ANIMATION signifies the informing an animal body with a soul.—The different hypotheses of physicians and philosophers, concerning the time of animation, have had their influence on the penal laws made against artificial abortions: it having been made capital to procure miscarriage in the one state, while in the other it was only deemed a venial crime. The emperor Charles V. by a constitution published in 1532, put the matter on another footing; instead of the distinction of an animated and unanimated foetus, he introduced that of a vital and non-vital foetus, as a thing of more obvious and easy decision, and not depending on any system either of creation, traduction, or infusion. Accordingly a foetus is said, in a legal sense, to be animated, when it is perceived to stir in the womb; which usually happens about the middle of the term of gestation.