to aboliſh theſe reſcripts, and retain only the general edicts; he could not bear that the haſty and crude anſwers of ſuch princes as Commodus and Caracalla ſhould be reverenced as laws. But Juſtinian thought otherwiſe[1], and he has preſerved them all. In like manner the canon laws, or decretal epiſtles of the popes, are all of them reſcripts in the ſtricteſt ſenſe. Contrary to all true forms of reaſoning, they argue from particulars to generals.
The faireſt and moſt rational method to interpret the will of the legiſlator, is by exploring his intentions at the time when the law was made, by ſigns the moſt natural and probable. And theſe ſigns are either the words, the context, the ſubject matter, the effects and conſequence, or the ſpirit and reaſon of the law. Let us take a ſhort view of them all.
1. Words are generally to be underſtood in their uſual and moſt known ſignification; not ſo much regarding the propriety of grammar, as their general and popular uſe. Thus the law mentioned by Puffendorf[2], which forbad a layman to lay hands on a prieſt, was adjudged to extend to him, who had hurt a prieſt with a weapon. Again; terms of art, or technical terms, muſt be taken according to the acceptation of the learned in each art, trade, and ſcience. So in the act of ſettlement, where the crown of England is limited “to the princeſs Sophia, and the heirs of her body, being proteſtants,” it becomes neceſſary to call in the aſſiſtance of lawyers, to aſcertain the preciſe idea of the words “heirs of her body;” which in a legal ſenſe comprize only certain of her lineal deſcendants. Laſtly, where words are clearly repugnant in two laws, the latter law takes place of the elder: leges poſteriores priores contrarias abrogant is a maxim of univerſal law, as well as of our own conſtitutions. And accordingly it was laid down by a law of the twelve tables at Rome, quod populus poſtremum juſſit, id jus ratum eſto.
