You should, therefore, be of the same mind with respect to those who commit battery, and not consider whether they did not maul their victims thoroughly, but whether they transgressed the law, and you should punish them, not merely for the chance outcome of the attack, but for their character as a whole, reflecting that often ere now petty causes have been responsible for great evils,

and that, because there are persons who have the effrontery to beat others, there have been cases where men have become so enraged that wounds, death, exile, and the greatest calamities have resulted. That no one of these consequences happened in my case is not due to the defendant; on the contrary, so far as he is concerned they have all taken place, and it was only by the grace of fortune and my character that no irreparable harm has been done.