SELF-DEFENCE implies not only the preservation of one’s life, but also the protection of one’s property, because without property life cannot be preserved in a civilized nation. The extent of property essential to life is indeed small, and this consideration may enable us to decide a question which some moralists have made intricate. By what means, it has been asked, may a man protect his property? May he kill the person who attacks it, if he cannot otherwise repel the attack?

That a man, in a state of nature, may kill the person who makes an attack on his life, if he cannot otherwise repel the attack, is a truth which has never been controverted; and he may do the same in civil society, if his danger be so imminent that it cannot be averted by the interposition of the protection provided for individuals by the state. In all possible situations, except the three following, whatever is absolutely necessary to the preservation of life may be lawfully performed; for the law of self-preservation is the first and most sacred of those laws which are impressed on every mind by the Author of nature.

The three excepted situations are those of a soldier in the day of battle, of a criminal about to suffer by the laws of his country, and of a man called upon to renounce his religion. The soldier hazards his life in the most honourable of all causes, and cannot betray his trust, or play the coward, without incurring a high degree of moral turpitude. He knows that the very profession in which he is engaged necessarily subjects him to danger; and he voluntarily incurs that danger for the good of his country, which, with great propriety, annexes to his profession peculiar privileges and much glory. The criminal under sentence of death cannot, without adding to his guilt, resist the execution of that sentence; for the power of inflicting punishment is essential to society, and society is the ordinance of God. The man who is called upon to renounce his religion ought to submit to the most cruel death rather than comply with that request, since religion is his only security for future and permanent happiness. But in every other situation, that which is absolutely necessary to the preservation of life is undoubtedly lawful. Hence it is that a person sinking in water is never thought to be guilty of any crime, though he drag his neighbour after him by his endeavours to save himself; and hence, too, a man in danger of perishing by shipwreck may drive another from a plank which cannot carry both of them, for since one of two lives must be lost, no law, human or divine, calls upon either of them to prefer his neighbour’s life to his own.

But though the rights of self-defence authorize us to repel every attack mode upon our life, and in case of extremity to save ourselves at the expense of the life of our innocent neighbour, it is not so evident that, rather than give to an unjust demand a few shillings or pounds, we may lawfully deprive a fellow-creature of life, and the public of a citizen. A few pounds lost may be easily regained; but life when lost can never be recovered. If these pounds, indeed, be the whole of a man’s property; if they include his clothes, his food, and the house where he shelters his head; there cannot be a doubt that, rather than part with them, he may lawfully kill the aggressor, for no man can exist without shelter, and food, and raiment. But it is seldom that an[7:20:82] attempt is made, or is indeed practicable, to rob a man at once of all that he possesses. The question, then, of any importance is, may a man put a robber to death rather than part with a small portion of his property? Paley doubts whether he could innocently do so in a state of nature,

“because it cannot be contended to be for the augmentation of human happiness, that one should lose his life or limb, rather than another a pennyworth of his property.” He allows, that in civil society the life of the aggressor may always be taken away by the person aggrieved, or meant to be aggrieved, when the crime attempted is such as would subject its perpetrator to death by the laws of his country.

To us, however, he seems to lose sight of his own principles. No legislature can have a right to take away life in civil society, but in such cases as individuals have the same right in a state of nature. If therefore a man in the state of nature have not a right to protect his property by killing the aggressor, when it cannot be otherwise protected, it appears to us self-evident that no legislature can have a right to inflict the punishment of death upon such offences; but if the laws inflicting death upon the crime of robbery be morally evil, it is certain that an individual cannot be innocent when he prevents robbery by the death of the robber, merely because he knows that the laws of his country have decreed that punishment against those convicted of the crime. But we think that the protection of property by the death of the aggressor may be completely vindicated upon much more general principles. It is necessary in every state, that property be protected, or mankind could not subsist; but in a state of nature every man must be the defender of his own property, which in that state must necessarily be small; and if he be not allowed to defend it by every means in his power, he will not long be able to protect it at all. By giving him such liberty, a few individuals may, indeed, occasionally lose their lives and limbs for the preservation of a very small portion of private property; but we believe that the sum of human happiness will be more augmented by cutting off such worthless wretches than by exposing property to perpetual depredation; and therefore, if general utility be the criterion of moral good, we must be of opinion that a man may in every case lawfully kill a robber rather than comply with his unjust demand.

But if a man may without guilt preserve his property by the death of the aggressor, when it cannot be preserved by any other means, much more may a woman have recourse to the last extremity to protect her chastity from forcible violation. This, indeed, is admitted by Paley him-self, and will be controverted by no man who reflects on the importance of the female character, and the probable consequences of the smallest deviation from the established laws of female honour.