Judge Redfield points out clearly the well known objections to codification: "This is one of the great excellencies of the unwritten law above a written code. The general principles of the former are al lowed to embrace new cases as they arise, without regard to the enumerations already made under it: while the latter having been reduced to formal definitions, necessarily excludes all cases not antic ipated at the time these definitions were made." 12 Amer, L. Reg. N. S. 185. On the other band it is said that the opposition thereto of many English lawyers "is supported, if not justified, by the fear that:the courts would put a narrow construction on the articles of a Code." 14 L. Q. R. 9.
"However much we may codify law into a aeries of seemingly Self-sufficient propositions those propositions will be but a phase in a continuous growth. To understand their growth fully, to know how they will be dealt with by judges trained in the past which the law embodies, we must ourselves know something of that past. The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law le." 0. W. Holmes, The Common Law, 27.
See 2 Set. Essays in Anglo-Amer. Leg. Hist., by Charles M. Hepburn, on the Historical Develop ment of Code Pleading (1897).
The discussions on this subject have called atten tion to a subject formerly little considered, but which is of fundamental importance to the success ful preparation of a code—the matter of statutory expression. There is no species of composition which demands more care and precision than that of drafting a statute. The writer needs not only to
make his language intelligible, he must make it In capable of misconstruction. When it has passed to a law, it Is no longer his intent that is to be con sidered, but the intent of the words 'which he has used; and that intent is to be ascertained under the strong pressure of an attempt of the advocate to win whatever possible construction may be most favorable to his cause. The true safeguard is found not in the old method of accumulating synonyms and by an enumeration of particulars, but rather as is shown by those American codes of which the Revised Statutes of New York and the revision of Massachusetts are admirable specimens—by concise but complete statement of the full principle in the fewest possible words, and the elimination of de scription and paraphrase by the separate statement of necessary definitions. One of the rules to which , the New York revisers generally adhered, and which they found of very great importance, was to confine each section to a single proposition. In this way the intricacy and obscurity of the old statutes were largely avoided. The reader who wishes to pursue this interesting subject will find much that is admirable in Coode's treatise on Legislative Ex pression (Lond. 1845) (reprinted in Brightly's Pur don's Digest, Penna.). The larger work of Gael (Legal Composition, Lond. 1840) is more especially adapted to the wants of the English profession.