(b) Likewise the axiom, that _it is never lawful for a private individual to kill any one whatever_. We say, from a technical standpoint, that he does not _kill_ but _arrests the onset of_ the aggressor. (c) We are in hearty accord with the positive law of all civilized countries, which views with extreme suspicion all deaths said to be done in self-defence, the law being jealous of the blood of its citizens, and reserving the shedding thereof to itself. We teach that only by process of law can a man ever be directly slain, his death made a means of, and the person, who strikes him, really willing and seeking, exactly speaking, to kill him. (d) The initial error is revealed of a theory that we shall have to combat at length hereafter, the theory of Hobbes and Locke, that the power of the State is the mere agglomeration of the powers of the individuals who compose it. It appears by our explanation that the individual has no power strictly to take life in any case, or ever to kill directly, as the State does when it executes a criminal. As a fifth point gained, we may mention the efficacious argument afforded, as will presently be shown, against the acceptance of a duel under any conceivable circumstances, a thesis otherwise not easy to establish by reason. 6. In view of the question of the origin of civil government, we must carefully collect the differences between self-defence and punishment. Death occasioned in self-defence is _indirect_: death inflicted as punishment is _direct_. Punishment is an act of _authority_, of _distributive justice_, which lies from ruler to subject (_Ethics_, c. v., s. ix., n. 4, p. 104): self-defence is of equal against equal. Punishment is _medicinal_ to him who suffers it, or _deterrent_ on behalf of the community, or _retributive_ in the way of vengeance. (_Ethics_, c. ix., s. iii., n. 4.) Self-defence is not on behalf of the community, still less for the good of the aggressor, but for the good of him who practises it and for the preservation of his right: neither is it retributive and retrospective, as vengeance is, but simply prospective and preventive of a harm immediately imminent. Finally, the right to punish abides day and night: but the right of self-defence holds only while instant aggression is threatened. 7. These two diverse ideas of _self-defence_ and _vengeance_ were confounded by the Greeks under the one verb [Greek: amunesthai]. They are confounded by Mill, _On Utility_, in the fifth chapter where he speaks (p. 77) of the "instinct of self-defence," which nine lines below he converts into "the natural feeling of retaliation or vengeance." It is a common but a grave mistake, and the parent of much bad philosophy. _Reading_.--St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 64, art. 7. SECTION III.--_Of Suicide_.