[Footnote 91: Bracton, _op. cit._ fol. 136 b, vol. ii, 400 _sq._ Hale, _op. cit._ i. 420 _sqq._ Pollock and Maitland, _op. cit._ ii. 474, n. 4. Stephen, _op. cit._ iii. 77. Holmes, _op. cit._ p. 25 _sq._] [Footnote 92: Britton, i. 2. 14, vol. i. 16.] [Footnote 93: Hale, _op. cit._ i. 422.] [Footnote 94: Holmes, _op. cit._ p. 29.] * * * * * Like the lower animals, human beings in their earliest childhood are incapable of forming notions of right and wrong, hence they are not responsible for any act of theirs. Responsibility commences with the dawn of a moral consciousness, and increases along with the evolution of the intellect. Only by slow degrees the capacity of recognising {265} act as right or wrong develops in the child. It soon learns that certain acts are forbidden, but to know that an act is forbidden is not the same as to recognise it as wrong. Nor does the knowledge of a moral rule involve the ability to apply that rule in particular cases. Nor can the youthful intellect be expected to possess the same degree of foresight as the intellect of a grown-up man. Hence the total or partial irresponsibility of childhood and early youth. This irresponsibility is admitted by the laws of civilised nations. In England,[95] Scotland,[96] and the United States,[97] children under seven are absolutely exempt from punishment. In other modern countries criminal responsibility does not commence until the age of nine,[98] ten,[99] twelve,[100] or fourteen.[101] In some it is to be decided in each case whether a child is punishable or not.[102] Thus the French Code Pénal provides that a person under eighteen years of age shall not be punished if it be decided that he has acted without discernment (_sans discernement_) whereas, if he has acted with discernment (_avec discernement_), his punishment is to be mitigated according to a fixed scale.[103] Most laws set down an intermediate period between that of complete irresponsibility and that of complete responsibility. According to English law there is a presumption that children from seven to fourteen are not possessed of the degree of knowledge essential to criminality, though this presumption may be rebutted by proof to the contrary;[104] and, according to the German Strafgesetzbuch, a person from twelve to eighteen may be acquitted if, when he committed the offence, he did {266} not possess the intelligence requisite to know that it was criminal.[105] Other laws, again, regard a certain age _eo ipso_ as a ground of extenuation, its upper limit being fixed sometimes at sixteen,[106] sometimes at eighteen,[107] sometimes at twenty,[108] sometimes at twenty-one.[109] [Footnote 95: Stephen, _op. cit._ ii. 97 _sq._] [Footnote 96: Erskine-Rankine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_, p. 546.] [Footnote 97: Bishop, _Commentaries on the Criminal Law_, § 368, vol. i. 209.] [Footnote 98: Italian _Codice Penale_, art. 53. Spanish _Código Penal reformado_, art. 8, § 2.]