[39]
The question has been raised as to whether we
should deal first with persons or motives, and different
orators have given different answers: Cicero as a rule
prefers to treat motives first. For my own part, if
the circumstances of the case do not point strongly
in either direction, I consider that the most natural
course is to begin by dealing with persons. For the
enquiry whether any crime can credibly be imputed
to such a man as the accused is of a more general
character than the question whether some one
particular crime can be imputed, and in addition
involves a greater correctness in division.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.