XXXV.  But the first division of a defence is the invalidating of the motives alleged for the action,—­either as having no real existence, or as not having been so important, or as not having been likely to influence any one but the person accused; or we may urge that he could have attained the same object more easily; or that he is not a man of such habits, or of such a character; or that he was not so much a slave to sudden impulses, or at all events not to such trifling ones.  And the advocate for the defence will disparage the means alleged to be in the power of the accused person, if he shows that either strength, or courage, or power, or resources were wanting to him; or that the time was unfavourable, or the place unsuitable; or that there were many witnesses, not one of whom he would have chosen to trust; or that he was not such a fool as to undertake a deed which he could not conceal; nor so senseless as to despise the penalties of the law and the courts of justice.  And he will do away with the effect of the consequences alleged, by explaining that those things are not certain proofs of an act which might have happened even if the act had never been done; and he will dwell on the details, and urge that they belong as much to what he himself alleges was the fact, as to that which is at present the ground of accusation:  or if he agrees with the accuser on those points, still he will say that ought to be of avail rather as a defence to himself against danger, than as an engine for injuring his safety; and he will run down the whole body of witnesses and examinations under torture, generally, and also in detail as far as he can, by the use of the topics of reprehension which have been explained already.  The openings of these causes which are intended to excite suspicion by their bitterness will be thus laid down by the accuser; and the general danger of all intrigues will be denounced; and men’s minds will be excited so as to listen attentively.  But the person who is being accused will bring forward complaints of charges having been trumped up against him, and suspicions ferreted out from all quarters; and he will speak of the intrigues of the accuser, and also of the common danger of all citizens from such proceedings:  and so he will try to move the minds of the judges to pity, and to excite their good-will in some degree.  But the narration of the accuser will be a separate count, as it were, which will contain an explanation of every sort of transaction liable to suspicion, with every kind of argument scattered over it, and all the topics for the defence discredited.  But the speaker for the defence must pass over or discredit all the arguments employed to raise suspicion, and will limit himself to a narration of the actual facts and events which have taken place.  But in the corroboration of our own arguments, and in the invalidation of those of our adversaries, it will be often the object of the accuser to rouse the feelings of the minds of his