Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/198

 i86 PUBLIC BOOK IV.

though others * have thought this opinion too favourable ; inaf- much as the neceffity, to which he is at laft reduced, originally arofe from his own fault. Under this excufe, of ielf-defence, the principal civil and natural relations are comprehended ; there- fore matter and fervant, parent and child, hufband and wife, killing an ailailant in the neceffary defence of each other refpec- tively, are excufed ; the act of the relation aflifling being con- itrued the fame as the ac"l of the party himklf x . THERE is one fpecies of homicide y? defendendo, where the party ilain is equally innocent as he who occafions his death : and yet this homicide is alfo excufable from the great univerfal principle of felf-prefervation, which prompts every man to fave his own life preferably to that of another, where one of them mufl inevitably periih. As, among others, in that cafe men- tioned by lord Bacon -', where two perlbns, being iliipwrecked, and getting on the fame plank, but finding it not able to fave them both, one of them thruils the other from it, whereby he is drowned. He who thus preferves his own life at the expenfe of another man's, is excufable through unavoidable neceflity, and the principle of fclf-defcnce ; lince their both remaining on the fame weak plank is a mutual, though innocent, attempt upon, and an endangering of, each other's life. LE T us next take a view of thofe circumftances wherein thefe two fpecies of homicide, by mifadventure and felf-defence, agree ; and thofe are in their blame and punishment. For the law fets ib high a value upon the life of a man, that it always intends fome mifbehaviour in the perfon who takes it away, un- lefs by the command or exprefs permiflion of the law. In the cafe of mifadventure, it prefumes negligence, or at leail a want of fufficient caution in him who was fo unfortunate as to commit it -, who therefore is not altogether faultlefs z. And as to the neceflity which excufes a man who kills another fe defendendo,

i Hawk. P. C. 75. T Elem. c. 5. See alfo i Hawk. P. C. 73. i Hal. P. C. 484. * I Hawk. P. C. 72.

lord