tant rights,
the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include
the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most
extensive sense.

I. THE right of personal security consists in a person's legal and
uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health,
and his reputation.

1. LIFE is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in
every individual; and it begins in contemplation of law as soon as an
infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick
with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or
if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is
delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the antient
law homicide or manslaughter[o]. But at present it is not looked upon
in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous
misdemesnor[p].

[Footnote o: _Si aliquis mulierem praegnantem percusserit, vel ei
venenum dederit, per quod fecerit abortivam; si puerperium jam
formatum fuerit, et maxime si fuerit animatum, facit homicidium._
Bracton. _l._ 3. _c._ 21.]

[Footnote p: 3 Inst. 90.]

AN infant _in ventre sa mere_, or in the mother's womb, is supposed in
law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy, or
a surrender of a copyhold estate made to it. It may have a guardian
assigned to it[q]; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to it's
use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then
actually born[r]. And in this point the civil law agrees with ours[s].

[Footnote q: Stat. 12 Car. II. c. 24.]

[Footnote r: Stat. 10 & 11 W. III. c. 16.]

[Footnote s: _Qui in utero sunt, in jure civili intelliguntur in rerum
natura esse, cum de eorum commodo agatur._ _Ff._ 1. 5. 26.]

2. A MAN'S limbs, (by which for the present we only understand those
members which may be useful to him in fight, and the loss of which
only amounts to mayhem by the common law) are also the gift of the
wise creator; to enable man to protect himself from external injuries
in a state of nature. To these therefore he has a natural inherent
right; and they cannot be wantonly destroyed or disabled without a
manifest breach of civil liberty.

BOTH the life and limbs of a man are of such high value, in the
estimation of the law of England, that it pardons even homicide if
committed _se defendendo_, or in order to preserve them. For whatever
is done by a man, to save ei