[68]
I will now
do my best to prove that the law he introduced is unacceptable and
disadvantageous to the citizens. I presume that you will all agree with me that
a really wholesome law, such as is calculated to benefit the people, ought, in
the first place, to be drawn simply and intelligibly, not in such terms that one
man thinks it means this and another that; and, secondly, that the proceedings
prescribed by the law ought to be practicable, for if a law, though well-meant,
were to enjoin what is impossible, it would be attempting the work not of a law,
but of a prayer.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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