Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu/15

Ch. 1. to be fought by application to thefe courts of juflice; that is, by civil fuit or action. For which reafon our chief employment in this volume will be to confider the redrefs of private wrongs, by fuit or action in courts. But as fome injuries are of fuch a nature, that they furnifh or require a more fpeedy remedy, than can be had in the ordinary forms of juflice, there is allowed in thofe cafes an extrajudicial or eccentrical kind of remedy; of which I mall firft of all treat, before I confider the feveral remedies by fuit: and, to that end, mail diflribute the redrefs of private wrongs into three feveral fpecies ; firft, that which is obtained by the mere act of the parties themfelves; fecondly, that which is effected by the mere act and operation of law; and, thirdly, that which arifes from fuit or action in courts; which confifts in a conjunction of the other two, the act of the parties co-operating, with the act of law.

, firft, of that redrefs of private injuries, which is obtained by the mere act of the parties. This is of two forts; firft, that which arifes from the act of the injured party only; and, fecondly, that which arifes from the joint act of all the parties together: both which I mall confider in their order.

the firft fort, or that which arifes from the fole act of the injured party, is,

defence of one's felf, or the mutual and reciprocal defence of fuch as ftand in the relations of hufband and wife, parent and child, mafter and fervant. In thefe cafes, if the party himfelf, or any of thefe his relations, be forcibly attacked in his perfon or property, it is lawful for him to repel force by force; and the breach of the peace, which happens, is chargeable upon him only who began the affray. For the law, in this cafe, refpects the paffions of the human mind ; and (when external violence is offered to a man himfelf, or thofe to whom he bears a near connection) makes it lawful in him to do himfelf that Rh