It has been a rule of criminal pleading in England down into the
present century, that an indictment for homicide must set forth
the value of the instrument causing the death, in order that the
king or his grantee might claim forfeiture of the deodand, "as an
accursed thing," in the language of Blackstone.

I might go on multiplying examples; but these are enough to show
the remoteness of the points to be brought together.-- As a first
step towards a generalization, it will be necessary to consider
what is to be found in ancient and independent systems of law.

There is a well-known passage in Exodus, /1/ which we shall have
to remember later: "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they
die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not
be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit." When we turn
from the Jews to the Greeks, we find the principle of the passage
just quoted erected into a system. Plutarch, in his Solon, tells
us that a dog that had bitten a man was to be delivered up bound
to a log four cubits long. Plato made elaborate provisions in his
Laws for many such cases. If a slave killed a man, he was to be
given up to the relatives of the deceased. /2/ If he wounded a
man, he was to be given up to the injured party to use him as he
pleased. /3/ So if he did damage to which the injured party did
not contribute as a joint cause. In either case, if the owner [8]
failed to surrender the slave, he was bound to make good the
loss. /1/ If a beast killed a man, it was to be slain and cast
beyond the borders. If an inanimate thing caused death, it was to
be cast beyond the borders in like manner, and expiation was to
be made. /2/ Nor was all this an ideal creation of merely