to escape unjust contamination acts within
his or her rights and before God is justified in the doing.

We would venture to say the same thing of a man who resorts to this
extreme in order to protect his rightly gotten goods, on these two
conditions, however: that there be some kind of proportion between the
loss and the remedy he employs to protect himself against it; and that
he have well grounded hope that the remedy will be effective, that it
will prevent said loss, and not transform itself into revenge.

And here a last remark is in order. The killing that is permitted to
save, is not permitted to avenge loss sustained; the law sanctions
self-defense, but not vengeance. If a man, on the principle of
self-defense, has the right to kill to save his brother, and fails to
do so, his further right to kill ceases; the object is past saving and
vengeance is criminal. If a woman has been wronged, once the wrong
effected, there can be no lawful recourse to slaying, for what is lost
is beyond redemption, and no reason for such action exists except
revenge. In these cases killing is murder, pure and simple, and there
is nothing under Heaven to justify it.

Remembering the injunction to love our neighbor as ourself, we add that
we have the same right to defend our neighbor's life as we have to
defend our own, even to protect his or her innocence and virtue and
possessions. A husband may defend the honor of his wife, which is his
own, even though the wife be a party to the crime and consent to the
defilement; but the right is only to prevent, and ceases on the event
of accomplishment, even at the incipient stage.

CHAPTER LXXI.
MURDER OFTEN SANCTIONED.

ALL injury done to another in order to repair an insult is criminal,
and if said injury result in death, it is murder.

Here we consider an insult as an attack on one's reputation or
character, a charge or accusation, a slurring remark, etc., without
reference to the truth or falsity thereof. It may be objected that
whereas reputation, like chastity and considerable possessions, is
often valued as high as life itself, the same right exists to defend it
even at the cost of another's life. But it must be remembered that the
loss of character sustained in consequence of an insult of this kind is
something very ephemeral and unsubstantial; and only to a mind
abnormally sensitive can any proportion be perceived between the loss
and the remedy. This is especially true when