ABSTRACT
The physical integrity which has to be claimed for each, may at the one extreme be destroyed by violence, and at the other extreme interfered with by the nausea which a neighbouring nuisance causes. It is a self-evident corollary from the law of equal freedom that, leaving other restraints out of consideration, each man’s actions must be so restrained as not directly to inflict bodily injury, great or small, on any other. As fast as the social life of smaller groups or clans, merged into the social life of larger groups or nations, the idea of injury to the nation began to replace that of injury to the clan ; and at first part, and eventually the whole, of the fine or amercement payable by one who had committed an assault, went to the State; and this usage still survives. One more trespass against physical integrity is that which consists in the communication of disease.
