Kitap 1
15.6
that equity is ever constant and never changes, even as the general law, which is based on nature, whereas the written laws often vary (this is why Antigone in Sophocles justifies herself for having buried Polynices contrary to the law of Creon, but not contrary to the unwritten law: For this law is not of now or yesterday, but is eternal . . . this I was not likely [to infringe through fear of the pride] of any man);The first line is quoted 1.13.2. The second differs somewhat from Soph. Ant. 458, where the passage runs, τούτων ἐγὼ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὸς οὐδενὸς φρόνημα δείσασʼ, ἐν θεοῖσι τὴν δίκην δώσειν (I was not likely, through fear of the pride of any man, to incur the penalty for violating these statutes at the bar of heaven).
15.7
and further, that justice is real and expedient, but not that which only appears just; nor the written law either, because it does not do the work of the lawWhich is the administration of real justice, not that which appears to the legislator to be such and is embodied in legal enactments.; that the judge is like an assayer of silver, whose duty is to distinguish spurious from genuine justice;
15.8
that it is the part of a better man to make use of and abide by the unwritten rather than the written law.Cp.14.7 above.
15.9
Again, it is necessary to see whether the law is contradictory to another approved law or to itself; for instance, one law enacts that all contracts should be binding, while another forbids making contracts contrary to the law.
15.10
If the meaning of the law is equivocal, we must turn it about, and see in which way it is to be interpreted so as to suit the application of justice or expediency, and have recourse to that.
15.11
If the conditions which led to the enactment of the law are now obsolete, while the law itself remains, one must endeavor to make this clear and to combat the law by this argument.
