. Those writings upon laws and judgments, whether published or unpublished, are to be held for antiquities of law, which preceded the body of the laws in point of time; for these antiquities should not be lost, but the most useful of them being collected, and such as are frivolous and impertinent rejected, they should be brought into one volume without mixing ancient fables, as Treboninaus calls them, with the laws themselves.

LXXXVII. But for practice, ’tis highly proper to have the whole law orderly digested under heads and titles, whereto any one may occasionally turn on a sudden, as to a storehouse furnished for present use. These summaries bring into order what lay dispersed, and abridge what was diffusive and prolix in the law. But care must be had lest these abridgments should make men ready for practice, and indolent in the science itself; for their office is to serve but as remembrancers, and not as perfect teachers of the law. And they are to be made with great diligence, fidelity, and judgment, that they may fairly represent, and not steal from the laws.

LXXXVIII. Let different forms of pleading be collected in every kind, for this tends to practice; and doubtless they lay open the oracles and mysteries of the law, which conceals many such. And these are better and more fully displayed in forms of pleading than otherwise, as the hand is better seen when opened.