will disclose the like difficulties as occur in the case of libel.'

1As Cousin said, when asked to state in a single sentence the spirit of German philosophy: "These things do not sum themselves up in single sentences."

We subjoin some specimens of the attempts to define libel :

In Wason v. Walter, see in note to § 219, post, the plaintiff, a barrister, gave the following neat designation of libel: "Defamation without legal excuse." We esteem this as the most successful among the many attempts to define libel. (See § 50, post.) It is not infamous matter or words which make a libel; for, if a man speak such words, unless they are written, he is not guilty of the making of a libel; writing is of the essence of a libel. (Ld. Raym. 416.) In order to constitute a libel, the subjectmatter complained of must be a subject of visible perception. But, provided only it be an object of visible perception, a libel does not appear to be confined to any particular form or shape. By the requisite, which is essential to the existence of a libel, that it be an object of visible perception, libel is distinguished from what is technically called defamation or spoken slander. Again: "The words most nearly synonymous to the word libeling, are defaming, disparaging, aspersing, slandering." (George on Libel, pp. 33, 36, 41.)

"A libel is a contumely or reproach, published to the defamation of the government, of a magistrate, or of a private person." (Comyn's Digest.)

A libel is a malicious publication, tending to the disrepute of an individual, the breach of the peace, the seditious violation of the good order of government. (Capel Loft's Essay on Libels, edit. 1785, p. 6.)

The American Encyclopedia, voce Libel, refers to the following definition of libel as the best definition: "A libel is any published defamation." And the same article states the difference between libel and slander to consist in this, that libel is published defamation, and slander is spoken defamation.

Written defamation is otherwise termed libel, and oral defamation slander. (Burrill's Law Dict.)

Defamatory words, written and published, constitute a libel. (Maunder.)

Libel, a word which has many different meanings, but is chiefly known in this country as the name of a department of the law, which, from incidental circumstances, has come to include the naturally distinct heads of written slander, sedition, and outrage against religion. (Encyc. Brit. voce Libel.)

A libel has been usually treated of as scandal, written or expressed by symbols. Libel may be said to be a technical word, deriving its meaning rather from its use than its etymology. (Russell's Treatise on Crimes and Misdemeanors, edit. 1819, p. 308.)

In a strict sense, it [libel] is taken for a malicious defamation, expressed either in printing or writing; in a larger sense, the notion of libel may be applied to any defamation whatsoever, expressed either by signs or pictures, as by affixing up a gallows at a man's door, or by painting him in a shameful and ignominious manner. (Hawkins' Pl. Cr.)

Libel, a criminous report of any man, cast abroad or otherwise unlawfully published in writing, but then, for difference sake, it is called an infamous libelfamosus libellus. (Minshœi: A Guide into the Tongues, &c., London, 1627.) Written or printed slanders are libels. (Bouvier.)

In the indictment against the Seven Bishops the expression libel in writing is used. "All publications injurious to private character or credit of another are libel

22. It is rare, indeed, that we can frame a real, essential definition, but by a definition is sometimes under

ous." (Addison on Wrongs, referred to as a good definition, McNally v. Oldham, 8 Law Times Rep. N. S. 604.)

"A libel is anything of which any one thinks proper to complain." (Essay prefixed to report of Finnerty's Trial, supposed to be from Jeremy Bentham's Writings.) It is also quoted thus: "A libel is anything published upon any matter of anybody, which any one was pleased to dislike." (Attributed to Bentham, cited in pamphlet: Trial of David Lee Child. See,however, Popular Progress in England,446.) A libel is a censorious or ridiculing writing, picture, or sign, made with a mischievous and malicious intent towards government, magistrates, or individuals. (Per Hamilton arg. People v. Crosswell, 3 Johns. Cas. 354; adopted Steele v. Southwick, 9 Johns. 214; Cooper v. Greeley, I Den. 347.)

A libel is a malicious publication in printing, writing, signs, or pictures, imputing to another something which has a tendency to injure his reputation, to disgrace or to degrade him in society, and lower him in the esteem and the opinion of the world, or to bring him into public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. (State v. Jeandell, 5 Harring. [Del.] 475.)

Everything written of another, holding him up to scorn and ridicule, and calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, is a libel. (Torrance v. Hurst, Walker, 403 ; Newbraugh v. Curry, Wright, 47.)

Every publication by writing, printing, or painting, which charges or imputes to any person that which renders him liable to punishment, or which is calculated to make him infamous, odious, or ridiculous, is prima facie a libel, and implies malice in the publisher. (White v. Nicholls, 3 How. U. S. 266.)

A publication, to be a libel, must tend to injure the plaintiff's reputation, and expose him to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule. (Armentrout v. Moranda, 8 Blackf. 426.)

Any publication, the tendency of which is to degrade and injure another person, or to bring him into contempt, hatred, or ridicule, or which accuses him of a crime punishable by law, or of an act odious and disgraceful in society, is a libel. (Dexter v. Spear, 4 Mason, 115.)

A libel is a malicious publication expressed either in printing or writing, or by signs and pictures, tending either to blacken the memory of one dead, or the reputation of one who is alive, and expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. (Commonwealth v. Clapp, 4 Mass. 163, 168. Per Ch. J. Parsons, quoted in Root v. King, 7 Cow. 613.)

A libel is a censorious or ridiculing writing, picture, or sign, made with a mischievous intent. (The State v. Farley, 4 McCord, 317.)

A publication is a libel which tends to injure one's reputation in the common estimation of mankind, to throw contumely or reflect shame and disgrace upon him, or hold him up as an object of hatred, scorn, ridicule, and contempt, although it imputes no crime liable to be punished with infamy, or to prejudice him in his employment. So every publication by writing, printing, or painting, which charges or imputes to any person that which renders him liable to punishment, or which is calculated to make him infamous or odious or ridiculous, is prima facie a libel. (I Hilliard on Torts, ch. vii, § 13.)

Holt, in his treatise, p. 213 [223], defines libel as against private persons thus:

stood such an explanation of a given term as conveys an idea of its connotation, and enables us to distinguish it

"Everything, therefore, written of another which holds him up to scorn and ridicule, that might reasonably (that is, according to our natural passions) be considered as provoking him to a breach of the peace, is a libel." Mr. Mence (Law of Libel, vol. I, p. 120), referring to this passage in Holt, says: "This agrees with his two preceding definitions, and with the common acceptation of the term libel, by making it essential that the subject or object of the attack should be some person or persons but it disagrees with them, by introducing the tendency to provoke a breach of the peace. It follows that, if this be a correct definition, the other two must be defect-ive, because, in one of them, the tendency, or (as is there said) the intent to provoke is required only in cases where the object of the slander is a deceased person, and in that from Lord Coke it is wholly omitted. On the other hand, if the two former definitions be correct, the third must necessarily be inaccurate, for an accurate definition is one which neither omits what is essential, nor admits what is superfluous. *** And it is to be further observed that the third definition disagrees with the two former and the common acceptation of the term libel, not only by introducing the intent or the tendency to provoke, but by leaving out the falsehood and malice. For libel, in common acceptation, signifies written slander; and the term slander and all its synonyms, as defamation, detraction, calumny, even without the epithets malicious and injurious, imply falsehood and malice."

"The familiar acceptation of the word libel is no less simple and intelligible [than the term horse stealing], but the legal and technical use is as if horse stealing stood not only for stealing a horse, but for murder, arson, larceny, and other crimes more or less atrocious; and even for actions not criminal, or of which the criminality is at least doubtful, and not to be measured or ascertained till we have separated them from the greater crimes with which they are confounded. This perverse and cabalistic use of language it is that has given birth to so much of the obscurity with which the law of libel is reproached. And nothing can be easier than to reform it. We have only to consider written challenges to fight as a class by themselves; to class blasphemous writings under the head of blasphemy; obscene and grossly indecent or immoral writings under the head of obscenity; or both these heads, together, under that of offenses immediately against God; seditious writings under the head of sedition; and all other writings denominated libels under the two distinct heads of libels and censure, as they are either tainted with falsehood and malice, or criminal by carrying upon them the manifest intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or by having a tendency, or of being merely suspected of having a tendency, so to do." And, on page 181, he says: "Thus is blasphemy, under the title of libel upon the Christian religion, classed or confounded, as is obscenity also, with crimes (if crimes they be), from which it differs as much, both in kind and degree, as murder does. from picking a pocket or robbing a hen-roost." (I Mence on Libel, 125.)

In several of the States, libel has been defined by statute. Thus, in Maine, it is enacted that "a libel shall be construed to be the malicious defamation of a person, made public either by any printing, writing, sign, picture, representation, or effigy, tending to provoke him to wrath, or expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or to deprive him of the benefits of public confidence and social intercourse; or any malicious defamation, made public as aforesaid, designed to blacken and vilify the memory of one that is dead, and tending to scandalize or provoke his surviving

from, and prevents our confounding it with, any other term of a similar, but not the same, import. When we employ definition in this sense, and for this purpose merely, it ceases to be important whether the definition. adopted be strictly accurate. If we always employ the term in that one predetermined sense, it serves to avoid confusion, and enables us to reason upon it with certainty. Mathematical science is certain, not because its definitions are true, but because they are certain; and legal science is uncertain only because its definitions are uncertain.'

relatives or friends." And in Illinois it is enacted: "A libel is a malicious defamation, expressed either by printing or by signs, or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation, or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him or her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule." Definitions of the like import are to be found in the statute books of some other States.

See Maine Rev. Stat. 1840, ch. clxv, § 1; Iowa Rev. Code of 1851, ch. cli, art. 2767; Arkansas Rev. Stat. 1837, div. VIII, ch. xliv, art. 2, § 1, p. 280; Georgia, Prince's Dig. pp. 643, 644; Hotchk. Dig. p. 739; Cobb's Dig. vol. II, p. 812; California Stat. 1850, ch. xcix, § 120; Illinois Rev. Stat. 1845, Crim. Code, § 120.

1 "Mathematics will, in no greater degree than theology or metaphysics, give us 'certainty by rigid demonstration,' without the assumption of those primary truths which we accept because we are so constituted that we must accept them." (Westminster Review, October, 1864, art. Dr. Newman's Apologia.) The question, What is the foundation of mathematical demonstration? was discussed by Dugald Stewart, and the conclusion at which he arrived was, that the certainty of mathematical reasoning arose from its depending on definitions. And further, that mathematical truth is hypothetical; if the definitions are assumed, the conclusion follows. Mr. Whewell controverts these views. See "The Mechanical Euclid," &c., and Remarks on Mathematical Reasoning, &c., by the Rev. W. Whewell, M. A., and Edinburgh Review, April, 1838.

"Nothing is harder than a definition. While, on the one hand, there is for the most part no easier task than to detect a fault or a flaw in the definition of those who have gone before us, nothing, on the other hand, is more difficult than to propose one of our own which shall not also present a vulnerable side." (Dean Trench. See Burrill's Law Dict. voce Definition, and 2 Wooddes. Lect. 196.)

"The greater portion of all law business arises from the impossibility of giving absolute definitions for things that are not absolute in themselves." (Lieber's Civil Liberty, 23, note.)

Lord Campbell, in describing the effect of Fox's libel act, says it in effect defines a libel to be "a publication which, in the opinion of twelve honest, independent and intelligent men, is mischievous and ought to be punished." (5 Lives of the Chancellors, 350.) And by Lord Kenyon, “A man may publish anything which twelve of his countrymen think is not blamable, but he ought to be punished

We may insure certainty by having definitions which, however defective in other respects, at least admit of our using the terms defined always in one and the same sense, and always so using them. We shall not attempt to construct real definitions of slander and libel, but to definitely mark what is meant when those terms are employed; we define slander and libel as wrongs occasioned by language or effigy that is to say, slander is a wrong occasioned by speech, and libel is a wrong occasioned by writing or effigy.

if he publishes that which is blamable." (Rex v. Cuthell, 27 How. St. Tr. 675.) These observations must be taken as applicable to criminal prosecutions.