[Footnote 15: Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 578. Geyer, _op. cit._ p. 88. Brunner, _Forschungen zur Geschichte des deutschen und französischen Rechtes_, p. 499.] [Footnote 16: _Laws of [Hv]ammurabi_, 218.] [Footnote 17: _Numbers_, xxxv. 16 _sqq._ _Deuteronomy_, xix. 4 _sqq._] [Footnote 18: _Exodus_, xxi. 28-32, 35 _sq._ _Cf._ _Laws of [Hv]ammurabi_, 250 _sqq._] [Footnote 19: Rabbinowicz, _Législation criminelle du Talmud_, p. 173 _sqq._] [Footnote 20: _Ibid._ p. 174. Benny, _Criminal Code of the Jews according to the Talmud Massecheth Synhedrin_, p. 115 _sq._] [Footnote 21: Pollock and Maitland, _op. cit._ ii. 474, n. 4.] [Footnote 22: _Three Early Assize Rolls for the County of Northumberland_, p. 96 _sq._] [Footnote 23: Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine_, p. 295.] Modern laws generally hold a person liable for harm caused by him through want of ordinary care and foresight, and it depends on the nature of the case whether he will have to pay damages or to suffer punishment. Yet, as we have previously noticed, his punishment is determined not only by the degree of carelessness of which he was guilty or the danger to which he exposed his fellow-men, but, largely, by the harm resulting; whereas, if nobody happens to be hurt, little notice is taken of his fault. To such an extent are men's judgments in these matters influenced by external facts, that even nowadays many among ourselves will hold a person answerable for all the damage which directly ensues from an act of his, even though no foresight could have reasonably been expected {309} to look out for it.[24] Not long ago there were plausible, if insufficient, grounds adduced for asserting that in English courts a plea that there was neither negligence nor an intent to do harm was no answer to an action which charged the defendant with having hurt the plaintiff's body.[25] And of late years attacks have been made by continental jurists upon the Roman principle that there is no liability where there is no fault[26]--a principle which, more or less modified, has been adopted by modern laws.[27] Although they take pains to point out the difference between punishment and indemnification, the very language they use indicates the quasi-ethical basis on which their theory rests. It is only just, they say, that he who has caused the evil should compensate for it, since the injured party "is still much more innocent than he." And the "sense of justice" is appealed to for compelling a man who faints in the street and in the fall happens to break some fragile articles to indemnify the owner for his loss.[28] Thus, whilst loss from accident is generally allowed to lie where it falls, an exception is made where the instrument of misfortune is a human being. This is a most unreasonable exception, but one not difficult to explain. People are ready to blame a person who commits a harmful deed, whether he deserves blame or not; at the same time they