by Congress. In the common law, too, there are many phrases which
have come down from past centuries, the meanings of which have been
defined again and again as new cases came up. We have seen (p. 63) how
careful definition the word "murder" may need. "Malice aforethought" is
another familiar instance: it sounds simple, but when one begins to fix
the limits at which sudden anger passes over into cool and deliberate
enmity, or how far gone a man must be in drink before he loses the
consciousness of his purposes, even a layman can see that it has
difficulties.

In such cases as these a dictionary definition would be merely a
starting point. It may be a very useful starting point, however, as in
the following extract from an article by Mr. E.P. Ripley, president of
the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company, on "The Railroads
and the People":

There is one point regarding this matter that many forget: this is that
in all affairs there are two kinds of discrimination. There is the kind,
which, as the dictionary expresses it, "sets apart as being different,"
which "distinguishes accurately," and there is the widely different kind
which "treats unequally." in all ordinary affairs of life we condemn as
"undiscriminating" those who have so little judgment or fairness as not
to "distinguish accurately" or "set apart things that are
different"--who either treat equally things that are unequal, or treat
unequally things that are equal. Now, when the railway traffic manager
"sets apart things that are different," and treats them differently, he
simply does what it is the duty of every one to do.[56]

Then he goes on to develop this definition by showing the facts on which
it has to bear.

On the other hand do not bore your readers with dictionary definitions
of words whose meaning no one doubts; that is a waste of good paper for
you, and of good time for them; and we have seen in Chapter II the
futility of the dictionary for cases in which there is real disagreement
over the meaning of a word.

It will be seen, then, that the analysis you have made in preparation
for the brief may spread out large or small in the argument itself. It
is wise, therefore, to look on the work done for the introduction to the
brief as work done largely to clear up your own thought on the subject;
when you come to writing out the argument itself, you can go back to the
introduction to the brief, and see how much space you are now going to