Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/201

 Ch. 14. WRONGS.

age or fex, without juftification or excufe. This may be 'done, either by killing one's felf, or another man.

SELF-MURDER, the pretended heroifm, but real cowardice, of the Stoic philofophers, who deftroyed themfelves to avoid thole ills which they had not the fortitude to endure, though the attempting it feems to be countenanced by the civil law, yet was punifhed by the Athenian law with cutting off" the hand, which committed the defperate deed p . And alfo the law of England wifely and religioufly confiders, that no man hath a power to deftroy life, but by commiflion from God, the author of it : and, as the fuicide is guilty of a double offence ; one fpiritual, in invading the prerogative of the Almighty, and ruming into his immediate prefence uncalled for; the other temporal, againft the king, who hath an intereft in the prefervation of all his fub- jefts ; the law has therefore ranked this among the higheft crimes, making it a peculiar fpecies of felony, a felony commit- ted on onefelf. AJe/o de fe therefore is he that deliberately puts an end to his own exiftence, or commits any unlawful malicious aft, the confequence of which is his own death : as if, attempt- ing to kill another, he runs upon his antagonifl's fword ; or, {hooting at another, the gun burfts and kills himfelf q. The party muft be of years of difcretion, and in his fenfes, elfe it is no crime. But this excufe ought not to be drained to that length, to which our coroners' juries are apt to carry it, viz. that the very adl of fuicide is an evidence of infanity ; as if every man who ac~ls contrary to reafon, had no reafon at all : for the fame argument would prove every other criminal non compos, as well as the felf- murderer. The law very rationally judges, that every melancholy or hypochondriac fit does not deprive a man of the capacity of difcerning right from wrong ; which is neceffary, as was obferved in a former chapter r, to form a legal excufe. And " t'.'fae, aut morbo, aut furore, out pitdere, ' I Hawk. P. C. 68. l Hal. P. C. 413. " taori maluit, non animadvertatur in e >.'/." * See pag. .,, F/. 49. 16. 6. there-
 * " Si qtiis i-afiitiealia doloris, attt taedio f Pott. Antiqu. b. i. c. 26.