in a plain judicial case.

But the speaker who is arguing on the other side is bound to try and
invalidate the comparison instituted, which he will do if he can show
that that which is compared is different from that with which it is
compared in kind, in nature, in effect, in importance, in time, in
situation, in character, in the opinion entertained of it; if it is
shown also in what class that which is adduced by way of comparison
ought to stand, and in what rank that also ought to be considered, for
the sake of which the other thing is mentioned. After that, it will be
well to point out how one case differs from the other, so that it does
not seem that any one ought to have the same opinion of both of them.
And if he himself also is able to have recourse to ratiocination, he
must use the same ratiocination which has been already spoken of. If
he cannot, then he will declare that it is not proper to consider
anything except what is written; that all laws are put in danger if
comparisons are once allowed to be instituted; that there is hardly
anything which does not seem somewhat like something else; that when
there are many circumstances wholly dissimilar, still there are
separate laws for each individual case; and that all things can be
proved to be like or unlike to each other. The common topics derived
from ratiocination ought to arrive by conjecture from that which is
written to that which is not written; and one may urge that no one can
embrace every imaginable case in a written law, but that he frames a
law best who takes care to make one thing understood from another. One
may urge, too, that in opposition to a ratiocination of this sort,
conjecture is no better than a divination, and that it would be a
sign of a very stupid framer of laws not to be able to provide for
everything which he wished to.

LI. Definition is when a word is set down in a written document, whose
exact meaning is inquired into, in this manner:--There is a law,
"Whoever in a severe tempest desert their ship shall be deprived of
all their property; the ship and the cargo shall belong to those men
who remain by the ship." Two men, when they were sailing on the open
sea, and when the ship belonged to one of them and the cargo to
another, noticed a shipwrecked man swimming and holding out his hands
to them. Being moved with pity they directed the ship towards him, and
took the man into their vessel. A little afterwards the storm began to
to