[45]
And it is necessary also both to teach and learn how
to establish difficult cases by proof. For often even
the best cases have a resemblance to bad and, the
charges which tell heavily against an innocent person frequently have a strong resemblance to the
truth. Consequently, the same methods of defence
have to be employed that would be used if he were
guilty. Further, there are countless elements which
are common to both good cases and bad, such as oral
and documentary evidence, suspicions and opinions,
all of which have to be established or disposed of in
the same way, whether they be true or merely resemble the truth. Therefore, while maintaining his
integrity of purpose, the orator will modify his pleading to suit the circumstances.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.