9
Accordingly, since it is within your powers, since my father controls only the charge, and you who sit in judgement control the decision whether his accusation is reasonable, do not yet consider his specific allegation against me and the ground of his present indignation, but first examine that other point, whether he should still be allowed to disown a son when, after once for all disowning him, using the privilege that derives from the law and exercising to the full this paternal suzerainty, he has subsequently taken him back again and annulled the disownment. I say that such a thing is most unjust—for punishments, precisely in the case of children, to be interminable, their condemnations numerous, and their fear eternal; for the law at one moment to share the prosecutor’s anger, only soon afterward to relax, and then again to be as severe as before; in a word, for justice to be altered this way and that to conform to the momentary opinion of fathers. No, the first time it is right to give the parent free rein, to share his anger with him, to make him arbiter of the punishment; but if, once for all, he expends his privilege, makes full use of the law, satisfies his anger, and then afterwards takes back his son, persuaded that he deserves it, he must abide by it, and not keep shifting, changing his mind, and altering his decision.
9
When that son was born there was no way, of course, to ascertain whether he would turn out to be bad or good, and on that account the privilege of repudiating children who are unworthy of their family has been allowed to their parents, since they determined to bring them up at a time when they were unaware ofthis.
