Cautelary jurisprudence is law made in a precautionary way prior to or outside of the normal legislative enactment. It meant empirical, practical legal efforts aimed at solving individual cases, as distinguished from regular jurisprudence which sought to establish abstract rules under which individual cases would fall. Its first proponent was Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex, who thus gave his name to the Roman designation for this kind of law, the cautio muciana.