[18]
We may also begin
with the reason and then proceed to the conclusion
as in another passage from the same speech1: “But
if the Twelve Tables permitted the killing of a thief
by night under any circumstances, and by day if he
used a weapon to defend himself, who is there who
will contend that the slayer must be punished under
whatever circumstances a man has been killed?”
'The process is still further varied by Cicero, and the
reason placed third, as in the phrase, “When he sees
that the sword is sometimes placed in our hands by
the laws themselves.”
1 ib. iii. 9.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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