[21]
Grant these
points also and we can still raise the question whether
the sum is due at all? On the other hand, no one
will be so insane as to drop what he considers his
strongest point and pass to others of minor importance. The following case from a scholastic theme
is of a similar character. “You may not disinherit
your adopted son. And if you may disinherit him
quâ adopted son, you may not disinherit one who is
so brave. And if you may disinherit one who is so
brave, you may not disinherit him because he has
[p. 19]
not obeyed your every command; and if he was
bound to obey you in all else, you may not disinherit
him on the ground of his choice of a reward; and
even if the choice of a reward may give just ground
for disinheriting, that is not true of such a choice
as he actually made.1”
1 The adopted son has done some heroic deed, bringing him under the scholastic law vir fortis optet quod uolet, “Let a hero choose what reward he will” (cp. v. x. 97). A scandalous choice might give ground for disinheriting him (cp. § 24 below), but the choice in question is not scandalous.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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