Force

Fr. & Bng. [L. Lat./oreia,fartia; Lat. tn>.] Strength; compulsory power; mere strength or power exercised without law, or contrary to law; violence.*

An offence by which violence

used to persons or things.

Weafs Stfmhoi. part 2, tit. Indictments, § 65.

CowelL Force is now generally used in a bad sense, to denote unlawful force or violence, (rw ivjutta.) Co. Litt. 161 b. CowelL Anciently, however, various kinds of force were recognized; as simple force, and vtolent force; violent force without arms, and violent force with arms, or armed force; lawful force and unlawful force; with many more refined distinctions now obsolete. Bract, fol.

162.

Bracton defines force, {vis,) without any qualifying epithet, to be " the onset or pressure of a greater thing which cannot be resisted," {majoris rei impetus cut resisti non potest. ) Id. ibid. The same author gives as an example of force without violence, that kind of force which was exerted against a thing not at the time in any one's possession, {sicut in rem vacuam.) Id. ibid. So Britton distinguishes between force and arms, and simple force without arms, giving as an instance of the latter, force by a multitude of people; {et si y ad force et armes, ou force simple sauns armes, sicome par multitude de gentz.) Britt. c.

53.

See Force and arms, Vis.