The Student's Blackstone

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LAWS OF ENGLAND. BOOK THE FIRST. OF THE EIGHTS OF PERSONS. CHAPTER I. OF THE ABSOLUTE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS. The English liberties?Right of personal security?Right of personal liberty? Right of property?Securities for the enjoyment of these rights. The objects of the laws of England are so very numerous and extensive, that in order to consider them with any tolerablj ease and perspicuity, it will be necessary to distribute them methodically, under proper and distinct heads; avoiding as much as possible divisions too large and comprehensive on the one hand, and too trifling and minute on the other; both of which are equally productive of confusion. Now, as municipal law is a rule of civil conduct, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong; it follows, that the primary and principal objects of the law are Rights and Wrongs. In the prosecution therefore of these commentaries, I shall follow this very simple and obvious division; and shall in the first place consider the rights that are commanded, and secondly the wrongs that are forbidden by the laws of England. Rights are, however, liable to another subdivision; being either, first, those which concern and are annexed to the persons of men, and are then called jura personarum, or the rights of persons; or they are, secondly, such as man may acquire over external objects or things unconnected with his person, which are styled jura rerum, or the rights ef things. Wrongs also are divisible into, first, private wrongs, which, being an infringement merely of particulars rights, concern individuals merely, and are called civil injuries; and secondly, public wrongs, which being a breach of general and public rights, affect the whole community, and are called crimes and misdemeanors. The object of...