Malice, as used in common speech, includes intent, and something
more. When an act is said to be done with an intent to do harm,
it is meant that a wish for the harm is the motive of the act.
Intent, however, is perfectly consistent with the harm being
regretted as such, and being wished only as a means to something
else. But when an act is said to be done maliciously, it is
meant, not only that a wish for the harmful effect is the motive,
but also that the harm is wished for its own sake, or, as Austin
would say with more accuracy, for the sake of the pleasurable
feeling which knowledge of the suffering caused by the act would
excite. Now it is apparent from Sir James [53] Stephen's
enumeration, that of these two elements of malice the intent
alone is material to murder. It is just as much murder to shoot a
sentry for the purpose of releasing a friend, as to shoot him
because you hate him. Malice, in the definition of murder, has
not the same meaning as in common speech, and, in view of the
considerations just mentioned, it has been thought to mean
criminal intention. /1/
But intent again will be found to resolve itself into two things;
foresight that certain consequences will follow from an act, and
the wish for those consequences working as a motive which induces
the act. The question then is, whether intent, in its turn,
cannot be reduced to a lower term. Sir James Stephen's statement
shows that it can be, and that knowledge that the act will
probably cause death, that is, foresight of the consequences of
the act, is enough in murder as in tort.
For instance, a newly born child is laid naked out of doors,
where it must perish as a matter of course. This is none the less
murder, that the guilty party would have been very glad to have a
stranger find the child and save it. /2/
But again, What is foresight of consequences? It is a picture of
a future state of things called up by knowledge of the present
state of things, the future being viewed as standing to the
present in the relation of effect to cause. Again, we must seek a
reduction to lower terms. If the known present state of things is
such that the act done will very certainly cause death, and the
probability is a matter of common knowledge, one who does the
act, [54] knowing the present state of things, is guilty of
murder, and the law will not inquire whether he did actually
foresee the consequences or not. The test of foresight is not
what this very criminal foresaw, but what a man of reasonable
prudence would have foreseen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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