_P._ This is not so distinguished by any statute, but is the _common-law_ only of Sir Edward Coke. I believe not a word of it. If a boy be robbing an appletree, and falleth thence upon a man that stands under it and breaks his neck, but by the same chance saveth his own life, Sir Edward Coke, it seems, will have him hanged for it, as if he had fallen of prepensed malice. All that can be called crime in this business is but a simple trespass, to the damage perhaps of sixpence or a shilling. I confess the trespass was an offence against the law, but the falling was none, nor was it by the trespass but by the falling that the man was slain; and as he ought to be quit of the killing, so he ought to make restitution for the trespass. But I believe the cause of Sir Edward Coke’s mistake was his not well understanding of Bracton, whom he cites in the margin. For, fol. 120 b. lib. iii. cap. 4, he saith thus: _Sed hic erit distinguendum, utrum quis dederit operam rei licitæ, vel illicitæ; si illicitæ, ut si lapidem projiciebat quis versus locum per quem consueverunt homines transitum facere, vel dum insequitur quis equum vel bovem, et aliquis a bove vel equo percussus fuerit, et hujusmodi, hoc imputatur ei_. That is: But here we are to distinguish whether a man be upon a lawful or unlawful business; if an unlawful, as he that throws a stone into a place where men use to pass; or if he chase a horse or an ox, and thereby the man be stricken by the horse or the ox; this shall be imputed to him. And it is most reasonable; for the doing of such an unlawful act as is here meant, is a sufficient argument of a felonious purpose, or at least a hope to kill somebody or other, and he cared not whom, which is worse than to design the death of a certain adversary, which nevertheless is murder. Also, on the contrary, though the business a man is doing be lawful, and it chanceth sometimes that a man be slain thereby, yet may such killing be felony. For if a carman drive his cart through Cheapside in a throng of people, and thereby he kill a man, though he bare him no malice, yet because he saw there was very great danger, it may reasonably be inferred, that he meant to adventure the killing of somebody or other, though not of him that was killed. _L._ He is a felon also that killeth himself voluntarily, and is called, not only by common lawyers, but also in divers statute laws, _felo de se_. _P._ And it is well so; for names imposed by statutes are equivalent to definitions. But I conceive not how any man can bear _animum felleum_, or so much malice towards himself, as to hurt himself voluntarily, much less to kill himself. For naturally and necessarily the intention of every man aimeth at somewhat which is good to himself, and tendeth to his preservation. And therefore, methinks, if he kill himself, it is to be presumed that he is not _compos mentis_, but by some inward torment or apprehension of somewhat worse than death, distracted.