rest to general usage and to the sense of common conversation,
still the accuser relies on the spirit of the law, for he says that it
ought not to be admitted that those men who framed the laws considered
a judicial decision as ratified when wholly corrupt, but that if even
one judge be corrupted, the decision should be annulled. He relies on
equity; he urges that the law ought to have been framed differently,
if that was what was meant; but that the truth is, that whatever kinds
of corruption could possibly exist were all meant to be included under
the one term prevarication. But the speaker for the defence will bring
forward on his side the usage of common conversation; and he will seek
the meaning of the word from its contrary; from a genuine accuser,
to whom a prevarication is the exact opposite; or from consequents,
because the tablets are given to the judge by the accuser; and from
the name itself, which signifies a man who in contrary causes appears
to be placed, as it were, in various positions. But still he himself
will be forced to have recourse to topics of equity, to the authority
of precedents, and to some dangerous result. And this may be a general
rule, that when each has stated his definition, keeping as accurately
as he can to the common sense and meaning of the word, he should then
confirm his own meaning and definition by similar definitions, and by
the examples of those men who have spoken in the same way.

And in this kind of cause that will be a common topic for the
accuser,--that it must never be permitted that the man who confesses a
fact, should defend himself by a new interpretation of the name of it.
But the defender must rely on those general principles of equity which
I have mentioned, and he must complain that, while that is on his
side, he is weighed down not by facts, but by the perverted use of a
word; and while speaking thus he will be able to introduce many topics
suited to aid him in discovering arguments. For he will avail himself
of resemblances, and contrarieties, and consequences; and although
both parties will do this, still the defendant, unless his cause is
evidently ridiculous, will do so more frequently. But the things which
are in the habit of being said, for the sake of amplification, or in
the way of digression, or when men are summing up, are introduced
either to excite hatred, or pity, or to work on the feelings of the
judges by means of those arguments which have been al