Instability of judgments

XCIV. Judgments prove uncertain, either, 1, through an untimely and hasty passing of sentence; 2, the emulation of courts; 3, a wrong and unskilful recording of judgments; or, 4, through a too easy and ready way opened for their reversion. Therefore let care be taken, 1, that judgments proceed upon mature deliberation; 2, that courts preserve a due reverence for each other; 3, that judgments be faithfully and prudently recorded; and, 4, that the way for reversing of judgments be made narrow, craggy, and thorny.

XCV. If judgment be given upon a case in any principal court, and a like case come into another court, proceed not to judgment before a consultation be held in some considerable assembly of the judges. For if decrees are of necessity to be cut off, at least let them be honorably interred.

XCVI. 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.

XCVII. 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; while 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 execution 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 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 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 numerous 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 phœnix, the fine geniuses flock from all quarters; and lastly, the inseparable 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 a persuasion that this third period of learning may far exceed the two former of the Greeks and Romans, provided only that men would well and prudently understand their own powers and the defects thereof; receive from each other the lamps of invention, and not the firebrands of contradiction; and esteem the search after truth as a certain noble enterprise, not a thing of delight or ornament, and bestow their wealth and magnificence upon matters of real worth and excellence, not upon such as are vulgar and obvious. As to my own labors, if any one shall please himself or others in reprehending them, let him do it to the full, provided he observe the ancient request, and weigh and consider what he says—“Verbera, sed audi.” And certainly the appeal is just, though the thing perhaps may not require it, from men’s first thoughts to their second, and from the present age to posterity.

We come, lastly, to that science which the two former periods of time were not blessed with; viz., sacred and inspired theology: the sabbath of all our labors and peregrinations.