the privation or absence of knowledge. The causes of ignorance, according to Locke, are chiefly these three; first, want of ideas; secondly, want of a discoverable connection between those ideas we have; and, thirdly, want of tracing and examining our ideas.

**Ignorance**, in a more particular sense, is used to denote want of learning.

**Ignorance**, or mistake, in Law, a defect of will, by which a person is excused from the guilt of a crime, when, intending to do a lawful act, he does that which is unlawful. For here the deed and the will acting separately, there is not that conjunction between them which is necessary to constitute a criminal act. But this must be an ignorance or mistake of fact, and not an error in point of law. For a mistake in point of law, which every person of discretion not only may, but is bound and presumed to know, is, in criminal cases, no sort of defence. *Ignorantia juris, quod quisque tenet se scire, neminem excusat*, is as well the maxim of our own law as it was of the Roman.