Trends in the Use of Extrinsic Aids in Statutory Interpretation

As evidenced by the increasing numbers of court decisions which involve statutes,' and by the large and continually growing literature in the field, the subject of statutory interpretation is one of the most important in modern law. Although it is a field in which exact rules of automatic application can very seldom be formulated, only recently a member of the Supreme Court pointed out the great need for a set of "consistently accepted principles of interpretation." Since the primary purpose of all statutory interpretation is to ascertain the meaning and to effectuate the purposes of the legislature, and since words are merely symbols without inherent meaning, every statute upon which a court is required to rule must, in some sense, be construed and interpreted.