o facility, the store and abundance
of those things by means of which anything is done more easily, or
without which it cannot be done at all.

In the next place we must consider what is added to the affair, that
is to say, what is greater, what is less, what is equally great, what
is similar. And from these topics some conjecture is derived, if
proper consideration is given to the question how affairs of greater
importance, or of less, or of equal magnitude, or of similar
character, are usually transacted. And in this class of subjects the
result also ought to be examined into; that is to say, what usually
ensues as the consequence of every action must be carefully
considered; as, for instance, fear, joy, trepidation.

But the fourth part was a necessary consequence from those
circumstances which we said were attendant on affairs. In it those
things are examined which follow the accomplishment of an affair,
either immediately or after an interval. And in this examination we
shall see whether there is any custom, any action, any system, or
practice, or habit, any general approval or disapproval on the part of
mankind in general, from which circumstance some suspicion at times
arises.

XIII. But there are some suspicions which are derived from the
circumstances which are attributed to persons and things taken
together. For many circumstances arising from fortune, and from
nature, and from the way of a man's life, and from his pursuits
and actions, and from chance, or from speeches, or from a person's
designs, or from his usual habit of mind or body, have reference to
the same things which render a statement credible or incredible, and
which are combined with a suspicion of the fact.

For it is above all things desirable that inquiry should be made in
this way, of stating the case first of all, whether anything could be
done; in the next place, whether it could have been done by any one
else; then we consider the opportunity, on which we have spoken
before; then whether what has been done is a crime which one is
bound to repent of; we must inquire too whether he had any hope of
concealing it; then whether there was any necessity for his doing so;
and as to this we must inquire both whether it was necessary that the
thing should be done at all, or that it should be done in that manner.
And some portion of these considerations refer to the design, which
has been already spoken of as what is attributed to persons; as in