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Many of the questions both in morals and politics seem to be of the nature of the problems de maximis and minimis in fluxions; in which there is always a point where a certain effect is the greatest, while on either side of this point it gradually diminishes.
What is deceptive in this subject, as I have already observed, is that one feels an inclination to believe that what is the best in the whole is also the best possible in each part. One reasons thus in geometry, when it is a question de maximis et minimis.
"Verum talis mini de horum origine et formatione conceptus formabam; globulis nempe ex quibus farina Tritici, Hordei, Avenae, Fagotritici, se constat aquae calore dissolvi et aquae commisceri; hac, vero aqua, quam cerevisiam vocare licet, refrigescente, multos ex minimis particulis in cerevisia coadunari, et hoc pacto efficere particulam sive globulum, quae sexta pars est globuli faecis, et iterum sex ex hisce globulis conjungi."
"De Minimis non curat Lex" "the Master does not care for Minnie" was a favourite travesty of the well-known maxim. Rogers was also a friend, and as a girl she remembered going to his "very small" breakfast-parties, in the celebrated dining-room in which hung his famous pictures. They were hung high, so as to get the light which was at the top of the room.
He stayed a long time, and when he had gone Carlyle said to his wife, "Well, Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up; we must endeavour to hide from him how very serious this business is to us." Maximus in maximis; minimus in minimis; such was Carlyle, and as such Froude exhibits him, not concealing the fact that in small matters he could be very small.
If, therefore, they have lost no money, the question upon reputation may be answered by a very old position, De minimis non curat Praetor. 'Whether there was, or was not, an animus injuriandi, is not worth inquiring, if no injuria can be proved. But the truth is, there was no animus injuriandi.
We serve an all-merciful Being, who knows the frailty of our nature, the number and strength of our temptations, and will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss. Even the less lenient judicatures of human institution concede somewhat to the weakness of man. It is an established maxim 'De minimis non curat lex. We hope we are not worse than the generality. All men are imperfect.
Any one who has seen the way in which an Intelligence staff builds up its data will not be inclined to criticise our military authorities for what may seem to an untutored mind a mere affectation of mystery about small things. In war it is never safe to say De minimis non curatur. The P.M. and his A.P.M.'s are the Censores Morum of the occupied towns, just as the Camp Commandants are the Aediles.
Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event at an obvious place that uncovers the run of the news. The most obvious place is where people's affairs touch public authority. De minimis non curat lex. It is at these places that marriages, births, deaths, contracts, failures, arrivals, departures, lawsuits, disorders, epidemics and calamities are made known.
It came to its destination in this wise. Con Hite's distilling enterprise was on so small a scale that one might have imagined it to be altogether outside the purview of the law, which, it is said, does not take note de minimis.
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