If it cannot be shown that the person on his trial has been ever before implicated in any previous guilt, then that topic will come into play which we are to use for the purpose of encouraging the judges to think that the former character of the man has no bearing on the present question; for that he has formerly concealed his wickedness, but that he is now manifestly convicted; so that it is not proper that this case should be looked at with reference to his former life, but that his former life should now be reproved by this conduct of his, and that formerly he had either no opportunity of doing wrong, or no motive to do so.  Or if this cannot be said, then we must have recourse to this last assertion,—­that it is no wonder if he now does wrong for the first time, for that it is necessary that a man who wishes to commit sin, must some time or other commit it for the first time.  If nothing whatever is known of his previous life, then it is best to pass over this topic, and to state the reason why it is passed over, and then to proceed at once to corroborate the accusation by arguments.

XI.  But the advocate for the defence ought in the first place to show, if he can, that the life of the person who is accused has always been as honourable as possible.  And he will do this best by recounting any well known services which he has rendered to the state in general, or any that he has done to his parents, or relations, or friends, or kinsmen, or associates, or even any which are more remarkable or more unusual, especially if they have been done with any extraordinary labour, or danger, or both, or when there was no absolute necessity, purely because it was his duty, or if he has done any great benefit to the republic, or to his parents, or to any other of the people whom I have just mentioned, and if, too, he can show that he has never been so influenced by any covetousness as to abandon his duty, or to commit any error of any description.  And this statement will be the more confirmed, if when it is said that he had an opportunity of doing something which was not quite creditable with impunity, it can be shown at the same time that he had no inclination to do it.

But this very kind of argument will be all the stronger if the person on his trial can be shown to have been unimpeachable previously in that particular sort of conduct of which he is now accused, as, for instance, if he be accused of having done so and so for the sake of avarice, and can be proved to have been all his life utterly indifferent to the acquisition of money.  On this indignation may be expressed with great weight, united with a complaint that it is a most miserable thing, and it may be argued that it is a most scandalous thing, to think that that was the man’s motive, when his disposition during the whole of his life has been as unlike it as possible.  Such a motive often harries audacious men into guilt, but it has no power to impel an upright man to sin.  It is