[27]
Does not the whole suit consist
of comparison between the two cases and of two
different and opposite sets of conjecture? But the
method to be followed is identical whether the case
be one of accusation and defence or of claim and
denial of the claim.
Conjecture is, in the first place, based on what is
past, under which I include persons, causes and
intent. For in dealing with a case we first ask
what the accused intended to do, next what he was
in a position to do, and lastly what he actually did.
Consequently the first point on which we must fix
our attention is the character of the accused.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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