על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ג י״טOn the Special Laws, Book III 19
א׳
1[104] Enough has been said for the present on the subject of poisoners, but we must not fail to observe that occasions often arise unsought in which a man commits murder without having come with this purpose in his mind or with any preparations, but has been carried away by anger, that intractable and malignant passion so highly injurious both to him who entertains it and to him against whom it is directed.
ב׳
2[105] Sometimes a man goes to the market-place through stress of business; he meets another of the more headstrong kind who sets about abusing or striking him, or it may be that he himself begins the quarrel; then when they have set to, he wishes to break off and escape quickly; he smites the other with his clenched fist or takes up a stone and throws it.
ג׳
3[106] Suppose that the blow strikes home, then if his opponent dies at once, the striker too must die and be treated as he has treated the other, but if that other is not killed on the spot by the blow, but is laid up with sickness and after keeping his bed and receiving the proper care gets up again and goes abroad, even though he is not sound on his feet and can only walk with the support of others or leaning on a staff, the striker must be fined twice over, first to make good the other’s enforced idleness and secondly to compensate for the cost of his cure.
ד׳
4[107] This payment will release him from the death-penalty, even if the sufferer from the blow subsequently dies. For as he got better and walked abroad, his death may be due not to the blow but to other causes which often suddenly attack and put an end to persons whose bodily health is as sound as possible.
ה׳
5[108] If a man comes to blows with a pregnant woman and strikes her on the belly and she miscarries, then, if the result of the miscarriage is unshaped and undeveloped, he must be fined both for the outrage and for obstructing the artist Nature in her creative work of bringing into life the fairest of living creatures, man. But, if the offspring is already shaped and all the limbs have their proper qualities and places in the system,
ו׳
6[109] he must die, for that which answers to this description is a human being, which he has destroyed in the laboratory of Nature who judges that the hour has not yet come for bringing it out into the light, like a statue lying in a studio requiring nothing more than to be conveyed outside and released from confinement.