Thus much for the declaration of our rights and liberties. The rights themſelves, thus defined by theſe ſeveral ſtatutes, conſiſt in a number of private immunities; which will appear, from what has been premiſed, to be indeed no other, than either that reſiduum of natural liberty, which is not required by the laws of ſociety to be ſacrificed to public convenience; or elſe thoſe civil privileges, which ſociety hath engaged to provide, in lieu of the natural liberties ſo given up by individuals. Theſe therefore were formerly, either by inheritance or purchaſe, the rights of all mankind; but, in moſt other countries of the world being now more or leſs debaſed and deſtroyed, they at preſent may be ſaid to remain, in a peculiar and emphatical manner, the rights of the people of England. And theſe may be reduced to three principal or primary articles; the right of perſonal ſecurity, the right of perſonal liberty, and the right of private property: becauſe as there is no other known method of compulſion, or of abridging man’s natural free will, but by an infringement or diminution of one or other of theſe important 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[1]. But ſir Edward Coke doth not look upon this
- ↑ Si aliquis mulierem praegnantem percuſſerit, vel ei venenum dederit, per quad fecerit abortivam; ſi puerperium jam formatum fuerit, et maxime ſi fuerit animatum, facit homicidium. Bracton. l. 3. c. 21.
