Institutio Oratoria

So far we have been dealing entirely with

admitted facts. Let us now return to the claimant. Unless he is hopelessly unintelligent, surely the following argument will suggest itself:—

If the law bars the way, there is no ground for action and the trial becomes a farce. But it is beyond question that the law exists and that the uneducated son did commit the offence for which it enacts a punishment.

What then shall we say?

I had no education.