[25] Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 217, n. 5.
[26] Herrera, General History of the West Indies, iv. 337.
[27] Dennett, in Jour. African Society, i. 276.
[28] Cook, Journal of a Voyage round the World, p. 41 sq.
A special kind of self-preservation is self-defence. Here the ground of justification is not merely the motive of the agent, but also the wrongness or criminality of the act which he tries to prevent. Hence the right of inflicting injuries as a necessary means of self-preservation has been more generally recognised in the case of self-defence than in other cases of “compulsion by necessity.” “Vim vi repellere” was regarded by the ancients as a natural right,[29] as a law “non scripta, sed nata”;[30] and the same view was taken by the Canonist.[31] Even in the savage world self-defence and killing in self-defence are not infrequently justified by custom.[32] But in other instances the influence of the external event makes itself felt also in the case of self-defence. Among the Fjort, though a person who kills another in self-defence is exempt from punishment, he is expected to pay damages.[33] Among the Hottentots self-defence is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, but not as an excuse in the full sense of the word.[34] Among other peoples it is not considered at all.[35] Among the ancient Teutons a person who committed homicide in self-defence had to pay wer;[36] and in Germany such a person seems to have been subject to punishment still in the later Middle Ages.[37] In England, in the thirteenth century, he was considered to deserve royal pardon, but he also needed it.[38]
[29] Digesta, xliii. 16. i. 27: “Vim vi repellere licere Cassius scribit idque ius natura comparatur.”
[30] Cicero, Pro Milone, 4 (10).
[31] Gratian, Decretum, i. 1. 7.
[32] Merker, quoted by Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xv. 64 (Wadshagga). Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 257 (Washambala).
[33] Dennett, in Jour. African Society, i. 276.