Theses De legum interpretatione

XXV.

From its kind, it can be established that there is no equity unless it is the equity of some law; so that, if the writing were removed—around the interpretation of which equity is occupied so that it may rightly accommodate its sense to that which is consistent with reason—it would indeed remain just, but it would entirely lose the name of equity.

XXVI.

Just as conversely, there is no strict or supreme law that is not understood to be such with respect to equity; that is, whose interpretation does not require the labor and protection of equity.

XXVII.

When we said that the equitable and good should be accommodated to those things which are prescribed by written laws, it is to be understood not obscurely that natural law does not desire the tempering of equity.

XXVIII.

Nor does the law of nations take its interpretation from the equitable and good.

XXIX.

Nor can the moderation of equity be applied to any custom.

XXX.

Furthermore, since it was indicated that equity exercises its function not beyond the probable mind of the Legislator, it can be sufficiently clear that, as often as it happens that something is decreed out of equity, it is wrongly said afterward that the law has been corrected or abrogated, or that a dispensation has been established.

XXXI.

It is often a matter of no small controversy here, whose authority it is to use this equity: that is, whether this is reserved only for the Prince; or whether it is also intact for an inferior magistrate, and for the judges themselves, outside of cases expressly left to their discretion, to suggest from the equitable and good what is desired in the laws themselves.