forged instrument, is conclusively presumed to intend a fraud on the person whose name is forged;1 and a similar rule applies when an unlawful act is wilfully done, producing death.2 Yet it would seem to be going too far to say, that, in all cases of an unlawful act intentionally performed, the presumption as to the consequences is conclusive. The present state of the authorities is not such as admits of an exact rule on this point.*

§ 248 a. Though the matters of evidence mentioned in the last section are such as more properly belong to our work on Criminal Procedure, they are so closely connected with the law itself as to require mention here. They govern the topics not only of the present chapter, but of other chapters also, in this volume. And some of the points to be presented in some succeeding sections are likewise applicable only in part to the principal topic of this chapter. No man is able to reduce any human science to such order as will prevent the necessity of stating some things not strictly in their apparent place.

have real intent as its basis; not to accomplish the precise result, but to do something. Some act of commission or omission lies at the foundation of every crime." The State v. Cooper, 1 Green, N. J. 361, 371.

1 Reg. v. Marcus, 2 Car. & K. 356; Rex v. Mazagora, Russ. & Ry. 291; Reg. v. Cooke, 8 Car. & P. 582; Reg. v. Hill, 8 Car. & P. 274; Reg. v. Hanson, Car. & M. 334; Rex v. Philp, 1 Moody, 263; Reg. v. Beard, 8 Car. & P. 143, 148; Reg. v. Hoatson, 2 Car. & K. 777; United States v. Shellmire, Bald. 370. But see Grafton Bank v. Flanders, 4 N. H. 239, 242.

* Reg. v. Renshaw, 11 Jur. 515, 616; Sir John Chichester's case, Aleyn, 12; Rex v. Shaw, 6 Car. & P. 372; Rex v. Cheeseman, 7 Car. & P. 455; The State v. Smith, 2 Strob. 77; Reg. v. Pitts, Car. & M. 284 ; Rex v. Martin,

3 Car. & P. 211.

The State v. Hildreth, 9 Ired. 429; Wright v. The State, 9 Yerg. 342; Beauchamp v. The State, 6 Blackf. 299; Worley v. The State, 11 Humph. 172; Commonwealth v. Clap, 4 Mass. 163; The State v. Jefferson, 3 Harring. Del. 571. And see The State v. Bullock, 13 Ala. 413; Gibson (a Scotch case), 2 Broun, 366; Reg. v. Jones, 9 Car. & P. 258; Southworth v. The State, 5 Conn. 325; Reg. v. Cruse, 8 Car. & P. 541; Rex v. Mogg, 4 Car. & P. 364.

* See also post, § 513, 514.

§ 249. A man may have several intents, either in law or in fact or in both, accompanying a single act. The rule here is, that, if there exist the intents necessary to constitute the of fence, and likewise intents not necessary, the latter do not vitiate the former, which are sufficient. Thus, under the English statutes against demolishing houses, if one object of a mob attacking a house is to injure a person in it; yet, if another and even inferior object is to demolish the house, the offence is committed in consequence of this inferior intent.2 So if one, with the principal purpose of robbing another, attacks him; and, to accomplish more easily the robbery, wounds him with intent to do him grievous bodily harm,the latter intent, though secondary to the former, is within the statute on the latter subject. The same rule applies where the chief aim of the prisoner is to prevent his own lawful apprehension. "If both intents existed, it was immaterial which was the principal, and which the secondary one." 4

§ 250. Also one who has knowingly obstructed a public officer in the discharge of his duty, cannot defend himself, when indicted, by showing that his object was the personal chastisement of the officer.5 And when a man does the thing prohibited, moved by the intent which the law forbids, it is of no avail for him that he also intended an ultimate good. Thus, on an indictment for obstructing a navigable

1 Rex v. Cox, Russ. & Ry. 362, 1 Leach, 4th ed. 71; Reg. v. Hill, 2 Moody, 30; Rex v. Batt, 6 Car. & P. 329; Reg. v. Johnson, 11 Mod. 62; Reg. v. Geach, 9 Car. & P. 499; Rex v. Hayward, Russ. & Ry. 78; Commonwealth v. McPike, 3 Cush. 181; The State v. Cocker, 3 Harring. Del. 554; The State v. Moore, 12 N. H. 42; Rex v. Davis, 1 Car. & P. 306.

2 Rex v. Batt, 6 Car. & P. 329; Reg. v. Howell, 9 Car. & P. 437; Rex v. Price, 5 Car. & P. 510.

8

Reg. v. Bowen, Car. & M. 149; Commonwealth v. Martin, 17 Mass. 359; Rex v. Shadbolt, 5 Car. & P. 504.

4 * Rex v. Gillow, 1 Moody, 85, 1 Lewin, 57. But see, as to the doctrine

of the text, Rex v. Williams, 1 Leach, 4th ed. 529.

United States v. Keen, 5 Mason, 453.

river, the defendant cannot show, that, in other respects, and on the whole, his act worked an advantage to its navigation;1 or, for obstructing a road, that he opened a better way;2 or, for the nuisance of erecting a wharf on public property, that the erection was beneficial to the public; or, for uttering a forged bill, that he intended to provide for its payment; or, for passing a counterfeit bank-note, that he promised to take it back if it proved not to be genuine.5 In these cases, the forbidden intent must be fairly deducible from the facts and proofs.6

§ 250 a. The cases just stated are only illustrations of a broader doctrine, to be discussed in a future chapter.7

§ 251. There are some crimes requiring, for their constitution, the concurrence of two or more separate intents; as an intent to do wrong in general, or do a particular wrong, with an ulterior purpose beyond. Thus in larceny there must be, first, an intent to trespass on another's personal property; secondly, this not being alone sufficient, there must be added the further intent to deprive the owner of his ownership therein. So burglary consists of the intent, which must be

8

1 Rex v. Ward, 4 A. & E. 384, overruling Rex v. Russell, 6 B. & C. 566. And see Reg. v. Betts, 16 Q. B. 1022, 1037; Rex v. Watts, Moody & M. 281; Works v. Junction Railroad, 5 McLean, 425.

* Commonwealth v. Belding, 13 Met. 10.

6 Reg. v. Price, 9 Car. & P. 729; Rex v. Boyce, 1 Moody, 29; Rex v. Holt, 7 Car. & P. 518; Rex v. Price, Car. & P. 510; Rex v. Jarvis, 2 Moody & R. 40; Rex v. Hayward, Russ. & Ry. 78; Rex v. Bailey, Russ. & Ry. 1; Rex v. Williams, 1 East P. C. 424; Reg. v. Sullivan, Car. & M.

209.

* Post, § 529 et seq.

Rex v. Crump, 1 Car. & P. 658; Rex v. Dickinson, Russ. & Ry. 420; McDaniel v. The State, 8 Sm. & M. 401.

'Reg. v. Godfrey, 8 Car. & P. 563; Rex v. Wilkinson, Russ. & Ry. 470; The State v. Hawkins, 8 Port. 461.

executed, to break in the night time into a dwelling-house; and the further concurrent intent, which may be executed or not, to commit therein some crime which in law is felony.1 In these and other like cases,2 the particular or ulterior intent must be proved, in addition to the more general one, in order to make out the offence; and nothing will answer as a substitute.

§ 252. But aside from these and other special doctrines, the rule is, that, if a man intends to do what he is conscious the law, which every one is conclusively presumed to know,3 forbids, there need not be any other evil intent.1 As already stated, it is of no avail to him that he means, at the same time, an ultimate good. Human law may, in fact, conflict with the divine law; and, whenever it does, the divine must prevail, in the court of conscience, over the human. But the tribunals, while they enforce the human, cannot at the same time admit that it is counter to the divine; for thus they would acknowledge the human to be both practically and theoretically a nullity. Because, as the stream cannot rise higher than the fountain, so neither can any thing with the semblance of law be superior to the First Cause and Source

1 Rex v. Dobbs, 2 East P. C. 513; 2 East P. C. 509, 514; J. Kel. 47; Anonymous, Dalison, 22.

2 Rex v. Gnosil, 1 Car. & P. 304; Reg. v. Ryan, 2 Moody & R. 213; The · State v. Absence, 4 Port. 397; Rex v. Kelly, 1 Crawf. & Dix C. C. 186; Morgan v. The State, 13 Sm. & M. 242; Rex v. Shaw, Russ. & Ry. 526; Reg. v. Morris, 9 Car. & P. 89.

3 Ante, § 238.

Walls v. The State, 7 Blackf. 572; The State v. Presnell, 12 Ired. 103; Forsythe v. The State, 6 Ohio, 19; The State v. Nixon, 18 Vt. 70; The State v. Hunter, 8 Blackf. 212; Shover v. The State, 5 Eng. 259; Brittin v. The State, 5 Eng. 299; Rex v. Johnson, 11 Mod. 62; Rex v. Jones, 2 B. & Ad. 611; Needham v. The State, 1 Texas, 139; Reg. v. Tivey, 1 Car. & K. 704; Perdue v. The State, 2 Humph. 494; Reg. v. Price, 3 Per. & D. 421, 11 A. & E. 727; Rex v. Fursey, 6 Car. & P. 81; Kelly v. Commonwealth, 11 S. & R. 345; Reg. v. Holroyd, 2 Moody & R. 339; The State v. Hart, 4 Ired. 246.

6 Ante, § 250.

1

of all law and all existence. A judicial decision based on the proposition that a particular legislative enactment is contrary to the law of God, would be a decision, in another form of words, that the enactment itself is a nullity. And to permit a man to plead in his justification such contrariety would only be in effect to receive a plea, that the act of the lawmaking power is void; and a plea that he believed in a Divine law, contrary to a statute which the court deemed valid, would be only a plea, in other terms, that he was ignorant of the law of the land. Ignorance of the law of the land, we have seen,1 no man is permitted to set up. Therefore it is not a justification in any human tribunal, for the defendant to show, that there is a law higher than the law administered by the court, forbidding him to obey the law of the court; further than such showing may tend to shake the legal validity of the latter. Upon this point, Baron Hume observes, "the practice of all countries is agreed." The rule lies necessarily at the foundation of all jurisprudence ; yet, necessary though it is, it has shed the innocent blood of almost all the host of martyrs who have laid down their lives for conscience' sake.

§ 253. We should here bear in mind, what we have already somewhat considered,5 that nothing short of the intent to do a forbidden thing will make a man criminal. Where such intent is wanting, he commits no offence in law, though he does acts completely within all the words of a statute which prohibits the acts, being silent concerning the intent. And there are cases in which something even more than this is necessary. For example, the English statute 12 Geo. 3, c. 48, § 1, makes it felony to write any matter or thing liable to stamp duty upon paper on which had previ