ignifies the communication of life to an animal body. 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 fetus, he introduced that of a vital and non-vital fetus, as a thing of more obvious and easy decision, and depending on any system either of creation, traducation, or infusion. Accordingly a fetus was formerly said, by legal sense, to be animated when it was perceived to stir in the womb; but this doctrine is exploded, animation being now dated from the moment of conception.