This is not quite so. 'All' does not mean 'all possible' but 'all known up to the present time, _exclusive of the case under discussion_.' Our general or average ideas are the plasmic product of the individuals we have actually known--not a unit more. And as that idea is liable to be modified by every new individual examined, it is possible that on examining Caesar we may find reason to change our general idea, to the extent at least of dividing it into two species, the tyrants who deserve death and the tyrants who deserve some milder punishment, and that we shall resolve to bring Caesar under the latter species. Thus if the idea threatens to hang Caesar, on the other hand Caesar may burst the idea, and his case establish itself as a new precedent. That is how general ideas multiply--by a sort of fission. In the proposition 'tyrants deserve death' as first proposed, we are dealing with the old general idea, and--as regards all individuals except those from which it was drawn--the proposition is little more than a hypothesis. The idea is itself on trial. Until Caesar is examined we do not fully know how the general tyrant is in future to be defined. Our examination of Caesar is a part of our education on the subject of tyrants. In judging we learn, and the general idea which remains _after Caesar is examined_ is that by which he is to be judged. If our idea of tyrant remains unshaken after the trial of Caesar, and if he is found to resemble that class more than any other, then--and not till then--are we compelled to pass on him the judgment associated with the definition of tyrant. An argument based on a particular or solitary precedent is criticised on the same principles. We seek to prove either that the case is not sufficiently like the precedent to justify the application, or that the applicate is not a property of the precedent. If we make good either of these propositions, we prevent the suggested conclusion from being fastened on the case.