  The problem of determining the electromagnetic and gravitational
``self-force'' on a particle in a curved spacetime is investigated using an
axiomatic approach. In the electromagnetic case, our key postulate is a
``comparison axiom'', which states that whenever two particles of the same
charge $e$ have the same magnitude of acceleration, the difference in their
self-force is given by the ordinary Lorentz force of the difference in their
(suitably compared) electromagnetic fields. We thereby derive an expression for
the electromagnetic self-force which agrees with that of DeWitt and Brehme as
corrected by Hobbs. Despite several important differences, our analysis of the
gravitational self-force proceeds in close parallel with the electromagnetic
case. In the gravitational case, our final expression for the (reduced order)
equations of motion shows that the deviation from geodesic motion arises
entirely from a ``tail term'', in agreement with recent results of Mino et al.
Throughout the paper, we take the view that ``point particles'' do not make
sense as fundamental objects, but that ``point particle equations of motion''
do make sense as means of encoding information about the motion of an extended
body in the limit where not only the size but also the charge and mass of the
body go to zero at a suitable rate. Plausibility arguments for the validity of
our comparison axiom are given by considering the limiting behavior of the
self-force on extended bodies.
