23. (4.) They who enact and who administer law should themselves, of course, be bound by it indiscriminately with the rest of the people. It is the law, and not men, who to rule. This constitutes the essential difference between a free and an arbitrary government. " Law," says Plutarch, " is queen over mortals and immortals." The edict, 1499, of Lous X11. is a rare instance of magnanimi ty in a prince possessing the absolute disposal of the laws ; " the law only," says he, " is to be obeyed, notwith standing any orders to the contrary which importunity may elicit from the monarch." 24. (5.) In the best system of laws some arc found which relate to matters beneath the dignity of law, and some which are altogether useless. Such laws are always unwise, because, treating of things trifling or indifferent, they lead men's minds to regard as trifling or indifferent what is essentially important.
25. (6.) The style of laws should be simple, definite, concise—burdened as little as possible with exceptions, limitations, modifications—without subtlety, because they are not a system of dialectics—without artifice, because their prime intention being to advance the public morals, prosperity, and happiness, they should speak in the purest spirit of innocence and candour.
26. (7.) Perhaps laws ought always to commence at once with the enactment. Preambles, originally introduc ed no doubt far the justification of the legislature and the satisfaction of the people, are often unsatisfactory, because not containing a sufficiently strong and explicit reason for the enactment ; often imperfect, because not reaching to the whole of the enactment ; always superfluous, because if the law is bad, that is, contrary to the general welfare, it ought net to be enacted ; if good, there is no occasion for an apology. But if a reason be at any time thought neces sary, either in the enactment itself, or in the writings of those who are authorized to expound it, that reason ought, 1st, to be worthy of the law : A law of Rome declares, that no blind man shall exercise the office of advocate, be cause, says the law, he cannot see the decorations of the magistrate—a paltry reason, when so many better were ob vious. 2d, The reason alleged should be true : Charles IX. of France was declared major at the commencement of his 14th year, in place of its termination ; because, says the Chancellor Hopital, the law respects the begun year as finished, where the acquisition of honours is in question —as if the government of a people included nothing but the honour of him who was to govern. Finally, It should be deduced by reasoning from what is real to what is real, and not from what is figurative to what is real, or from is real to what is figurative. A law of the Lombards
1. ii. tit. 37. prohibits every woman from marrying who turns nun ; for," says this law, " if the man who, by the ceremony of the ring, has merely contracted, with out consummating, a marriage, cannot without a crime marry any other woman than her with whom he has contracted, a fortiori she who has become the spouse of God, cannot." 27. (8.) Laws, to be obeyed, must be known. Hence the absurdity, once so prevalent in some countries of Eu rope, of expressing laws in a language of which the people are ignorant. The English acts of parliament were at one time written in Latin, at another in French—a proceeding equivalent to a concealment of the very rules to which obe dience was required. Among some nations of early anti quity, laws were composed in verse and sung to popular airs, that they might be the more generally known as well as easily retained on the memory. The Athenians engrav ed their laws on plates of brass, which they fixed up in pub lic places ; and, among the Romans, to commit to memory the Twelve Tables was an indispensable branch of the edu cation or children.
28. (9.) The laws which are borrowed from other coun tries, sometimes appear to be the same with those of the countries from which they have been derived, when, in truth, they are materially different. The Greeks and Ro mans punished the receiver of stolen goods with the same pains as the thief himself, and some modern nations follow the example. In the former case, this state of the law was just, in the latter it is otherwise ; for, among the Greeks and Romans, a pecuniary penalty was the only punishment of theft, and it is just that every man concerned in occa sioning damage to another should be obliged to repair it ; but in England, in Scotland, and in France, (at least before the Revolution,) the thief being punished with death, it is impossible in most instances, without confounding crimes, to punish the receiver with the same severity. The receiv er may often be altogether ignorant of the particular theft in question—the thief himself never can. The re ceiver, it is true, by his very trade, encourages, generally, the commission of the crime, and often renders the con viction of the criminal more difficult ; but it is the thief who has committed the crime ; all is passive on the part of the receiver, the thief is active ; the latter must have over come greater obstacles before he could arrive at such a point of guilt, and acquired greater boldness in the com mission of crimes.