If the party who stands on the meaning of the lawgiver brings forward any reasons, then, in the first place, it will be necessary to reply to those reasons; to urge how absurd it is for a man not to deny that he has acted contrary to the law, but at the same time to give some reason for having acted so.  Then one will say too that all things are turned upside down; that formerly prosecutors were in the habit of trying to persuade the judges that the person who was being prosecuted before them was implicated in some fault, and of alleging some reasons which had instigated him to commit this fault; but that now the accused person himself is giving the reasons why he has offended against the laws.  Then it will be proper to introduce this division, each portion of which will have many lines of argument suitable to it:  in the first place, that there is no law with reference to which it is allowable to allege any reasons contrary to the law; in the next place, that if such a course is admissible in any law, this is such a law that it is not admissible with respect to it; and lastly, that, even if such reasons ever might be alleged, at all events this is not such a reason.

XLV.  The first part of the argument is confirmed by pretty nearly the same topics as these:  that the framer of the law was not deficient in either ability, or pains, or any faculty requisite to enable him to express plainly what his intention was; that it would not have been either displeasing or difficult to him to insert such an exception as that which the opposite party contends for in his law, if he thought any exception requisite; and in fact, that those people who frame laws often do insert clauses of exceptions.  After that it is well to enumerate some of the laws which have exceptional clauses attached to them, and to take especial care to see whether in the law itself which is under discussion there is any exception made in any chapter, or whether the same man who framed this law has made exceptions in other laws, so that it may be more naturally inferred that he would have made exceptions in this one, if he had thought exceptions requisite; and it will be well also to show that to admit of a reason for violating the law is the same thing as abrogating the law, because when once such a reason is taken into consideration it is no use to consider it with reference to the law, inasmuch as it is not stated in the law.  And if such a principle is once laid down, then a reason for violating the law, and a licence to do so, is given to every one, as soon as they perceive that you as judges decide the matter in a way which depends on the ability of the man who has violated the law, and not with reference to the law which you have sworn to administer.  Then, too, one must point out that all principles on which judges are to judge, and citizens are to live, will be thrown into confusion if the laws are once departed from; for the judges will not have any rules to follow, if they depart from what is set down in the law, and no principles on which they can reprove others for having acted in defiance of the law.  And that all the rest of the citizens will be ignorant what they are to do, if each of them regulates all his actions according to his own ideas, and to whatever whim or fancy comes into his head, and not according to the common statute law of the state.