had any hope of
gaining his point, or any expectation of concealing his conduct; or,
if that were detected, any hope of repelling the charge, or breaking
through the danger, or even postponing it to a subsequent time; or if
the penalty to be inflicted by a court of justice is more trifling
than the prize to be gained by the act; or if the pleasure of the
crime is greater than the pain of the conviction.

It is generally by such circumstances as these that the suspicion of
an act is confirmed, when the causes why he should have desired it are
found to exist in the party accused, together with the means of
doing it. But in his will we look for the benefit which he may have
calculated on from the attainment of some advantage, or the avoidance
of some disadvantage, so that either hope or fear may seem to have
instigated him, or else some sudden impulse of the mind, which impels
men more swiftly to evil courses than even considerations of utility.
So this is enough to have said about the causes.

_C.F._ I understand; and I ask you now what the events are which you
have said are produced by such causes?

XXXIII. _C.P._ They are certain consequential signs of what is past,
certain traces of what has been done, deeply imprinted, which have a
great tendency to engender suspicion, and are, as it were, a silent
evidence of crimes, and so much the more weighty because all causes
appear as a general rule to be able to give ground for accusations,
and to show for whose advantage anything was; and these arguments have
an especial propriety of reference to those who are accused, such as a
weapon, a footstep, blood, the detection of anything which appears to
have been carried off or taken away; or any reply inconsistent with
the truth, or any hesitation, or trepidation, or the fact of the
accused person having been seen with any one whose character is such
as to give rise to suspicion; or of his having been seen himself in
that very place in which the action was done; or paleness, or tremor,
or any writing, or anything having been sealed up or deposited
anywhere. For these are circumstances of such a nature as to make the
charge full of suspicion, either in connexion with the act itself, or
with the time previous or subsequent to it. And if they are not so,
still it will be proper to rely on the causes themselves, and on the
means which the accused person had of doing the action, with the
addition of that general argument, that he wa