"If the parliament will positively enact a thing to be done which is unreasonable, I know of no power that can control it: and the examples usually alleged in support of this sense of the rule do none of them prove, that where the main object of a statute is unreasonable the judges are at liberty to reject it; for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government. But where some collateral matter arises out of the general words, and happens to be unreasonable; there the judges are in decency to conclude that this consequence was not foreseen by the parliament, and therefore they are at liberty to expound the statute by equity, and only quoad hoc disregard it."
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Introduction, Section III: Of the Laws of England.
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William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone (July 10, 1723 – February 14, 1780) was an English jurist and professor who produced the historical treatise on the common law called Commentaries on the Laws of England.
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