But the citizen is entitled to protection, only so long as he refrains from acts by which he puts other lives in peril. If he assault another man with a deadly weapon, and his own life be taken in the encounter, the slayer has violated no right, nay, so far as moral considerations are concerned, he is not even the slayer; for the man who wrongfully puts himself in a position in which another life can be protected only at the peril of his own, if his own be forfeited, has virtually committed suicide. Nor is the case materially altered, if a man in performing an unlawful act puts himself in a position in which he may be reasonably supposed to intend violence. Thus, while both law and conscience would condemn me if I killed a thief in broad daylight, in order to protect my property,—if a burglar enter my house by night with no intention of violence, and yet in the surprise and darkness of the hour I have reason to suppose my life and the lives of my family in danger from him, the law regards my slaying of such a person as justifiable homicide; and my conscience would acquit me in defending the right to life appertaining to my family and myself, against one whose intention or willingness to commit violence was to be reasonably inferred from his own unlawful act. Society, through the agency of law, in some cases and directions limits the right of the individual citizen to life, and this *to the contingent benefit of each,—to the absolute benefit of all*. So long as men are less than perfect in character and condition, there must of necessity be some sacrifice of life; but this sacrifice may be reduced to its _minimum_ by judicious legislation. Now, if without such legislation the percentage of deaths would be numerically much higher than under well-framed laws, the lives sacrificed under these laws are simply cases in which the right of the individual is made to yield to the paramount rights of the community. Thus, there can be no doubt, that contagious disease of the most malignant type could, in many cases, be more successfully treated at the homes of the patients than in public hospitals. But if by the removal of patients to hospitals the number of cases may be greatly diminished, and the contagion speedily arrested, this removal is the right of the community,—yet not under circumstances of needless privation and hardship, not without the best appliances of comfort, care, and skill which money can procure; for the public can be justified in the exercise of such a right, only by the extension of the most generous offices of humanity to those who are imperilled for the public good.