[79]
From
these writers I differ even more widely: for it is not
the nature of the legal action itself which is involved
in the question of competence, but the cause of the act;
[p. 451]
and this is the case in almost every defence. Finally
he who adopts this line of defence, does not thereby
abandon the qualitative basis; for he states that he himself is free from blame, so that we really should
differentiate between two kinds of quality1 one of
which comes into play when both the accused person
and his act are defended, and the other when the
accused person alone is defended.
1 （A) Absolute, when the deed is shown to be right. (B） Relative, when the act is not defended, but the agent is cleared of the guilt of the act.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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