when we consider that the statute was
made to repress the usurpations of the papal see, and that the
nominations to vacant benefices by the pope were called _provisions_,
we shall see that the restraint is intended to be laid upon such
provisions only.

4. AS to the effects and consequence, the rule is, where words bear
either none, or a very absurd signification, if literally understood,
we must a little deviate from the received sense of them. Therefore
the Bolognian law, mentioned by Puffendorf[m], which enacted "that
whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost
severity," was held after long debate not to extend to the surgeon,
who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street with a
fit.

[Footnote m: _l._ 5. _c._ 12. Sec. 8.]

5. BUT, lastly, the most universal and effectual way of discovering
the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, is by
considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which moved the
legislator to enact it. For when this reason ceases, the law itself
ought likewise to cease with it. An instance of this is given in a
case put by Cicero, or whoever was the author of the rhetorical
treatise inscribed to Herennius[n]. There was a law, that those who in
a storm forsook the ship should forfeit all property therein; and the
ship and lading should belong entirely to those who staid in it. In a
dangerous tempest all the mariners forsook the ship, except only one
sick passenger, who by reason of his disease was unable to get out and
escape. By chance the ship came safe to port. The sick man kept
possession and claimed the benefit of the law. Now here all the
learned agree, that the sick man is not within the reason of the law;
for the reason of making it was, to give encouragement to such as
should venture their lives to save the vessel: but this is a merit,
which he could never pretend to, who neither staid in the ship upon
that account, nor contributed any thing to it's preservation.

[Footnote n: _l._ 1. _c._ 11.]

FROM this method of interpreting laws, by the reason of them, arises
what we call _equity_; which is thus defined by Grotius[o], "the
correction of that, wherein the law (by reason of its universality) is
deficient." For since in laws all cases cannot be foreseen or
expressed, it is necessary, that when the general decrees of the law
come to be applied to particular cases, there should be somewhere a
power vested of excepting thos