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If then it be thus impossible to determine all these particular and exceptional cases, and yet there is a necessity for legislation, the law must be expressed in general terms; so that if a man wearing an iron ring lift his hand (to threaten) or strike another, by the written law (the letter of the law) he is liable (to the penalty), and has committed a crime, but in truth and in fact he is not guilty of a crime, and herein (τοῦτο, in this fair interpretation of the act) lies equity’.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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