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[6]
But to this we may reply,
“The law does not prescribe that the condemned
woman should be thrown down twice, that the
ravished woman should exercise her choice under
all circumstances, that the tyrannicide should receive
two rewards, while it makes no mention of ploughshares or of sheep.” Thus we infer what is doubtful
from what is certain. It is a more difficult task to
deduce from the letter of the law that which is not
actually prescribed by the letter, and to argue because
that is the case, so also is this. Take the following
problems. “The man who kills his father shall be
sewn up in a sack. He killed his mother,” or “It
is illegal to drag a man from his own house into the
court. He dragged him from his tent.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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