ust aggressor, but I do intend, as I have a perfect right, to
protect my own life. If he, without cause, places his existence as an
obstacle to my enjoyment of life, then I shall remove that obstacle,
and to do it, I shall kill. Again, a desperate remedy, but the
situation is most terribly desperate. Being given law of my being, I
can not help the inevitable result of conditions of which I am nowise
responsible. The man who attacks my life places his own beyond the
possibility of my saving it.

This, of course, supposes a man using the full measure of his rights.
But is he bound to do this, morally? Not if his charity for another be
greater than that which he bears towards himself, if he go beyond the
divine injunction to love his neighbor as himself and love him better
than himself; if he feel that he is better prepared to meet his God
than the other, if he have no one dependent on him for maintenance and
support. Even did he happen to be in the state of mortal sin, there is
every reason to believe that such charity as will sacrifice life for
another, greater than which no man has, would wash away that sin and
open the way of mercy; while great indeed must be the necessity of the
dependent ones to require absolutely the death of another.

The aggression that justifies killing must be unjust. This would not be
the case of a criminal being brought to justice or resisting arrest.
Justice cannot conflict with itself and can do nothing unjust in
carrying out its own mandates. The culprit therefore has no grounds to
stand upon for his defense.

Neither is killing justifiable, if wounding or mutilation would effect
the purpose. But here the code of morals allows much latitude on
account of the difficulty of judging to a nicety the intentions of the
aggressor, that is, whether he means to kill or not; and of so
directing the protecting blow as to inflict just enough, and no more
disability than the occasion requires.

Virtue in woman is rightly considered a boon greater than life; and for
that matter, so is the state of God's friendship in the soul of any
creature. Then, here too applies the principle of self-defense. If I
may kill to save my life, 1 may for a better reason kill to save my
soul and to avoid mortal offense. True, the loss of bodily integrity
does not necessarily imply a staining of the soul; but human nature is
such as to make the one an almost fatal consequence of the other. The
person therefore who kills