But since study is an assiduous and earnest application of the mind to any particular object with intense desire, that argument which the case itself requires will easily be deduced from it.  And again, some suspicion will be able to be inferred from the intention; for intention is a deliberate determination of doing or not doing something.  And after this it will be easy to see with respect to facts, and events, and speeches, which are divided into three separate times, whether they contribute anything to confirming the conjectures already formed in the way of suspicion.

X. And those things indeed are attributed to persons, which when they are all collected together in one place, it will be the business of the accuser to use them as inducing a disapprobation of the person; for the fact itself has but little force unless the disposition of the man who is accused can be brought under such suspicion as to appear not to be inconsistent with such a fault.  For although there is no great advantage in expressing disapprobation of any one’s disposition, when there is no cause why he should have done wrong, still it is but a trifling thing that there should be a motive for an offence, if the man’s disposition is proved to be inclined to no line of conduct which is at all discreditable.  Therefore the accuser ought to bring into discredit the life of the man whom he is accusing, by reference to his previous actions, and to show whether he has ever been previously convicted of a similar offence.  And if he cannot show that, he must show whether he has ever incurred the suspicion of any similar guilt; and especially, if possible, that he has committed some offence or other of some kind under the influence of some similar motive to this which is in existence here, in some similar case, or in an equally important case, or in one more important, or in one less important.  As, if with respect to a man who he says has been induced by money to act in such and such a manner, he were able to show that any other action of his in any case had been prompted by avarice.

And again it will be desirable in every cause to mention the nature, or the manner of life, or the pursuits, or the fortune, or some one of those circumstances which are attributed to persons, in connexion with that cause which the speaker says was the motive which induced the man on his trial to do wrong; and also, if one cannot impute anything to him in respect of an exactly corresponding class of faults, to bring the disposition of one’s adversary into discredit by reference to some very dissimilar class.  As, if you were to accuse him of having done so and so, because he was instigated by avarice; and yet, if you are unable to show that the man whom you accuse is avaricious, you must show that other vices are not wholly foreign to his nature, and that on that account it is no great wonder if a man who in any affair has behaved basely, or covetously, or petulantly, should have erred in this business also.  For in proportion as you can detract from the honesty and authority of the man who is accused, in the same proportion has the force of the whole defence been weakened.