I better know what man is than I know what Animal is, or Mortal, or
Rational. To satisfy one doubt, they give me three; 'tis the Hydra's
head. Socrates asked Menon, "What virtue was." "There is," says Menon,
"the virtue of a man and of a woman, of a magistrate and of a private
person, of an old man and of a child." "Very fine," cried Socrates,
"we were in quest of one virtue, and thou hast brought us a whole
swarm." We put one question, and they return us a whole hive. As no
event, no face, entirely resembles another, so do they not entirely
differ: an ingenious mixture of nature. If our faces were not alike, we
could not distinguish man from beast; if they were not unlike, we could
not distinguish one man from another; all things hold by some similitude;
every example halts, and the relation which is drawn from experience is
always faulty and imperfect. Comparisons are ever-coupled at one end or
other: so do the laws serve, and are fitted to every one of our affairs,
by some wrested, biassed, and forced interpretation.

Since the ethic laws, that concern the particular duty of every one in
himself, are so hard to be framed, as we see they are, 'tis no wonder if
those which govern so many particulars are much more so. Do but consider
the form of this justice that governs us; 'tis a true testimony of human
weakness, so full is it of error and contradiction. What we find to be
favour and severity in justice--and we find so much of them both, that I
know not whether the medium is as often met with are sickly and unjust
members of the very body and essence of justice. Some country people
have just brought me news in great haste, that they presently left in a
forest of mine a man with a hundred wounds upon him, who was yet
breathing, and begged of them water for pity's sake, and help to carry
him to some place of relief; they tell me they durst not go near him, but
have run away, lest the officers of justice should catch them there; and
as happens to those who are found near a murdered person, they should be