The dictum of the founder of modern pathology, Virchow, that Woman was in effect an appendix to the ovaries, has long been taken to apply to her psychic traits as well as somatic.

We may therefore ascribe the dictum in question to the influence of preconceptions, and turn for the true theory of the law to an opinion of the same great judge, delivered twenty years later, in which he denied the right of the conqueror to confiscate private property, on the ground that it would violate "the modern usage of nations, which has become law" (U.S. v. Percheman).

There can be little doubt that all these attempts by Herr von Jagow to claim that the French violated Belgian neutrality are another illustration of Swift's dictum to the effect that 'as universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems', it is astonishing that it has been brought to so little perfection, 'even by those who are most celebrated in that faculty'.[130] IV England and Servia.

Nevertheless, I think that Sir Robert Peel's dictum with respect to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, on the day on which he retired last from office, when he observed that thenceforward, even when the poor suffered from the high price of bread, they would not ascribe that suffering to the fact of their bread being taxed, applies with at least equal force to the reciprocity question as affecting the Canadian farmers.

We fortify ourselves, however, with Dr. Johnson's dictum on the subject of Criticism:"Why, no, Sir; this is not just reasoning.

Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictum about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board which warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even desirable detail.

She had made it clear that she wished no more of him and he had accepted her dictum without question.

"You are right, sir," said the sage; and Boswell illustrates his dictum by the authority of a "very fashionable baronet," and, moreover, a baronet from Rydal, who declared that the fragrance of a May evening in the country might be very well, but that he preferred the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse.

Thanks to the work of modern scholarship, English readers can now verify this dictum for themselves.

This, however, is only an obiter dictum from which many will no doubt dissent.