The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Anatomy of Suicide, by Forbes Winslow

Vide p. [331].

THE
ANATOMY OF SUICIDE:

BY
FORBES WINSLOW,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON;
AUTHOR OF “PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.”

“But is there yet no other way, besides

These painful passages; how we may come

To death, and mix with our connatural dust?

Nor love thy life, nor hate: but what thou liv’st

Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.”

Milton.

London:
HENRY RENSHAW, 356, STRAND.
SOLD BY CARFRAE & SON, EDINBURGH;
AND FANNIN & CO., DUBLIN.
1840.

TO
JAMES JOHNSON, ESQ., M.D.
PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO THE LATE KING,
ETC. ETC.
This Work is dedicated,
AS A TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR HIS HIGH PROFESSIONAL ATTAINMENTS,
AND AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE
ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM A PERUSAL OF THE MANY ABLE WORKS
WITH WHICH HE HAS ENRICHED
THE MEDICAL LITERATURE OF HIS COUNTRY.

London,—May, 1840.

PREFACE.

This treatise had its origin in the following circumstance:—A few months ago, the author had the honour of reading before the Westminster Medical Society, a paper on “Suicide Medically considered,” which giving rise to an animated discussion, and evolving an expression of the opinions of several eminent professional men, excited at the time much interest.

It was the author’s object in his paper to establish a fact, he believes, of primary importance,—that the disposition to commit self-destruction is, to a great extent, amenable to those principles which regulate our treatment of ordinary disease; and that, to a degree more than is generally supposed, it originates in derangement of the brain and abdominal viscera.

Notwithstanding, however, these points were not considered with the minuteness commensurate with their value, the discussion which followed the author’s communication afforded him great satisfaction. It tended to strengthen in his mind an opinion previously formed, that the members of the medical profession were inferior to no other class in a knowledge of those higher branches of philosophy that give dignity and elevation to human character.

To explain more fully the author’s views on the subject of Suicide is the object of the present work, which is, strange to say, the first in England that has been exclusively devoted to this important and interesting branch of inquiry.

Hitherto suicide has been the theme of the novel and the drama, and has never, with the exception of an incidental notice in works on medical jurisprudence, been considered in this country in reference to its pathological and physiological character.

That an intimate acquaintance with this branch of knowledge is highly important to the medical philosopher, few will deny; that it is a subject of general and painful interest, all must admit. The apparent coolness with which suicide is often committed has induced many to suppose that the unfortunate perpetrator was at the time in possession of a sound mind; and it is this idea which has induced the profession to conceive the subject as one foreign to their pursuits, and belonging rather to the province of the moral philosopher. How far the author has succeeded in disproving this opinion, it is for others to decide.

He takes this opportunity of acknowledging the assistance he has received from the writings of Pinel, Esquirol, Falret, Fodére, Arnold, Crichton, Willis, Black, Haslam, Burrows, Conolly, Pritchard, Mayo, Ellis, Paris, Smith, Beck, Taylor, and Ray. To the pages of Dr. Johnson’s Medico-chirurgical Review, the Medical Gazette, the Lancet, and British and Foreign Medical Review, he is also largely indebted.

In conclusion, the author, conscious of its imperfections, claims for his work no other praise than that it is the first attempt in this country to reflect light on a branch of medical and moral philosophy, the importance of which is only equalled by the difficulties impeding its investigation. He will feel himself amply repaid, should his introductory essay (for such only can it be considered) stimulate others more competent than himself to prosecute the inquiry which he has commenced. Their success will afford him much satisfaction and pleasure; for in the attainment of their endeavours will his hopes be fulfilled, and his ambition gratified.

London,—May, 1840.

CONTENTS.

ERRATA.

Page 46, for “mens conscia” &c. read mens sana in corpore sano, and for “Horace” read Juvenal.

ANATOMY OF SUICIDE.

CHAPTER I.
SUICIDES OF THE ANCIENTS.—ANCIENT LAWS AND OPINIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF SUICIDE.

Examples of antiquity no defence of suicide—Causes of ancient suicides—The suicides of Asdrubal, Nicocles, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Hannibal, Mithridates, the inhabitants of the city of Xanthus, Cato, Charondas, Lycurgus, Codrus, Themistocles, Emperor Otho, Brutus and Cassius, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Petronius, Lucan, Lucius Vetus, Sardanapalus, M. Curtius, Empedocles, Theoxena—Noble resistance of Josephus—Scripture suicides: Samson, Saul, Ahitophel, Judas Iscariot, Eleazar, Razis—Doctrines of the stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, Zeno—Opinions of Cicero, Pliny, on suicide—Ancient laws on suicide.

Human actions are more under the influence of example than precept; consequently, suicide has often been justified by an appeal to the laws and customs of past ages. An undue reverence for the authority of antiquity induces us to rely more upon what has been said or done in former times, than upon the dictates of our own feelings and judgement. Many have formed the most extravagant notions of honour, liberty, and courage, and, under the impression that they were imitating the noble example of some ancient hero, have sacrificed their lives. They urge in their defence that suicide has been enjoined by positive laws, and allowed by ancient custom; that the greatest and bravest nation in the world practised it; and that the most wise and virtuous sect of philosophers taught that it was an evidence of courage, magnanimity, and virtue. There is no mode of reasoning so fallacious as that which is constantly appealing to examples. A man who has made up his mind to the adoption of a particular course can easily discover reasons to justify himself in carrying out his preconceived opinions. If a contemplated action, abstractedly considered, be good, cases may be of service in illustrating it. There must be some test by which to form a correct estimate of the justness or lawfulness of human actions; and until we are agreed as to what ought to constitute that standard, examples are perfectly useless. No inferences deduced from the consideration of the suicides of antiquity can be logically applied to modern instances. We live under a Christian dispensation. Our notions of death, of honour, and of courage, are, in many respects, so dissimilar from those which the ancients entertained, that the subject of suicide is placed entirely on a different basis. In the early periods of history, self-destruction was considered as an evidence of courage; death was preferred to dishonour. These principles were inculcated by celebrated philosophers, who exercised a great influence over the minds of the people; and, in many instances, the act of self-immolation constituted a part of their religion. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that so many men, eminent for their genius, and renowned for their valour, should, under such circumstances, have sacrificed themselves?

The famous suicides of antiquity generally resulted from one of three causes:—First, it was practised by those who wished to avoid pain and personal suffering of body and mind; secondly, when a person considered the act as a necessary vindication of his honour; and thirdly, when life was sacrificed as an example to others.

The first class is the most excusable of the three. Pain, physical or mental, puts a man’s courage severely to the test. He may have to choose between the alternative of years of unmitigated anguish, or an immediate release from torture. Need we feel surprise at many resorting to the latter alternative, when they have been taught to believe death either to be an eternal sleep, or a sure entrance into regions of happiness!

How many instances have we on record of persons who have dispatched themselves to avoid falling into the hands of an enemy! The case of the wife of Asdrubal, the Carthaginian general, is a famous instance of the kind. Asdrubal had deserted his post, and had fled to Scipio; and during his absence his wife took shelter with her troops in the temple, which she set on fire. She then attired herself in her richest robes, and holding her two children in her hands, addressed Scipio—who had surrounded the building with his troops—in the following language:—“You, O Roman, are only acting according to the laws of open war; but may the gods of Carthage, and those in concert with them, punish that false wretch who, by such a base desertion, has betrayed his country, his gods, his wife, his children! Let him adorn thy gay triumph; let him suffer in the sight of all Rome those indignities and tortures he so justly merits!”

The case of Nicocles, King of Paphos, in Cyprus, who committed suicide in conjunction with his wife and daughter, on the approach of King Ptolemy, is another in point. Isocrates, the celebrated Athenian orator, starved himself to death, sooner than submit to the dominion of Philip of Macedon. Demosthenes also poisoned himself, when Antipater, Alexander’s ambassador, required the Athenians to deliver up their orators, fearful of being subjected to slavery and disgrace.

The persecution to which the Romans subjected Hannibal, after he was oppressed with years and sunk in obscurity, impelled him to have recourse to the poison which he always kept about him in a ring, against sudden emergencies. Mithridates took poison, and administered the same to his wives and daughters, in order to escape being taken prisoner by Pompey, before whose victorious arms he had been compelled to fly.

The case of the inhabitants of the city of Xanthus is another remarkable instance of the determination exhibited by thousands of persons, resolved sooner to die by their own hands than submit to the dominion of a conqueror. Notwithstanding the proffered clemency of Brutus, who not only wept at the dreadful scene he witnessed, but commanded his soldiers to extinguish the fire, and even offered a reward for every inhabitant whose life was saved, the people were so eager for death that they rushed into the flames with exclamations of delight, and forceably drove back the soldiers who were sent by Brutus for the purpose of saving their lives.

The example of Cato is applauded by some writers as a proof of magnanimity; the action was the reverse; it was the effect of pride and timidity. If ever Rome required his experience and patriotic counsels it was at that very period. To desert the duty which Rome had a right to demand by a voluntary death was the meanest conduct in his character. It stamped an indelible stain on his reputation, which only a supposition that his intellect was impaired could rationally excuse. It was not the virtuous Cato who had stemmed the torrent of tyranny, who had crushed the Cataline conspiracy, who had given the most noble examples of virtuous resolution and rectitude in moral conduct, but the enfeebled Cato, sinking under the accumulation of evils, whose soul was depressed with suspense and distracting passions, waiting an opportunity for revenge, or preparing to finish his life on the first disappointment.

If such examples were admitted magnanimous, in any serious quarrel or war, where success could not be commanded, it might be considered laudable to commit suicide. The consequences of such reasoning would be obvious. On such occasions, countries would lose their bravest generals, private families their noblest and most experienced supporters.

“If I cannot acquire what I wish,” says Cato, “I will kill myself; I will not live to grace Cæsar’s triumph, though I know Cæsar to be the most generous and clement of conquerors; I cannot consent to receive Cæsar’s favours. My pride is wounded; my fears destroy all tranquillity; my body is sinking under adversity; I will not dedicate my services to my distressed country under the auspices of successful Cæsar. I will plunge a sword into my bosom, and commit an injustice to myself, which through a long life I never committed to others. From the uniformity of my former patriotic character, writers, without deep reasoning, will paint this concluding action in glowing colours; they will give additional lustre to an immortal reputation.” Such, we conceive, were the secret springs of action in Cato’s mind; such were the contending passions which excited the delirium. It was not the placid, judicious Cato of former years, but the depressed Cato, impos mentis, committing a rash action, contrary to all his former great reasoning, and virtuous persevering conduct. It was, in fact, Cato’s act of insanity; it was not dying to serve his country, but to effectually rob Cæsar of his eminent services; it therefore appears more the effect of private pique and despondency than a demonstration of public virtue or courage. Had all others concerned in that civil war followed this extraordinary example, the country would have been robbed of many of its brightest ornaments. Cato could not say with Horace, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” for it was not for his countrymen that he died, but to gratify a selfish caprice, a personal resentment and hatred to Cæsar and his power. Had Cæsar attacked the city while Cato enjoyed a vigour of mind and body, and when the citizens were better disciplined and less corrupt, he would have despised such inglorious conduct; he would rather have hoped for some future opportunity to dispel the dark clouds overwhelming the distracted country.

Physicians have frequent opportunities of observing the diminution of human courage and wisdom from long continued misfortunes, or bodily infirmities. The most lively, spirited, and enterprising, have become depressed from reiterated disappointment; cowardice and despair have succeeded to the most unquestionable bravery and ambition. The man is then changed; his blood is changed; and with these his former sentiments. The timidity is no longer Cato’s, but belongs to the miserable debilitated body of Cato, which had lost that vigorous soul that so eminently distinguished on other important occasions this excellent and divine patriot.

La Motte observes, with reference to Cato’s death—

“Stern Cato, with more equal soul, Had bowed to Cæsar’s wide control, With Rome, had to her conqueror bowed, But that his spirit, rough and proud, Had not the courage to await A pardoned foe’s too humbling fate.”

Voltaire, in alluding to the lines quoted above, says, “It was, I believe, because Cato’s soul was always equal, and retained to the last its love for his country and her laws, that he chose rather to perish with her than to crouch to the tyrant. He died as he had lived.

“Incapable of surrendering, and to whom? to the enemy of Rome—to the man who had forcibly robbed the public treasury in order to make war upon his fellow citizens, and enslave them by means of their own money. A pardoned foe! It seems as if La Motte Houdart was speaking of some revolted subject who might have obtained his Majesty’s pardon by letters in chancery. It seems (continues Voltaire) rather absurd to say that Cato slew himself through weakness. None but a strong mind can thus surmount the most powerful instinct of nature. This strength is sometimes that of frenzy; but a frantic man is not weak.”

In forming an estimate of the condition of Cato’s mind, we must not look at him as delineated by the dramatist and poet, but as exhibited by the historian and philosopher. Our notions of Cato are too often based on Addison’s, and not Plutarch’s description of his character. That Cato was one of the most complete and perfect examples in antiquity of private manners and of public spirit cannot be questioned; and therefore, in this respect, worthy to be held up as an example. Sallust thus eulogizes Cato:—“His glory can neither be increased by flattery nor lessened by detraction. He was one who chose to be, rather than to appear good. He was the very image of virtue, and in all points of disposition more like the gods than men. He never did right that he might seem to do right, but because he could not do otherwise. That only seemed to be reasonable which was just. Free from all human vices, he was superior to the vicissitudes of fortune.” It was the dignity of Cato’s life that stamped a celebrity on the mode of his death.

In forming a judgment of the motives which led this distinguished man to sacrifice his life, we must look at him in connexion with his great enemy, Cæsar. He was not only opposed to him on public, but on private grounds. Cæsar’s intimacy with Servilia, Cato’s sister, was the ground of much conversation at Rome. During one of the debates concerning the Cataline conspiracy, Cæsar received a letter whilst he was in the senate house. Cato, who had intimated that Cæsar had been privy to Cataline’s proceedings, and believing that the letter might refer to the subject, from the manner in which Cæsar endeavoured to conceal it, demanded that it should be handed over to him. The letter was accordingly handed to Cato, when, perceiving that it was a letter from Servilia to Cæsar, full of protestations of love to his deadliest enemy, he threw it at Cæsar in a great rage, and called him a drunkard. This, added to the circumstance of Cæsar’s complete triumph over him, induced Cato to put an end to his own life. He did not commit suicide to defeat usurpation, or to preserve the liberties and laws of Rome, but it was done when he despaired of his country. It arose from his horror of tyranny, and the feeling of intolerable shame at the prospect of a long life under an arbitrary master. The superstructure of years was in a moment levelled to the dust. He had to choose between death or slavery. After the defeat at Thapsus, and hearing that Cæsar was marching against him, Lucius Cæsar offered to intercede for Cato. His answer was as follows:—“If I would save my life, I ought to go myself; but I will not be beholden to the tyrant for any act of his injustice; and ’tis unjust for him to pretend to pardon those as a lord over whom he has no lawful power.” Although it was evident he was bent upon suicide, he persuaded his son to go to Cæsar, and cautioned his friend Statilius, whom Plutarch calls “a known Cæsar-hater,” not to kill himself, but to submit to the conqueror. He then entered into a discussion concerning liberty, which he carried on so violently that his friends were apprehensive that he would lay hands on himself. In consequence of this, his son removed his sword. Cato is then represented as reading Plato’s Phædo, and then calling for his sword, which they refused to bring him. He called a second and third time, and in a fit of rage he struck the servant, and wounded him, and by doing so, injured his own hand, which prevented him from effectually killing himself with his weapon. After he had stabbed himself, his wound was dressed; but so determined was he to sacrifice his life, that he tore open the wound forcibly, and pulled his bowels out, and thus effected his purpose.[1]

It has been said that Addison approved of Cato’s self-murder. This does not appear to be the fact, if we are to judge from the words which he has put in the mouth of the dying hero—

“I am sick to death; oh, when shall I get loose From this vain world, the abode of guilt and sorrow! And yet methinks a beam of light breaks in On my departing soul. Alas, I fear I have been too hasty! O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not: The best may err, but you are good, and—(dies.)”

Two celebrated instances amongst the Grecians of men who voluntarily sacrificed their lives in order to maintain the dignity and importance of their own institutions, are exhibited in the cases of Charondas and Lycurgus. The former, in order to encourage a proper freedom of debate, had made it death to come armed into the assembly of the states. One day, coming himself in haste to a convention without having first laid aside his sword, he was rebuked by some one present, as a transgressor of his own laws. Stung with the justice of the imputation, he instantly plunged the sword into his own heart, both as a sacrifice to the violated majesty of the law, and a tremendous example of disinterested justice; trusting, moreover, thus to seal with his own blood a strict observance in others of his wholesome institutions.

When Lycurgus had accomplished his great work of legislation in Sparta, he took the following method of rendering his system unchangeable and immortal. He stated that it was necessary that he should consult the Delphian oracle relative to his new laws. He then made all the Spartan magistrates and people take a solemn oath that they would observe and keep his laws inviolate “till his return.” He accordingly went to consult the oracle, and having sent back the answer in writing to Sparta, “That the laws were excellent, and would render the people great and happy who should observe them,” he resolved never to return himself, in order that the people might never be absolved from their oath. He accordingly starved himself to death. Plutarch considers that Lycurgus reasoned himself into the act, under the belief that a good statesman and patriot should seek to make his death itself in some way useful to his country. The same authority considers that he intended the mode of his death to be a practical illustration of the great principle which pervaded the whole code of his laws, which was—temperance.

Alike honourable, in a worldly point of view, was the death of Codrus, King of Athens. The oracle was consulted with reference to the condition of the country. That nation was predicted to be prosperous whose king should be first slain by the enemy. Codrus disguised himself as a private soldier, and entered the enemy’s camp, where he contrived to pick a quarrel with the first man he met, whom he permitted to slay him; thus, for the good of his country, courting his own death.

Themistocles is said to have poisoned himself rather than lead on the Persian army against his own countrymen, although fame, wealth, and honour were within his grasp.

The Emperor Otho, to avoid the further sacrifice of life in the imperial contest, resolved to die by his own hands, notwithstanding his troops implored and beseeched him to lead them on to a second engagement in which victory was almost certain. King Otho’s answer to the demand of his soldiers is considered to embody the spirit of true Roman heroism—“Deny me not the glory of laying down my own life to preserve yours. The more hope there is left, the more honourable is my early retirement; since it is by my death alone that I can prevent the further effusion of Roman blood, and restore peace and tranquillity to a distracted empire, by being ready to die for its peace and security.”[2]

Two of the most distinguished men of antiquity who sacrificed their own lives were Brutus and Cassius. Before their battle with Cæsar on the plains of Philippi, these two warriors had a conversation on suicide. Cassius asked Brutus what his opinions were on the subject of self-destruction, provided fortune did not favour them in the contest in which they were about to be engaged. Brutus replied, that formerly he had embraced such sentiments as induced him to condemn Cato for killing himself; he deemed it an act of irreverence towards the gods, and that it was no evidence of courage. But he continues, “Now, in the midst of dangers, I am quite of another mind.” He then proceeds to tell Cassius of his determination to surrender up his life “on the Ides of March.” He states no particular reasons for having changed his opinions on the subject of suicide. The issue of the battle is well known. Many things conspired to damp the courage of Cassius and Brutus. In imitation of Cæsar, Brutus made a public lustration for his army in the field, and during the ceremony an unlucky omen is said to have happened to Cassius. The garland he was to wear at the sacrifice was given to him the wrong side outwards; the person, also, who bore the golden image before Cassius stumbled, and the image fell to the ground. Several birds of prey hovered about his camp, and swarms of bees were seen within the trenches. Cassius, believing in the Epicurean philosophy, considered all these circumstances as disheartening omens of his fate. After the defeat of Cassius, he ordered his freedman to kill him, which he did by severing his head from his body.

Plutarch makes Brutus die most stoically. After having taken an affectionate leave of his friends, and having assured them that he was only angry with fortune for his country’s sake, since he esteemed himself in his death more happy than his conquerors, he advised them to provide for their own safety. He then retired, and, with the assistance of Strato, he ran his sword through his body. Dion Cassius (Lib. xlvii.) represents Brutus as far from acting the stoic at his last moments. He is said just before his death to have quoted the following passage from Euripides—“O wretched virtue! thou art a bare name! I mistook thee for a substance; but thou thyself art the slave of fortune.”

In considering the motives that induced Brutus to destroy himself, we must not forget to take into calculation the effect which the apparition he saw previous to the battle of Philippi must have had on his mind. Brutus was naturally watchful, sparing in his diet, and allowed himself but little time for sleep. He never retired to rest, day or night, until he had arranged all his business. At this time, involved as he was in the operations of war, and solicitous for the event, he only slumbered a little after supper, and spent the remainder of the night in attending to his most urgent affairs. When these were dispatched, he occupied himself in reading till the third watch, when the tribunes and centurions came to him for orders. Thus, a little before he left Asia, he was sitting alone in his tent, by a dim light, at a late hour. The whole army lay in sleep and silence, while Brutus, wrapped in meditation, thought he perceived something enter his tent; turning towards the door, he saw a monstrous and horrible spectre standing by the side of his bed. “What art thou?” said he, boldly. The spectre answered, “I am thy evil genius, Brutus! Thou wilt see me at Philippi.” To which he calmly replied, “I’ll meet thee there.” In the morning he communicated to Cassius what he had seen. Cassius, who was an Epicurean, had often disputed with Brutus on the subject of apparitions. He said, when he had heard the statement of Brutus, that the spectre was not a spirit, but a real being; and argued at considerable length on the subject, and induced the general to think that his fate was decided. There can be no doubt but that this singular presentiment co-operated with other circumstances in inducing Brutus to fall by his own hands.[3]

Amongst the ancient suicides, those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra deserve especial consideration. It is not our purpose to enter into an elaborate history of these celebrated characters, but merely to refer to those circumstances that had an immediate connexion with their last moments.

Three circumstances acted powerfully on Antony’s mind in inducing him to seek a voluntary death. The first was his having been defeated by Cæsar; the second, the idea that Cleopatra had betrayed him; and the third was the belief in Cleopatra’s death.

As soon as Antony was defeated, the unhappy queen fled to her monument, ordered all the doors to be barred, and commanded that Antony should be informed that she was dead. He was overwhelmed with grief, and retiring to his chamber, opened his coat of mail, and ordered his faithful servant Eros (who had been engaged to kill him whenever he should think it necessary) to dispatch him. Eros drew his sword, and, instead of killing his master, ran it through his own body, and fell dead at Antony’s feet. Antony then plunged his sword into his bowels, and threw himself on the couch. The wound was not, however, immediately fatal. In a short period after, Diomedes, Cleopatra’s servant, came to Antony with a request that he would instantly repair to her chamber. His delight was unbounded when he heard that Cleopatra was alive, and he directly ordered his servant to carry him to her. As she would not allow the doors to be opened, Antony was drawn up to her window by a cord. He was suspended for a considerable time in the air stretching out his hands to Cleopatra. Notwithstanding she exerted all her strength, strained every nerve, and distorted her features in endeavouring to draw him up, it was with the greatest difficulty it was effected. Cleopatra laid him on the bed, and, standing over him, so extreme was her anguish, that she rent her clothes, and beat and wounded her breast. After Antony’s death, when Cleopatra heard that Cæsar had dispatched Gallus to take her prisoner, and that he had effected an entrance into the monument, she attempted to stab herself with a dagger which she always carried about with her for that purpose. When she heard that it was Cæsar’s intention to send her into Syria, she asked permission to visit Antony’s tomb, over which she poured forth most bitter lamentations. “Hide me, hide me,” she exclaimed, “with thee in the grave; for life, since thou hast left it, has been misery to me.” After crowning the tomb with flowers, she kissed it, and ordered a bath to be prepared. She then sat down to a magnificent supper; after which, a peasant came to the gate with a small basket of figs covered with leaves, which was admitted into the monument. Amongst the figs and under the leaves was concealed the asp, which Cleopatra applied to her bosom. She was found dead, attired in one of her most gorgeous dresses, decorated with brilliants, and lying on her golden bed.

Few of the illustrious men of antiquity have exhibited such philosophic coolness as Petronius, after he had determined to sacrifice his life. The levity which distinguished his voluntary death was in accordance with the gaiety and frivolity of his life. The capricious friendship of a Nero had been withdrawn from him, and in consequence he had determined on his own death. This arbiter elegantiarum during life, determined to indulge in a luxurious refinement of that death he was preparing to encounter. Being well aware he could not long escape from the murderous edict, after a fall from the summit of imperial favour, he opened and closed his veins at pleasure. He slept during the intervals, or sauntered about and enjoyed the delights of conversation with his friends; but his discourse was not of so elevated a character as that attributed to Seneca or Socrates.

The poet Lucan exhibited great apparent serenity at the approach of death. After the veins of his arm had been voluntarily opened, and he had lost a large quantity of blood, he felt his hands and his legs losing their vitality. As the hour of death approached, he commenced repeating several lines out of his own Pharsalia, descriptive of a person similarly situated to himself. These lines he repeated until he died.

Cocceius Nerva starved himself to death in the reign of Tiberius. It was said that he was displeased with the state of public affairs, and had made up his mind to die whilst his own integrity remained unsullied.

During the bloody reign of Nero, many singular suicides took place. The particulars attending the deaths of Lucius Vetus, his mother-in-law Sextia, and Pollutia his daughter, are worth recording. After Lucius had distributed all his wealth among his domestics, requesting them to remove everything from his house excepting three couches, he, with his mother-in-law and daughter, retired into the same chamber, opened a vein with the same lancet, and after, reclining each on a separate couch, waited calmly the approach of death. His eyes, and those of his mother-in-law, were both fixed on the daughter, while the daughter’s wandered from one to the other. It was the earnest prayer of each of them to die first, and to leave the others in the act of expiring.[4]

When the throne of Sardanapalus was endangered, he conceived a magnificent and truly luxurious mode of committing suicide, quite in character with the extravagance and dissoluteness of his former life. He erected a funeral pile of great height in his palace, and adorned it with the most sumptuous and costly ornaments. In the middle of this building was a chamber of one hundred feet in length, built of wood, in which a number of golden couches and tables were spread. On one of these he reclined with his wife, his numerous concubines occupying the rest. The building was encompassed round at some distance with large beams and thick wood, to prevent all egress from the place. Much combustible matter, and an immense pile of wood were also placed within, together with an infinite quantity of gold and silver, royal vestments, costly apparel, rich furniture, curious ornaments, and all the apparatus of luxury and magnificence. All being arranged, this splendid funeral pile was set on fire, and continued burning until the fifteenth day; during which time Sardanapalus revelled in all kinds of sensualities. The multitude without were in astonishment at the tremendous scene, and at the immense clouds of incense and smoke which issued with the flames. It was stated that the king was engaged in offering some extraordinary sacrifices; while the attendants within alone knew that this dissolute prince was putting such a splendid end to his effeminate life.[5]

There has been some dispute as to the death of Marcus Curtius. Plutarch attributes his death to accident, but Procillius considers that it was voluntary. He says, the earth having opened at a particular time, the Aruspices declared it necessary, for the safety of the republic, that the bravest man in the city should throw himself into the gulf; whereupon Curtius, mounting his horse, leaped armed into it, and the gulf immediately closed. But Livy and Dionysius relate the circumstance in a different manner. They say that Curtius was a Sabine, who, having at first repulsed the Romans, but being in his turn overpowered by Romulus, and endeavouring to make good his retreat, fell into the lake, which from that time bore his name. The lake was situated almost in the centre of the Roman forum. Some writers consider the name was derived from Curtius the Consul, because he caused it to be walled in after it had been struck with lightning.[6]

The death of the celebrated philosopher and poet, Empedocles, of Sicily, was remarkable. Wishing to be believed a god, and that his death might be unknown, he threw himself into the crater of Mount Ætna, and perished in the flames. The mode of his death was not discovered until some time afterwards, when one of his sandals was thrown up from the volcano.

Ancient history affords us many noble examples of individuals who preferred voluntary death to dishonour and loss of character. If ever self-murder could be considered as in the slightest degree justifiable, it would be under such circumstances. Who cannot but honour the conduct of the noble virgins of Macedon, who threw themselves into the wells, and courted death, sooner than submit to the dishonourable proposals of the Roman governor! When Theoxena was pursued by the emissaries of Philip, king of Macedon, who had been guilty of murdering her first husband, she produced a dagger and a box of poison, and placing them before the crew of the ship in which she was endeavouring to make her escape, she said, “Death is now our only remedy and means of vengeance; let each take the method that best pleases himself of avoiding the tyrant’s pride, cruelty, and lust. Come on, my brave companions and family, seize the sword or drink of the cup, as you prefer an instantaneous or gradual death.” Some fell on the sword, others drank the poison until death was effected. After Theoxena had accomplished her designs, she threw herself into the arms of her husband, and they both plunged into the sea.

The resistance which Josephus made to the importunities of his soldiers to fall by his own hand sooner than surrender to the enemy, is perhaps the most noble instance of the kind on record. After the success of the Romans in Judæa, Josephus, who commanded the Jewish army, wished to deliver himself up to his conquerors; he was encouraged to this by certain dreams and visions. When Josephus’s intention was known, the soldiers flocked round him, and expressed their indignation at his intention. They urged him to fall by his own sword, and to let them follow his example, sooner than abandon the field. To this appeal Josephus replies, “Oh, my friends, why are you so earnest to kill yourselves? why do you set your soul and body, which are such dear companions, at such variance? It is a brave thing to die in war, but it should be by the hands of the enemy. It is a foolish thing to do that for ourselves, which we quarrel with them for doing to us. It is a brave thing to die for liberty; but still it should be in battle, and by those who would take that liberty from us. He is equally a coward who will not die when he is obliged to die. What are we afraid of, when we will not go up and meet the Romans? Is it death? Why then inflict it on ourselves? You say, We must be slaves. Are we then in a clear state of liberty at present? Self-murder is a crime most remote from the common nature of all animals, and an instance of impiety against God our Creator.”

Josephus, in the spirit of a true philosopher, urged his soldiers to abandon the notion of suicide; but instead of being calmed by his discourse, they became enraged, and rushed on him. Fearing that the case was hopeless, Josephus prevailed upon them to listen to the following proposal. He persuaded them to draw lots; the man on whom the first lot fell was to be killed by him who had the second, and the second by the third, and so on. In this way no soldier would perish by his own hand, except the last man. Lots were accordingly drawn; Josephus drew his with the rest. He who had the first lot willingly submitted his neck to him who had the second. It happened that Josephus and a soldier were left to draw lots; and as the general was desirous neither to imbrue his own hand in the blood of his countryman, nor to be condemned by lot himself, he persuaded the soldier to trust his fidelity, and to live as well as himself. Thus ended this tragical scene, and Josephus immediately surrendered himself up to Vespasian.

The first instance of suicide recorded in Scripture is that of Samson. After suffering many indignities from the hands of the Philistines, his anger was roused to the highest pitch, and, resting against the pillars that supported the building in which the lords of the Philistines and an infinite number of others were assembled, he offered up the following prayer: “O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes;” and taking hold of the pillars, he said, “Let me die with the Philistines: and he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and all that were therein; so that the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

In Samson’s case, there is nothing said in Scripture either to condemn or justify the act; but it appears evident from the whole history of the last events of his life, that he was but an instrument in the hands of God for the accomplishment of his wise purposes. The glory of God had been violated in the person of Samson; he had been subjected by the Philistines to great indignities; and it was to demonstrate the power of God in the destruction of his enemies that Samson’s life was sacrificed. Samson is, then, to be considered as a martyr to his religion and his God.

The case of Saul has also been cited. It is thus referred to in Scripture:—“And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not, for he was sore afraid; therefore Saul took a sword and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword and died with him.”[7]

It must be recollected that the Jews considered that a man was justified in committing suicide to prevent his falling into the enemy’s hand, and on this account Saul was commended for killing himself. But there was nothing glorious in Saul’s death. His army was defeated by the Philistines, and Saul sounded a retreat; and as he was making his ignominious flight, an arrow from the ranks of the enemy hit him, and it was then that he implored his armourbearer to dispatch him.

Much has been made of the self murder of Ahitophel. Donne has referred to it at some length. He says that in this case there can be “no room for excuse.” Ahitophel was considered one of the wisest counsellors of his age. He joined Absalom in his rebellion against his lawful prince, David; and when he saw that it was God’s determination to defeat his counsel, and that his advice for the first time was neglected, he became full of secret indignation and disappointment; and in order to avoid the consequences of his own utter despair and ruin, for his perfidy, he hanged himself. Nothing can be urged in justification of this act. The facts are presented to us in biblical history; and we are left to form our own judgment upon the course which this “Machiavellian counsellor,” as he has been termed, thought proper to adopt.

Donne has also cited the case of Judas Iscariot.[8] He must have been sadly in want of sound illustrations to have brought forward the instance of this traitor as a justification of the act of suicide. Judas has been considered by some writers as a martyr. Petilian said “that Judas, and all who killed themselves through remorse of sin, ought to be accounted martyrs, because they punish in themselves what they grieve to have committed.” To whom Augustine replies, “Thou hast said, that the traitor perished by the rope, and has left a rope behind him for such as himself. But we have nothing to do with him. We do not venerate those as martyrs who hang themselves.”

The case, mentioned by the same authority, of Eleazar, the brother of Judas Maccabeus, taken from the book of the Maccabees, is said to be one of voluntary suicide, and where self-destruction was laudable. Eleazar sacrificed his own life for the purpose of destroying King Antiochus, and therefore his suicide is to be considered as a voluntary sacrifice for the good of his country.

The self-destruction of Razis is full of horror, and can only be quoted as an evidence of the act of a madman. When the tower in which Razis was fighting against the enemy of Nicanor was set on fire, he fell on his own sword, “Choosing rather,” says the text, “to die manfully than fall into the hands of the wicked, to be abused otherwise than beseemed his noble birth; but missing his stroke through haste, the multitude also rushing within doors, he ran boldly up to the wall, and cast himself down manfully among the thickest of them; but they quickly giving back, and a space being made, he fell down in the midst of a void place. Nevertheless, while there was yet breath within him, being inflamed with anger, he rose up; and though his blood gushed out like spouts of water, and his wounds were grievous, yet he ran through in the midst of the throng, and standing on a steep rock, when, as his blood was not quite gone, he plucked out his bowels, and taking them in both his hands, he cast them upon the throng, and calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to restore him them again, he thus died.”[9]

Having considered the remarkable suicides of antiquity, we will now briefly allude to those doctrines and opinions of the celebrated philosophers of ancient times, which must of necessity have tended to create this recklessness of human life.

The doctrines inculcated by the stoical philosophers, or the disciples of Zeno, must have increased the crime of suicide. “A stoical wise man is ever ready to die for his country or his friends. A wise man will never look upon death as an evil; that he will despise it, and be ready to undergo it at any time.” “A wise man,” says Diog. Laertius, in his life of Zeno, when expounding the stoical philosophy, “will quit life, when oppressed with severe pain, or when deprived of any of his senses, or when labouring under desperate diseases.” It is astonishing that a sect of philosophers who inculcated that pain was no evil, should so often have practised suicide. Much as we would condemn such principles, still we must admit that most of the admired characters of antiquity belonged to this celebrated sect—men distinguished for their wisdom, learning, and the strictness of their morals. Cato was a stoic, and he put into practice the principles of the sect to which he belonged.[10]

Among the philosophers of antiquity, Seneca stands preeminently forward as the defender of suicide. He says, “Does life please you? live on. Does it not? go from whence you came. No vast wound is necessary; a mere puncture will secure your liberty. It is a bad thing (you say) to be under the necessity of living; but there is no necessity in the case. Thanks be to the gods, nobody can be compelled to live.”[11] These were the principles of the “wise Seneca,” and yet he wanted the courage to commit suicide when put to the test. He says, “Being emaciated by a severe illness, I often thought of suicide, but was recalled by the old age of a most indulgent father; for I considered not how resolutely ‘I’ could encounter death, but how ‘he’ could bear up under my loss.” This is not, however, the only instance in which Seneca yielded his stoical principles to the dictates of natural affection and rational judgment.

Among other distinguished philosophers who advocated suicide was Epictetus. Although a stoic, he did not blindly follow the doctrines of Zeno. Epictetus considered that it was the duty of man to suffer to almost any extent before he sacrificed his own life. “If you like not life, you may leave it; the door is open; get you gone! But a little smoke ought not to frighten you away; it should be endured, and will thereby be often surmounted.”

Epictetus followed strictly his own principles: in this respect he was superior to Seneca. Seneca was born in the lap of good fortune; Epictetus was a slave, and had to pass through the rugged paths of adversity, bodily pain, and penury. Seneca was banished from Rome for an intrigue; Epictetus was sent into exile for being a man of learning and a philosopher.

When Epictetus was beaten unmercifully by his master, he said, with great composure, “You will certainly break my leg.” He did so; and the philosopher calmly rejoined, “Did I not tell you you would do it?” This was in the true spirit of stoical philosophy.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was, perhaps, one of the brightest ornaments of the sect of stoics. He carried into the minutest concern of life the doctrine of Zeno. “He was,” says Gibbon, “severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind.”

Zeno, the founder of the sect of stoical philosophers, acted up to the principles which he inculcated to his disciples. His suicide is recorded to be as follows:—As he was going out of his school one day, at the age of ninety-eight, he fell down, put a finger out of joint, went home, and hanged himself.

Cleanthes, also, the successor of Zeno, followed the example of his master in philosophy, by shortening the period of his life in the following manner:—After having used abstinence for two days, by the advice of his physician, for the cure of a trifling indisposition under which he was labouring, he had permission to return to his former diet; but he refused all sustenance, saying, “that as he had advanced so far on his journey towards death, he would not retreat.” He accordingly starved himself to death.

Among the most distinguished orators of antiquity who spoke in favour of suicide stands Cicero. During his banishment he would have actually destroyed himself, if it had not been for his natural timidity and want of resolution. He writes to his brother Quintus, “The tears of my friends have prevented me from flying to death as my refuge.”

Pliny was an advocate of suicide. In a chapter entitled “On God,” he writes thus—“The chief comfort of man in his imperfect state is this, that even the Deity cannot do all things. For instance, he cannot put himself to death when he pleases, which is the greatest indulgence he has given to man amid the severe evils of life.” Pliny belonged to the Epicureans, and his notions are in accordance with the doctrines of that sect.

Pliny the younger appears to have had different notions on the subject. When lamenting the death of a dear friend, Corellius Rufus, who had killed himself, he says, “He is dead—dead by his own hand, which agonizes my grief; for that is the most lamentable kind of death which neither proceeds from nature nor from fate.” The whole epistle from which the above extract is made indicates a noble and feeling heart.

It appears that the Roman laws respecting suicide were of a fiscal nature. They viewed the act not as a crime abstractedly, but considered how far the circumstance affected the state or treasury. In some portion of the Roman empire the magistrate had the power of granting or refusing permission to commit suicide. If the decision was given against the applicant, and he persisted in sacrificing his life, disgrace and ignominy were heaped upon his body, and it was buried in the most humiliating manner. The tenour of the law relating to suicide laid down in “Justinian’s Digests” is to the following effect:—“Those who, being actually accused, or who being caught in any crime, and dreading a prosecution, made way with themselves, were to have their effects confiscated. But this confiscation was no punishment of suicide, as a crime in itself, being then only to take place when the crime committed incurred the confiscation of property, and when the person accused of it would have been found guilty. For which reason the heirs-at-law were permitted (if they thought proper) to try the cause as though the accused person, who had put a period to his life, had been still living; and if his innocence could be proved, they were still entitled to his effects. But if any one killed himself, either through weariness of life, or an impatience under pain or ill health, for a load of private debt, or for any other reason not affecting the state or public treasury, the property of the deceased flowed in its natural channel. In the case of an attempted but incomplete suicide, where a man was under no accusation, a distinction was made as to the causes impelling to it, before the question as to its punishment was to be determined. If it proceeded not from weariness of life, or an impatience under the pressure of some calamity, the attempter was to suffer the same punishment as if he had effected his purpose; and for this reason, because he who without reason spared not his own life, would not be likely to spare another man’s.”[12]

If a prisoner committed suicide, the jailor authorized to protect him was punished very severely. The Roman law made a distinction between soldiers and civilians. If a soldier attempted to take away his life, and it could not be proved that he was suffering at the time from great grief, misfortune, madness, &c., it was deemed a capital offence, and death was the punishment. And even in cases where it was established that the act was the result of mental perturbation, he was dismissed from the service with ignominy and disgrace.

During the pure ages of the Roman Republic, when religion was reverenced, when the gods were looked up to with respect as the disposers of all events, suicide was but little known. But when the philosophy of Greece was introduced into the Roman Empire, and the manners of the people became corrupted and degenerated, the crime increased to an alarming extent. This indifference to life was also augmented by the spread of stoical and epicurean principles. The stoic was taught to believe his life his own; that he was the sole arbiter of his existence; and that he could live or die as he pleased. The same principles were inculcated by the epicurean philosophy. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that suicide should be of common occurrence, when such degrading principles had taken possession of the minds of the people?

By the law of Thebes, the person who committed suicide was deprived of his funeral rites, and his name and memory were branded with infamy. The Athenian law was equally severe: the hand of the self-murderer was cut off, and buried apart from his body, as having been an enemy and traitor to it. The Greeks considered suicide as a most heinous crime. The bodies of suicides, according to the Grecian custom, were not burned to ashes, but were immediately buried. They considered it a pollution of the holy element of fire to consume in it the carcases of those who had been guilty of self-murder. Suicides were classed “with the public or private enemy; with the traitor, and conspirator against his country; with the tyrant, the sacrilegious wretch, and such grievous offenders whose punishment was impalement alive on a cross.”[13]

These laws, however, fell into disuse, as appears evident from the circumstance of there being so many cases of suicide which escaped this treatment.

In the island of Ceos the magistrates had the power of deciding whether a person had sufficient reasons for killing himself. A poison was kept for that purpose, which was given to the applicant who made out his case before the magistracy.

The same custom was followed among the Massilians, the ancient inhabitants of Marseilles. A preparation of hemlock was kept in readiness, and the senate, on hearing the merits of the case, had the power to decide whether the applicant had good and substantial reasons for committing suicide. There was, no doubt, much good effected by this regulation, as it clearly acknowledged the principle that the power of a man over his own life rested not in himself, but in the voice of the magistrate, who alone was to determine how his life or death might affect the state.

Libanius, of Antioch, who flourished towards the end of the fourth century, has very happily ridiculed the practice to which we have alluded. In some imaginary pleadings before the senate, he advocates the cause of a man who wishes to swallow the hemlock draught, that he may be freed from the garrulity of a loquacious wife. “Truly,” says he, “if our legislator had not been addicted too much to law making, I should have been under no necessity of proving before you the expediency of my departure, but a rope and the first tree would have given me peace and quiet. But since he, determining we should be slaves, has deprived us even of the liberty of dying when we please, and has enchained us with decrees on this business, I imprecate the author and obey his mandates, in thus laying my complaints and my request before you.” He then, with considerable eloquence and humour, advocates the cause of the “envious man,” who wishes to taste the “suicidal draught” because his neighbour’s wealth had increased beyond his own. “Let the wretch,” he says, “recite his calamities, let the senate bestow the antidote, and let grief be dissolved in death.”

Libanius then pleads in behalf of Timon, the man hater, who begs permission to dispatch himself because he was bound by profession to hate all mankind, but he could not help loving Alcibiades.

It is a singular circumstance connected with the subject of suicide, that authors who have written in its defence should quote the cases referred to in this chapter in justification of their views. They have not taken into consideration the peculiar customs, habits, and religion of the people, which of course must have greatly influenced their actions. How absurd would it be for us to take the authority of antiquity as an infallible rule of conduct. The Massagetes considered those unhappy who died a natural death, and therefore eat their dearest friends when they grew old. The Libarenians broke their necks down a precipice. The Bactrians were thrown alive to the dogs. The Scythians buried the dearest friends of the deceased with them alive, or killed them on the funeral pile. The Roman people, when sunk in vice and licentiousness, considered it a mark of courage and honour to fall by their own hands, and suicide was a common occurrence with them.

“In the beginning of the spring,” says Malt. Brun, “a shocking ceremony takes place at Cola Bhairava, in the mountains between the rivers Taptæ and Nerbuddah. It is the practice of some persons of the lowest tribes in Berar to make vows of suicide, in return for answers which their prayers are believed to have received from their idols. This is the place where such vows are performed in the beginning of spring, when eight or ten victims generally throw themselves from a precipice. The ceremony gives rise to an annual fair, and some trade.”[14]

No just distinction can be drawn between these customs. The Indian widow, in obedience to the religion of her country, ascends the funeral pile of her husband, and is burnt to death. Thousands annually sacrifice their lives by throwing themselves under the wheels of their idol Juggernaut. Strong feelings of religion impel them to this; they become excluded from society, they lose caste, and are subjected to all kinds of persecution if they do not bow to the customs of the country. What legitimate argument can be deduced from these facts in favour of suicide? And yet these cases are considered to constitute a justification of the stoical dogma, that we have a right when we please to put an end to our own existence. Desperate indeed must be the circumstances of those who are compelled to found their reasoning on so flimsy a basis.

CHAPTER II.
WRITERS IN DEFENCE OF SUICIDE.

Opinions of Hume—Effect of his writings—Case of suicide caused by—The doctrines of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Montaigne examined—Origin of Dr. Donne’s celebrated work—Madame de Staël’s recantation—Robert of Normandy, Gibbon, Sir T. More, and Robeck’s opinions considered.

It will be foreign to my purpose to enter elaborately into an examination of the opinions of those who have thought proper to justify the commission of suicide. The arguments which have been advanced by Hume, Donne, Rousseau, Madame de Staël, Montesquieu, Montaigne, Gibbon, Voltaire, and Robeck, are founded on such gross and apparent fallacies, that they carry with them their own refutation.

Hume, whose pen was always ready to support opinions at variance with the precepts of the Christian religion, wrote an essay on the subject of suicide. He has endeavoured to shew that self-murder is consistent with our duty to God, our neighbour, and ourselves. Referring to the first of these three heads, he says—“As, on the one hand, the elements and other inanimate parts of creation carry on their action without regard to the particular interests and situation of men, so men are entrusted to their own judgment and discretion in the various shades of matter, and may employ every faculty with which they are endowed in order to provide for their ease, happiness, or preservation.”

If an action be clearly shewn to be an infringement of the laws of God, it certainly cannot be one which he has left us to exercise at discretion. All the laws of religion and morality are so many abridgments of man’s liberty, in the exercise of his judgment and discretion for his own happiness. Hume then proceeds to examine whether suicide be a breach of duty to our neighbour and society. He observes—“A man who retires from life does no harm to society,—he only ceases to do good; which, if it be an injury, is of the lowest kind.” The man who sacrifices his own life does a great injury to society. There are very few men in the world who have no relations or connexions, and he entails upon these the opprobrium that society attaches to the crime of suicide. Independently of this, his example acts injuriously on the minds of others, who may not have such good reasons for suicide as he has. “I believe,” continues Hume, “that no man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping. For such is our natural horror of death, that small motives will never be able to reconcile us to it.” He might as well have stated that such is our horror of poverty that no man ever threw away riches which were worth keeping. The fallacy consists in drawing a conclusion from a mind supposed in its right state, in which every faculty, propensity, and aversion has its due proportion of strength; and in which the natural horror of death will secure a man from throwing away a life which is worth keeping: and this conclusion is applied to a depraved state of mind, in which it can by no means hold.

The same author asserts, “That it would be no crime in me to divert the Nile or Danube from its course, if I could; where, then, is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood out of its natural channel?” The argument is too puerile to merit refutation. He must first establish that no injury would accrue from diverting the course of the Nile and Danube, before any argument can be deduced from it which is worth one moment’s consideration.

It has been asserted, and remains uncontradicted, that Mr. Hume lent his “Essay on Suicide” to a friend, who on returning it told him it was a most excellent performance, and pleased him better than anything he had read for a long time. In order to give Hume a practical exhibition of the effects of his defence of suicide, his friend shot himself the day after returning him his Essay.

If, in any one instance, suicide might admit of something like an apology, it would have been in this—if the detestable author of this abominable treatise had, on receiving the melancholy intelligence, committed it to the flames, and terminated his own pernicious existence by a cord. But the cold-blooded infidel was too cowardly to execute summary justice on himself. With a truly diabolical spirit, his delight was to scatter firebrands among the people, and say, “Am I not in sport?”

Mr. Hume is the hero of modern infidels, because he is the only one among them whose life was not disgraced by the grossest of vices; for this, his selfish and avaricious spirit affords, perhaps, the true reason. It is well known that Hume, in more than one instance, sacrificed his principles (if he had any) to views of emolument at the suggestion of the booksellers. It has been said that he was scarcely guilty of a good or benevolent action. His treatment of Rousseau was unfeeling in the extreme; and an intimate friend of the essayist affirms, that “his heart was as hard and cold as marble.”

Montesquieu’s arguments in favour of suicide appear to border very closely on those advanced by Hume. They will be found in a letter written in the character of a Persian resident in Europe.

Rousseau[15] in his “Nouvelle Heloïse” observes, “The more I reflect upon it (suicide), the more I find that the question reduces itself to this fundamental proposition:—To seek one’s own good, and avoid one’s own harm in that which hurts not another, is the law of nature.” Rousseau must first clearly establish that what he terms “seeking one’s own good” will not be productive of injury to others. According to the notion of what the majority of men conceive to be their good, much evil would result from allowing mankind to act under the influence of their own feelings and judgment. What one man considers “good,” another considers evil; and what often appears to be very beneficial to ourselves, if examined fairly, will be found to be the very reverse.

Montaigne’s arguments are borrowed from ancient writers in defence of suicide. He assumes at the commencement that suicide is not an evil. He says, that pain, and the fear of suffering a worse death, is an excusable incitement to suicide. The whole that he has advanced is but a string of sophistries.

Dr. Donne has entered more fully into the defence of suicide than any other writer. The whole of his work appears to be written for the purpose of demonstrating that it is praiseworthy to shew a contempt of life in the discharge of our duty, and in the execution of noble and beneficent enterprises.

Dr. Donne was probably drawn to the contemplation of this subject by his own sufferings. While he was secretary to Lord Chancellor Egerton, he married a young lady of rank superior to his own, which gave offence to his patron, and he was consequently dismissed from office. He suffered extreme poverty with his wife and children; and in a letter, in which he adverts to the illness of a daughter whom he tenderly loved, he says that he dares not expect relief, even from death, as he cannot afford the expense of a funeral. He afterwards took orders, and was promoted to the deanery of St. Paul’s. In the early part of his life, and probably during the period of his sufferings, he wrote his book, entitled, “Βιαθανατος, A Declaration of that paradox or thesis, that self-homicide is not so naturally sin that it may never be otherwise.” He did not publish it. He desired it to be remembered, that it was written by Jack Donne, not by Dr. Donne; and it was published many years after his death, by his son, a dissipated young man, tempted by his necessities to forget his father’s prohibition.

Madame de Staël attempted to justify suicide in her work on the passions, but she, greatly to her honour, published her celebrated “Reflections on Suicide,” which was written as a recantation of some opinions on the subject incidentally expressed in the work alluded to. She expresses the change in her sentiments on this subject in the following curious manner:—“J’ai l’acte du suicide, dans mon ouvrage sur l’influence des passions, et je me suis repentie depuis de cétte parole inconsiderée. J’etois alors dans tout l’orgueil et la vivacité de la première jeunesse; mais à quoi servirait-il de vivre, si ce n’était dans l’espoir de s’ameliorer.”

Madame de Staël has treated the subject with considerable ingenuity and ability, and with a great deal of eloquence, but she has hardly enforced sufficiently the arguments against this crime which may be deduced from the use of that portion of existence we pass upon earth. We are wise and good just in proportion as we consider and treat life and all its incidents as moral means to a great end. Upon every moment of time an eternity is dependent; and whenever we sacrifice a moment, we throw away an instrument by which we might have created an eternity of happiness.

All mankind are not placed upon an equality. Some experience pleasure, others pain, privation or suffering; the tools with which we are to work may be inconvenient or burthensome, or light and pleasant; but they must be the most useful and efficacious, or they would not be put into our hands; at any rate, they are all we have. We cannot fix too deeply on our minds the truth that life is not an absolute, but a relative existence, as in its relation to the eternity with which it is connected, consists all its value and importance.

Robert of Normandy, surnamed the Devil, sacrificed his own life, and before doing so he wrote a work in defence of suicide, in which he argued that there was no law that forbids a person to deprive himself of life; that the love of life is to be subservient to that of happiness; that our body is a mean and contemptible machine, the preservation of which we ought not so highly to value; if the human soul be mortal, it receives but a slight injury, but if immortal, the greatest advantage; a benefit ceases to be one when it becomes troublesome, and then surely a man ought to be allowed to resign it; a voluntary death is often the only method of avoiding the greatest crime; and finally, that suicide is justified by the example of most nations in the world. Such is the substance of the arguments in favour of suicide urged by Robert of Normandy, and worthy of his celebrated namesake.

Gibbon and Sir Thomas More are cited as champions in favour of suicide; but there is nothing which these authors have advanced that merits a separate consideration.

CHAPTER III.
SUICIDE A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MAN.—IT IS NOT AN ACT OF COURAGE.

The sin of suicide—The notions of Paley on the subject—Voltaire’s opinion—Is suicide self-murder?—Is it forbidden in Scripture?—Shakspeare’s views on the subject—The alliance between suicide and murder—Has a man a right to sacrifice his own life?—Everything held upon trust—Suicide a sin against ourselves and neighbour—It is not an act of courage—Opinion of Q. Curtius on the subject—Buonaparte’s denunciation of suicide—Dryden’s description of the suicide in another world.

Among the black catalogue of human offences, there is not, indeed, any that more powerfully affects the mind, that more outrages all the feelings of the heart, than the crime of suicide. Our laws have branded it with infamy, and the industry which is exerted by surviving relatives to conceal its perpetration evinces that the shame which is attached to it is of that foul and contagious character, that even the innocent consider themselves infected by its malignity.

Much discussion has taken place as to whether self-murder is expressly forbidden in the Old or New Testament.[16] Paley, who is a high authority on all questions connected with moral philosophy, denies that it is. He considers that the article in the decalogue so often brought forward, “Thou shalt do no murder,” is inconclusive. “I acknowledge (he observes) that there is to be found neither any express determination of the question, nor sufficient evidence to prove that the case of suicide was in the contemplation of the law which prohibits murder. Any inference, therefore, which we deduce from Scripture, can be sustained only by construction and implication.”

To maintain that God has not forbidden us to destroy the work of his hands, because self-murder is not particularly specified, is to leave us at liberty to commit many other offences which are not named among the prohibitions, but which are included under general heads. When God said to Noah, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man,” it is evident that, whatever meaning we may attach to the last words, in whatever sense man is said to be made in the image of God, the reason of the prohibition holds as strong against self-murder as against any other kind of murder. If I am commanded not to shed the blood of another man because he is made in the image of God, I am not justified in shedding my own blood, as I stand in the same relation to the Deity as my fellow-men. But there is a particular reason why suicide is not any where expressly forbidden by name; that is, that whatever sins and offences God, as a lawgiver, prohibits, he does so with a penalty; he affixes such a punishment to such a crime, and he who transgresses is to undergo the determined punishment in this world or in the next. Neither God nor the magistrate can prohibit self-murder with any penalty that can affect the criminal himself; because of his very crime, he escapes all temporal punishment in person—he has anticipated the operation of the law. In fact, he has, in his own person, acted the part of the criminal, judge, jury, and executioner; he is dead before the law can take any cognizance of his offence. No law can be enacted to any purpose without a penalty; where, therefore, there can be no penalty, there can be no law. Self-murder prevents all penalty, and therefore wants no particular prohibition; it must therefore be included under general commands, and forbidden as a sin, which it is only in the power of God to take cognizance of, in another world.

Again, doubtlessly the inspired writer considered suicide of such an atrocious nature that the warnings of conscience were sufficient to prevent its frequency, and because the voice of nature instinctively cries out against it.

That the act of suicide must be most offensive in the sight of God is evident, since it is that which most directly violates those laws by which his providence has formed, and still directs, the universe. If any one principle in man is instinctive and implanted in him by the hand of nature, it is that of self preservation. Different religions and different codes have marked out particular duties, and proscribed particular crimes; in this, every religion unites, every society concurs, and every individual acknowledges within his own bosom the sacred command. If, therefore, to disobey the ordinances of God must be sinful in his sight, if ever the ordinances of men are to be respected, what must be the guilt of that person who violates the first law of nature, who disregards the principle that holds human society together, that fits us for every duty, and prompts us in the performance of them!

But it is not merely against the ordinance of his Creator that the self-murderer offends,[17] he is guilty of a breach of duty to his neighbour. He plants a dagger not merely in his own breast, but in that of his dearest, his tenderest connexions. He wantonly sports with the pangs of sensibility, and covers with the blush of shame the cheek of innocence. With a degree of ingratitude which excites our abhorrence, he clouds with sorrow the future existence of those by whom he was most tenderly beloved, and affixes a mark of ignominy on his unfortunate descendants. He disobeys the first of social laws, that order by which God appropriated his labours to the welfare of society, and, because he fancies he can no longer exist with comfort to himself, disregards all the duties which he owes to others.

The alliance between suicide and the murder of others is a closer one than is generally supposed. How many instances are recorded in which suicide and homicide have been conjoined! He who will not scruple to take away his own life, will not require much reasoning to impel him to sacrifice another’s. We refer to the cases of Mithridates, king of Pontus, and Nicocles, as illustrative of this position. Many modern instances are recorded of the same character.

It was maintained by Marcus Aurelius, that there was no more of evil in parting from life than in going out of a smoky chamber; and Rousseau asks, “Why should we be permitted to cut off a leg, if we may not equally take away life? has not the will of God given us both?” Madame de Staël very properly observes that the following passage in Scripture replies to this sophism—“If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.” Temptation is evidently referred to in the above passage, but it may consistently be used in refutation of Rousseau’s illogical argument. Although a man may use any means placed in his power for the removal of physical evils, he is distinctly prohibited from destroying his existence.

The interrogatory argument, if it can be so denominated, which is so often used in justification of suicide—“Cannot a man do what he likes with his own?”—is based upon an absurd and gross fallacy. Man, during his residence on this earth, is but a trustee; his wealth, his talents, his time, and his very life, are but trust property. He can call nothing truly his own; he is held accountable for the most apparently trivial action he performs. Life is given to him for noble purposes; it is an emanation from the Deity himself; and no circumstances would justify us in asserting that our very existence is placed at our own disposal. How truly has the noble poet observed, when alluding to the tenure upon which we hold everything during this life—

“Can despots compass aught that hails their sway, Or call one solid span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?”

This life is one of privation. We are born to misery; we are led to expect disappointment at every step we take; blighted expectations, ruined hopes, pain, mental and bodily, constitute a part and parcel of our very existence. No man was more overwhelmed with any species of misfortune than Job; he was emphatically styled “the man of grief;” and when, prostrated to the earth by the most poignant misery, his wife exhorted him to quit life,—to “curse God, and die,”—he replied, “What, shall I receive good from the hand of God, and not evil?”

No suffering, however acute, could for one moment justify the commission of self-murder. “The concluding scene in the life of Jesus Christ,” says Madame de Staël, with a fervid eloquence which does her immortal honour, “seems peculiarly intended to confute those who contend for the right of destroying life to escape misfortune. The dread of suffering seized him who had willingly devoted himself to death for the good of mankind. He prayed a long time to his Father in the Mount of Olives, and his countenance was shaded by the anguish of death. ‘My Father,’ he cried, ‘if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.’ Thrice with tears was this prayer repeated. All the sorrows of our nature had passed through his divine mind; like us, he feared the violence of men; like us, perhaps, regretted those whom he cherished and loved, his mother and his disciples; like us, he loved this earth, and the celestial pleasures resulting from active benevolence, for which he incessantly thanked his Father. But, not able to avert the destined chalice, he cried, ‘Oh, my Father, let thy will be done,’ and resigned himself into the hands of his enemies. What more can be sought for in the gospel respecting resignation to grief, and the duty of supporting it with fortitude and patience.” Poets and orators have entered into a chivalrous rivalry to celebrate the character of the “bold man struggling with the storms of fate.” That adversity refines and ennobles our nature there cannot be a doubt. The most beautiful features of the human mind are developed in suffering; the ordeal through which we pass, however repugnant and abhorrent it may be to our feelings, produces a moral regeneration in the character. We come out of the “fiery furnace,” like gold and silver, deprived of much of our dross; and life, youthful and innocent life, again dawns upon us and gladdens our hearts.

Suicide is an injury to our neighbour and to society. As long as life lasts,—no matter what amount of misery a person may suffer,—he has it in his power to contribute to the happiness of others. By mitigating the distresses of others, his own will be subdued. Let a man writhing under the torture of the gout be brought into contact with a person suffering from the intense agony of tic doloureux, and he will have a practical illustration of the fact, that there are others in the world worse off than himself.

Suicide has been defended as an act of courage. Courage, forsooth! If ever there is an act of cowardice, it is that exhibited by the person who, to escape from the disappointments and vexations of the world, wantonly puts an end to his existence. The man of courage will defy the opinions and scorns of the world, when he knows himself to be in the right; will be above sinking under the petty misfortunes that assail him; will make circumstances bow to him; will court difficulties and dangers, in order to shew that he is able to master them.

It was a noble sentiment which Q. Curtius put into the mouth of Darius, after every ray of hope had abandoned him:—“I will wait,” cried the king, addressing his attendants, “the issue of my fate. You wonder, perhaps, that I do not terminate my own life; but I choose rather to die by another’s crime than by my own.” The sentiments of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, expressed when his fortunes appeared most desperate, are equally noble and magnanimous. Being much urged by a friend to dispatch himself, he replied—“By seeking this easy and ready kind of death, you think to appear brave and courageous; but better men than you and I have been oppressed by fortune, and borne down by multitudes. He that sinks under toil, or yields to affliction, or is overcome by the opinions and reproaches of men, gives way, in fact, to his own effeminacy and cowardice. A voluntary death is never to be chosen as a relief from action, but as exemplary in itself, it being base to live or die only for ourselves. The death to which you now invite us is only proposed as a release from present misery, but conveys with it no signs of bravery or prospects of advantage.”

Euripides put the following words in the mouth of Hercules: “I have considered, and, though oppressed with misfortunes, I have determined thus: Let no one depart out of life through fear of what may happen to him; for he who is not able to resist evils will fly, like a coward, from the darts of the enemy.”

When Buonaparte was told of the prevalent opinion, that he ought not to have survived his political downfall, he calmly replied—“No, no; I have not enough of the Roman in me to destroy myself.” After reasoning, with considerable ingenuity, on the subject of suicide, he concluded by giving expression to this decided opinion:—“Suicide is a crime the most revolting to my feelings; nor does any reason present itself to my understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate cowardice, (poltronnerie.) For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortune? True heroism consists in becoming superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge him to the combat.” He might have added—“Tu ne cede malis, sed contrà audentior ito.” On another occasion, when talking on the subject of suicide, Buonaparte observed, “If Marius had slain himself in the marshes of Minturnæ, he never would have stood the seventh time for consul.” After having been some time at St. Helena, he one day spoke further on the subject of suicide. He observed:—“With respect to the English language, I have been very diligent. I now read your newspapers with ease; and must own that they afford me no inconsiderable amusement. They are occasionally inconsistent, and sometimes abusive. In one paper I am called a Lear; in another, a tyrant; in a third, a monster; and in one of them—which I really did not expect—I am described as a coward. But it turned out, after all, that the writer did not accuse me of avoiding danger in the field of battle, or flying from an enemy, or fearing to look at the menaces of fate and fortune. It did not charge me with wanting presence of mind in the hurry of battle, and in the suspense of conflicting armies; no such thing. I wanted courage, it seems, because I did not coolly take a dose of poison, or throw myself into the sea, or blow out my brains. The editor most certainly misunderstands me; I have, at least, too much courage for that.”[18]

We think it has decidedly been established in the preceding observations that suicide is a crime clearly prohibited in the Bible; that it is, in every sense of the term, self-murder; and that our duty to our Creator, to ourselves, and to society, loudly calls upon us to denounce it, and hold it up to the scorn and reprobation of mankind. How terrifically has Dryden, in his Fables, portrayed the condition of the unfortunate suicide in another world:—

“The slayer of himself, too, saw I there:

The gore, congealed, was clotted in his hair.

With eyes half closed, and mouth wide ope, he lay,

And grim as when he breathed his sullen soul away.”

CHAPTER IV.
ON THE INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN MENTAL STATES IN INDUCING THE DISPOSITION TO SUICIDE.

Moral causes of disease—Neglect of psychological medicine—Mental philosophy a branch of medical study—Moral causes of suicide—Tables of Falret, &c.—Influence of remorse—Simon Brown, Charles IX. of France—Massacre of St. Bartholomew—Terrible death of Cardinal Beaufort, from remorse—The Chevalier de S——. Influence of disappointed love—Suicide from love—Two singular cases—Effects of jealousy—Othello—Suicide from this passion—The French opera dancer—Suicide from wounded vanity—False pride—The remarkable case of Villeneuve, as related by Buonaparte—Buonaparte’s attempt at suicide—Ambition—Despair, cases of suicide from—The Abbé de Rancé—Suicide from blind impulse—Cases—Mathews, the comedian—Opinion of Esquirol on the subject—Ennui, birth of—Common cause of suicide in France—Effect of speculating in stocks—Defective education—Diffusion of knowledge—“Socialism” a cause of self-destruction—Suicide common in Germany—Werter—Goëthe’s attempt at suicide—Influence of his writings on Hackman—Suicide from reading Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason”—Suicide to avoid punishment—Most remarkable illustrations—Political excitement—Nervous irritation—Love of notoriety—Hereditary disposition—Is death painful? fully considered, with cases—Influence of irreligion.

In our voyage through life, the passions are said to be the gales that swell the canvass of the mental bark; they obstruct or accelerate its course, and render the passage favourable or full of danger, in proportion as they blow steadily from a proper point, or are adverse or tempestuous. Like the wind itself, the passions are engines of mighty power and of high importance. Without them we cannot proceed, and with them we may be shipwrecked and lost. Curbed in and regulated, they constitute the source of our most elevated happiness; but when not subdued, they drive the vessel on the rocks and quicksands of life, and ruin us.

“How few beneath auspicious planets born

With swelling sails make good the promis’d port,

With all their wishes freighted.”

Young.

“In this country,” Dr. J. Johnson justly observes, “where man’s relations with the world around him are multiplied beyond all example in any other country, in consequence of the intensity of interest attached to politics, religion, amusement, literature, and the arts; where the temporal concerns of an immense proportion of the population are in a perpetual state of vacillation; where spiritual affairs excite in the minds of many great anxiety; and where speculative risks are daily involving in difficulties all classes of society,—the operation of physical causes in the production of disease dwindles into complete insignificance when compared with that of anxiety and perturbation of mind.”

“Mens conscia recti in corpore sano,” is Horace’s well-known description of the happy man. Lucretius appears to have formed a correct estimate of the most important bodily and mental conditions on which our happiness depends:—

“O wretched mortals! race perverse and blind!

Through what dread, dark, what perilous pursuits

Pass ye this round of being! Know ye not,

Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,

But for the body freedom from disease,

And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”

Like human beings, the sciences are closely connected with, and are mutually dependent upon, one another. The link in the chain may not be apparent, but it has a real and palpable existence. Medical and moral science are more nearly allied than we should, à priori, conclude. We speak of the science of medicine, not the practice of it; for, like judgment and wit, or, as the author of the School for Scandal ironically observes, like man and wife, how seldom are they seen in happy union. Garth feelingly alludes to this unnatural divorce:—

“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,

And, once a science, has become a trade.”

Psychological medicine has been sadly neglected. We recoil from the study of mental philosophy as if we were encroaching on holy ground. So great is the prejudice against this branch of science, that it has been observed, that to recommend a man to study metaphysics was a delicate mode of suggesting the propriety of confining him in a lunatic asylum!

In order to become a useful physician, it is necessary to become a good metaphysician; so says a competent authority. It was not, however, Dr. Cullen’s intention to recommend that species of philosophy which confounds the mind without enlightening it, and which, like an ignis fatuus, dazzles only to lead us from the truth. To the medical man we can conceive no preliminary study more productive of advantage than that which tends to call into exercise the latent principle of thought, and to accustom the mind to close, rigid, and accurate observation. The science of mind, when properly investigated, teaches us the laws of our mental frame, and shews us the origin of our various modes and habits of thought and feeling—how they operate upon one another, and how they are cultivated and repressed; it disciplines us in the art of induction, and guards us against the many sources of fallacy in the practice of making inferences; it gives precision and accuracy to our investigations, by instructing us in the nicer discriminations of truth and falsehood.

The value of mental philosophy as a branch of education will be properly appreciated when we consider that this ennobling principle was given to us for the purpose of directing and controlling our powers and animal propensities, and bringing them into that subjection whereby they become beneficial to the individual and to the world at large, enabling him to exchange with others those results which the power of his own and the gigantic efforts of other minds have developed; maintaining and perpetuating the most dignified and exalted state of happiness, the attribute of social life; unfolding not only treasures which the concentrated powers of individuals are enabled to discover, but developing those more quiet and unobtrusive characteristics of virtuous life, those social affections, which are alone calculated to make our present state of being happy.

Independently of the utility of the study, what a world of delight is open to the mind of that man who has devoted some portion of his time to the investigation of his mental organization! In him we may truly behold—

“Nature, gentle, kind,

By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,

And all the radiant fruits of truth matured.”

When we take into consideration the tremendous influence which the different mental emotions have over the bodily functions, when we perceive that violent excitement of mind will not only give rise to serious functional disorder, but actual organic disease, leading to the commission of suicide, how necessary does it appear that he to whose care is entrusted the lives of his fellow-creatures, should have made this department of philosophy a matter of serious consideration! It is no logical argument against the study of mental science, to urge that we are in total ignorance of the nature or constitution of the human understanding. We know nothing of the nature of objects which are cognizable to sense, and which can be submitted to actual experiment, and yet we are not deterred from the investigation of their properties and mutual influences. The passions are to be considered, in a medical point of view, as a part of our constitution. They stimulate or depress the mind, as food and drink do the body. Employed occasionally, and in moderation, both may be of use to us, and are given to us by nature for this purpose; but when urged to excess, the system is thrown off its balance, and disease is the result.

To the medical philosopher, nothing can be more deeply interesting than to trace the reciprocity of action existing between different mental conditions, and affections of particular organs. Thus the passion of fear, when excited, has a sensible influence on the action of the heart; and when the disease of this organ takes place independently of any mental agitation, the passion of fear is powerfully roused. Anger affects the liver and confines the bowels, and frequently gives rise to an attack of jaundice; and in hepatic and intestinal disease, how irritable the temper is!

Hope, or the anticipation of pleasure, affects the respiration; and how often do we see patients, in the last stage of pulmonary disease, entertaining sanguine expectations of recovery to the very last!

As the passions exercise so despotic a tyranny over the physical economy, it is natural to expect that the crime of suicide should often be traced to the influence of mental causes. In many cases, it is difficult to discover whether the brain, the seat of the passions, be primarily or secondarily affected. Often the cause of irritation is situated at some distance from the cerebral organ; but when the fountain-head of the nervous system becomes deranged, it will react on the bodily functions, and produce serious disease long after the original cause of excitement is removed. It is not our intention to attempt to explain the modus operandi of mental causes in the production of the suicidal disposition. That such effects result from an undue excitement of the mind cannot for one moment be questioned. Independently of mental perturbation giving rise to maniacal suicide, there are certain conditions of mind, dependent upon acquired or hereditary disposition, or arising from a defective expansion of the intellectual faculties, which originate the desire for self-destruction. These states will all be alluded to in the course of the present inquiry.

Some idea of the influence of certain mental states on the body will be obtained by an examination of the various tables which have been published, in this and other countries, respecting the causes of suicide, as far as they could be ascertained.

The following suicides were committed in London, between the years 1770 and 1830:[19]—

According to a table formed by Falret of the suicides which took place between 1794 and 1823, the following results appear:—Of 6782 cases, 254 were from disappointed love, and of this number 157 were women; 92 were from jealousy; 125 from being calumniated; 49 from a desire, without the means, of vindicating their characters; 122 from disappointed ambition; 322 from reverses of fortune; 16 from wounded vanity; 155 from gambling; 288 from crime and remorse; 723 from domestic distress; 905 from poverty; 16 from fanaticism.

In preparing the present work, we have endeavoured to obtain access to documents which would throw some light on the probable origin of the many cases of self-destruction which have taken place within the last four or five years. In many cases we could obtain no insight into the motives of the individuals; but in nine-tenths of those whose histories we succeeded in making ourselves somewhat conversant with, we found that mental causes played a very conspicuous part in the drama. Our experience on this point accords with that of many distinguished French physicians who have devoted their time and talents to the consideration of the subject.

In considering the influence of mental causes, we shall in the first instance point out the effects of certain passions and dispositions of the individual on the body; then investigate the operation of education, irreligion, and certain unhealthy conditions of the mind which predispose the individual to derangement and suicide.

There is no passion of the mind which so readily drives a person to suicide as remorse. In these cases, there is generally a shipwreck of all hope. To live is horror; the infuriated sufferer feels himself an outcast from God and man; and though his judgment may still be correct upon other subjects, it is completely overpowered upon that of his actual distress, and all he thinks of and aims at is to withdraw with as much speed as possible from the present state of torture, totally regardless of the future.

“I would not if I could be blest,

I want no other paradise but rest.”

The most painfully interesting and melancholy cases of insanity are those in which remorse has taken possession of the mind. Simon Brown, the dissenting clergyman, fancied that he had been deprived by the Almighty of his immortal soul, in consequence of having accidentally taken away the life of a highwayman, although it was done in the act of resistance to his threatened violence, and in protection of his own person. Whilst kneeling upon the wretch whom he had succeeded in throwing upon the ground, he suddenly discovered that his prostrate enemy was deprived of life. This unexpected circumstance produced so violent an impression upon his nervous system, that he was overpowered by the idea of an involuntary homicide, and for this imaginary crime fancied himself ever afterwards condemned to one of the most dreadful punishments that could be inflicted upon a human being.

A young lady was one morning requested by her mother to stay at home; notwithstanding which, she was tempted to go out. Upon her return to her domestic roof, she found that the parent whom she had so recently disobliged had expired in her absence. The awful spectacle of a mother’s corpse, connected with the filial disobedience which had almost immediately preceded, shook her reason from its seat, and she has ever since continued in a state of mental derangement.

It is said that the solitary hours of Charles the Ninth of France were rendered horrible by the repetition of the shrieks and cries which had assailed his ears during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.[21]

The death of Cardinal Beaufort is represented as truly terrible. The consciousness of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester is said to have rendered Beaufort’s death one of the most terrific scenes ever witnessed. Despair, in its worst form, appeared to take possession of his mind at the last moment. His concluding words, as recorded by Harpsfield,[22] were—“And must I then die? Will not all my riches save me? I could purchase the kingdom, if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing of death? When my nephew, the Duke of Bedford, died, I thought my happiness and my authority greatly increased; but the Duke of Gloucester’s death raised me in fancy to a level with kings, and I thought of nothing but accumulating still greater wealth, to purchase at last the triple crown. Alas! how are my hopes disappointed! Wherefore, O my friends, let me earnestly beseech you to pray for me, and recommend my departing soul to God!” A few minutes before his death, his mind appeared to be undergoing the tortures of the damned. He held up his two hands, and cried—“Away! away!—why thus do ye look at me?” It was evident he saw some horrible spectre by his bed-side. This last scene in the Cardinal’s life has been most ably delineated by the immortal Shakspeare:—

M. Guillon relates the following remarkable case:—“The Chevalier de S—— had been engaged in seventeen ‘affairs of honour,’ in each of which his adversary fell. But the images of his murdered rivals began to haunt him night and day; and at length he fancied he heard nothing but the wailings and upbraidings of seventeen families—one demanding a father, another a son, another a brother, another a husband, &c. Harassed by these imaginary followers, he incarcerated himself in the monastery of La Trappe; but the French revolution threw open this asylum, and turned the chevalier once more into the world. He was now no longer able to bear the remorse of his own conscience, or, as he imagined, the sight of seventeen murdered men, and therefore put himself to death. It is evident that insanity was the consequence of the remorse, and the cause of the suicide.

“No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure as that which is complicated with the idea of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give pain; but when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them.”[25]

How accurately has the poet depicted the tortures, the sleeplessness, of a guilty conscience:—

“Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish;

By a power to thee unknown,

Thou canst never be alone;

Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,

Thou art gathered in a cloud;

And for ever shalt thou dwell

In the spirit of this spell.”

A woman with her husband had been employed in a French hospital as servants for a considerable time. Having left their situations, the wife, thirty years afterwards, declared she heard a voice within, commanding her to repair instantly to the chief commissioner of police, and confess the thefts she had committed during the time she was at the hospital. The fact was, that she had been guilty of appropriating occasionally to her own use a portion of the food supplied for the patients attached to the Institution. The commissioner listened to the woman’s story, and her demand that she should be punished, but refused to take any cognizance of the offence. She returned home, and for some time was extremely dejected. She became so miserable that existence was no longer desirable; and as the legal tribunals refused to punish her, she determined on suicide, which she committed at the age of fifty-one.

It is admitted, by almost universal consent, that there is no affection of the mind that exerts so tremendous an influence over the human race as that of love.

“To love, and feel ourselves beloved,”

is said to constitute the height of human happiness. This sacred sentiment, which some have debased by the term passion, when unrequited and irregulated, produces the most baneful influence upon the system.

“A youthful passion, which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls—it bursts—consuming and destroying all around, even as itself expires.”[26]

From the constitution of woman, from the peculiar position which she of necessity holds in society, we should, à priori, have concluded that in her we should see manifested this sentiment in all its purity and strength. Such is the fact. A woman’s life is said to be but the history of her affections. It is the soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life blood along her veins, “blending with every atom of her frame.” Separated from the bustle of active life—isolated like a sweet and rare exotic flower from the world, it is natural to expect that the mind should dwell with earnestness upon that which is to constitute almost its very being, and apart from which it has no existence.

“Alas! the love of woman, it is known

To be a lovely and a fearful thing;

For all of theirs upon that die is thrown;

And if ’tis lost, life hath no more to bring

To them, but mockeries of the past alone.”

Byron.

The term “broken heart” is not a mere poetical image. Cases are recorded in which that organ has been ruptured in consequence of disappointed hope. Let those who are sceptical as to the fact that physical disease so often results from blighted affection, visit the wards of our public and private asylums. In those dreary regions of misery they will have an opportunity of witnessing the wreck of many a form that was once beauteous and happy. Ask their history, and you will be told of holy and sincere affection nipped in the bud—of wild and passionate love strangled at its birth—of the death of all human hopes, of a severance from those about whom every fibre of the soul had entwined itself. Silent and sullen grief, black despair,

“And laughter loud, amidst severest woe,”

are the painful images that meet the eye at every step we take through these “hells upon earth.”[27]

In this country, the great majority of the cases of insanity among women, in our establishments devoted to the reception of the insane, can clearly be traced to unrequited and disappointed affection. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider the present artificial state of society. We make “merchandize of love;” both men and women are estimated, not by their mental endowments, not by their moral worth, not by their capacity of making the domestic fire-side happy, but by the length of their respective purses. Instead of seeking for a heart, we look for a dowry. Money is preferred to intellect; pure and unadulterated affection dwindles into nothingness when placed in the same scale with titles and worldly honours,

“And Mammon wins his way

Where seraphs might despair.”

How little do those who ought to be influenced by more elevated motives calculate the seeds of wretchedness and misery which they are sowing for those who, by nature, have a right to demand that they should be actuated by other principles!

“Shall I be won

Because I’m valued as a money-bag?

For that I bring to him who winneth me,”[28]

says Catherine, in the spirit of honest indignation. It should be remembered that “wedlock joins nothing, if it joins not hearts.”

How many melancholy cases of suicide can clearly be traced to this cause! Death is considered preferable to a long life of unmitigated sorrow. When the heart is seared, when there exists no “green spot in memory’s dreary waste,”—when all hope is banished from the mind, and wretched loneliness and desolation take up their residence in the heart, need it excite surprise that the quiet and rest of the grave is eagerly longed for! If a mind thus worked upon be not influenced by religious principles, self-destruction is the idea constantly present to the imagination.

Of all the sufferings, however, to which we are exposed during our sojourn below, nothing is so truly overwhelming and irreparable as the death of one with whom all our early associations are inseparably linked—one endeared to us by the most pleasing recollections. Death leaves a blank in our existence; a cold shuddering shoots through the frame, a mist flits before our eyes, darkening the face of nature, when the heart that mingled all its feelings with ours lies, cold and insensible, in the silent grave.

As long as life lasts, there is hope; but death snatches every ray of consolation from the mind. The only prop that supported us is removed, and the mansion crumbles to the dust; the mind becomes utterly and hopelessly wrecked. To say that this is but the effect on understandings constitutionally weak, is to say what facts will not establish. The most elevated and best cultivated minds are often the most sensitively alive to such impressions.

The following case made considerable noise at Lyons, in 1770. A young gentleman of rank, of handsome exterior, possessing considerable mental endowments, and most respectably connected, fell in love with a young lady, who, like himself, possessed a handsome person, in union with accomplishments of a high order. They met; the passion was reciprocal, and the gentleman accordingly made an application to her parents to be allowed to consummate their bliss by marriage. The parents, as parents sometimes do under these circumstances, refused compliance. The gentleman took it greatly to heart; it preyed much upon his mind, and in the midst of his grief he burst a blood-vessel. His case was given over by the medical men. The young lady, on being made acquainted with his condition, paid him a clandestine visit, and they then agreed to destroy themselves. Accordingly the lady brought with her, on her next visit, two pistols and two daggers, in order that, if the pistols missed, the daggers might the next moment pierce their hearts. They embraced each other for the last time. Rose-coloured ribbons were tied to the triggers of the pistols; the lover holding the ribbon of his mistress’ pistol, while she held the ribbon of his; both fired at a given signal, and both fell at the same instant dead on the floor!

The case now about to be recorded presents some peculiarly interesting features. An English lady, moving in the first circles of society, went, in company with her friends, to the opera at Paris. In the next box sat a gentleman, who appeared, from the notice he took of the lady, to be enamoured of her. The lady expressed herself annoyed at the observation which she had attracted, and moved to another part of the box. The gentleman followed the carriage home, and insisted upon addressing the lady, declaring that he had had the pleasure of meeting her elsewhere, and that one minute’s conversation would convince her of the fact, and do away with the unfavourable impression which his apparent rudeness might have made upon her mind. As his request did not appear at the moment unreasonable, she consented to see him for a minute by herself. In that short space of time he made a fervent declaration of his affection; acknowledged that desperation had compelled him to have recourse to a ruse to obtain an interview, and that, unless she looked favourably on his pretensions, he would kill her and then himself. The lady expressed her indignation at the deceit he had practised, and said, with considerable firmness, that he must quit the house. He did so, retired to his home, and with a lancet opened a vein in his arm. He collected a portion of blood in a cup, and with it wrote a note to the lady, telling her that his blood was flowing fast from his body, and it should continue to flow until she consented to listen to his proposals. The lady, on the receipt of the note, sent her servant to see the gentleman, and found him, as he represented, actually bleeding to death. On the entreaty of the lady, the arm was bound up and his life saved. On writing to the lady, under the impression that she would now accept his addresses, he was amazed on receiving a cool refusal, and a request that he would not trouble her with any more letters. Again driven to desperation, he resolved effectually to kill himself. He accordingly loaded a pistol and directed his steps towards the residence of his fair amorosa, when, knocking at the door, he gained admission, and immediately blew out his brains. The intelligence was communicated to the lady, she became dreadfully excited, and a severe attack of nervous fever followed. When the acute symptoms subsided, her mind was completely deranged. Her insanity took a peculiar turn. She fancied she heard a voice commanding her to commit suicide, and yet she appeared to be possessed of sufficient reason to know that she was desirous of doing what she ought to be restrained from accomplishing. Every now and then she would exclaim, “Take away the pistol! I won’t hang myself! I won’t take poison!” Under the impression that she would kill herself, she was carefully watched; but notwithstanding the vigilance which was exercised she had sufficient cunning to conceal a knife, with which, during the temporary absence of the attendant, she stabbed herself in the abdomen, and died in a few hours. It appears that the idea that she had caused the death of another, and that she had it in her power to save his life by complying with his wishes, produced the derangement of mind under which she was labouring at the time of her death; and yet she did not manifest, and it was evident to everybody that she had not, the slightest affection for the gentleman who professed so much to admire her. Possessing naturally a sensitive mind, it was easily excited. The peculiar circumstances connected with her mental derangement were sufficient to account for the delusions under which she laboured. Altogether the case is full of interest.

Few passions tend more to distract and unsettle the mind than that of jealousy. Insanity and suicide often owe their origin to this feeling. One of the most terrific pictures of the dire effects of this “green-eyed monster” on the mind is delineated in the character of Othello. In the Moor of Venice we witness a fearful struggle between fond and passionate love and this corroding mental emotion. Worked upon by the villainous artifices of Iago, Othello is led to doubt the constancy of Desdemona’s affection; the very doubt urges him almost to the brink of madness; but when he feels assured of her guilt, and sees the gulf into which he has been hurled, and the utter hopelessness of his condition, he abandons himself to despair. Nothing which the master spirit of Shakspeare ever penned can equal the exquisitely touching and melting pathos of the speech of the Moor when he becomes perfectly conscious of the wreck of one around whom every tendril of his heart had indissolubly interwoven itself. To be forcibly severed from one dearer to us than our own existence is a misfortune that requires much philosophy to bear up against; to be torn from a beloved object by death, to feel that the earth encloses in its cold embrace the idol of our affections, freezes the heart; but to be separated from one who has forfeited all claim to our affection and friendship, and who still lives, but lives in dishonour, must be a refinement of human misery. Need we then wonder that, when influenced by such feelings, Othello should thus give expression to the overflowings of his soul:—

“Oh now, for ever,

Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!

Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,

That make ambition virtue! Oh, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,

The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,

The royal banner, and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

And, oh, you mortal engines, whose rude throats

Th’ immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit,

Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!”

It is under the infliction of such a concentration of misery that many a mind is shattered, and that death is courted as the only relief within its grasp. Othello, having discovered when it was too late that he had wrongly suspected Desdemona, and had sacrificed the life of the sweetest creature on earth, a combination of passions drives him to distraction, and under their influence he plunges the dagger into his heart. Jealousy was not, as some have supposed, the exclusive cause of Othello’s suicide.

The following singular case attracted considerable notice fifteen years ago. A woman was subjected to much maltreatment by her husband. She was jealous of his attentions to one of the servants, and she had frequently declared, that if he persisted in insulting her under her own roof she would either cause his or her own death. On one occasion she was more than usually violent, and expressed her determination to ruin him. Fearful that she would carry her threat into execution, he had her placed in a room where there was no furniture, and nothing that she could use for the purpose of self-destruction. Her rage was greatly increased by this barbarous treatment, and her screams were sufficiently loud to alarm the whole neighbourhood. As her husband refused to release her from confinement, she determined no longer to submit to his brutal control, and resolved to commit suicide. Having no instrument that she could use, she felt some difficulty in effecting her purpose. She held her breath for some time, but that did not succeed. She then tried to strangle herself with her hands, but that mode was equally unsuccessful. Her determination was so resolutely fixed, that in desperation she tore her hair out by the roots. Still death did not come to her relief. In vain she searched in every corner of the room for something with which she might effectually take away her life. Just as she was beginning to give up the idea as hopeless, her eye caught a sight of the glass in the window; she instantly broke a pane, and with a piece of it endeavoured to cut her throat; and yet she could not succeed in effecting her horrid purpose. At last, as a dernier resort, she resolved to swallow a piece of the broken glass, hoping by this means to choke herself. She did so, and the glass stuck in her throat, and produced the most excruciating agony. Her groans became audible; the husband became alarmed, and opened the door, when he found his wife apparently in the last struggles of death. Medical relief was immediately obtained, and although everything that surgical ingenuity could suggest was had recourse to, she died, a melancholy spectacle of the effects of unsubdued passion.

The two following cases shew how trifling a cause often incites to self-destruction:—

Madame N——, a once famous dancer at the French opera-house, was taken to task by her husband for not acquitting herself so well in the ballet as she usually did. She exhibited indications of passion at the, as she thought, unmerited reproof. When she arrived home, she resolved to die, but was much puzzled to effect her purpose. The next morning, she purchased a potent poison, but when she returned to her home she found that her husband looked suspiciously at her, and appeared to watch her movements. She then made up her mind to take the fatal draught in the evening, as she was going in the carriage to the opera. She accordingly did so; the poison did not have an immediate effect. The ballet commenced, and Madame N—— was led on the stage; and it was not until she had commenced dancing that she began to feel the draught producing the desired effect. She complained of illness, and was removed to her dressing-room, where she expired in the arms of her husband, confessing that she had, in a fit of chagrin at his rebuke, swallowed poison!

A young gentleman, of considerable promise, of high natural and acquired attainments, had been solicited to make a speech at a public meeting, which was to take place in the town in which he resided. As he had never attempted to address extemporaneously a public body, he expressed himself extremely nervous as to the result, and asked permission to withdraw his name from the published list of speakers. This wish was not, however, complied with, as it was thought that when the critical moment arrived he would not be found wanting even in the art of public speaking. He had prepared himself with considerable care for the attempt. His name was announced from the chair; when he rose for the purpose of delivering his sentiments. The exordium was spoken without any hesitation; and his friends felt assured that he would acquit himself with great credit. He had not, however, advanced much beyond his prefatory observations, when he hesitated, and found himself incapable of proceeding. He then sat down, evidently excessively mortified. In this state he retired to a room where the members of the committee had previously met, and cut his throat with his penknife. He wounded the carotid artery, and died in a few minutes.

A case of suicide from mortified pride, somewhat similar to the last, occurred some years ago in London. A gentleman, whose imagination was much more active than his judgment, conceived that he was possessed of histrionic powers equal to those which were exhibited by the immortal Garrick. A manager of a London theatre, to whom he was introduced, allowed him to make his débût at his theatre. As is often the case, the public formed a different estimate of his abilities to that which the vanity of the young aspirant had induced him to form; and the consequence was, that he was well hissed and hooted for his presumption in attempting a character for which his talents so little adapted him. Being naturally sensitive, his failure preyed on his mind; and under the influence of the mortification, he hung himself, leaving in his room the following laconic epistle, addressed to his mother:—

“My Dear Mother,—All my hopes have been ruined. I fancied myself a man of genius; the reality has proved me to be a fool. I die, because life is no longer to be supported. Look charitably on this last action of my life. Adieu!”

A common cause of suicide is the feeling of false pride. The only reason assigned for the desperate act of Elizabeth Moyes, who threw herself from the Monument, was, that, owing to the reduced circumstances of her father, (a baker,) it was determined that she should procure a situation at a confectioner’s, and support herself. This she allowed to prey upon her mind, although she expressed a concurrence in the propriety of the course suggested. How true it is—

“Abstract what others feel, what others think,

All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink.”

Pope.

Owing to the fictitious notions abroad in society, the ridiculously false views which are taken of worldly honours, the ideas which a sickly sentimentality infuses into the mind, this feeling is engendered, to an alarming extent, through the different ranks of society. This constitutes one great element which is undermining and disorganizing our social condition. A fictitious value is affixed to wealth and position in the world; it is estimated for itself alone, all other considerations being placed out of view.

“None think the great unhappy but the great.”

Vatel committed suicide because he was not able to prepare as sumptuous an entertainment as he wished for his guests.

We cannot conceive how this evil is to be obviated, unless it be possible to revolutionize the ideas which are generally attached to fame and worldly grandeur. It is difficult to persuade such persons that the end of fame is merely

“To have, when the original is dust,

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.”

There is a nameless, undefinable something, that the world is taught to sigh after—is always in search of; a moral ignis fatuus, which is dazzling to lead it from the road which points to true and unsophisticated happiness.

Persons naturally proud are less able than others to bear up against the distresses of life; they are more severely galled by the yoke of adversity; and hence this passion often produces mental derangement. Such characters exhibit a morbid desire for praise; it acts like moral nourishment to their souls; it is a stimulus that is almost necessary to their very being, forgetting that

“Praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,

Enfeebles all eternal weight of thought;

’Till the fond soul, within itself unblest,

Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.”

Dr. Reid justly observes, that “he who enters most deeply into the misfortunes of others, will be best able to bear his own. A practical benevolence, by habitually urging us to disinterested exertion, tends to alienate the attention from any single train of ideas, which, if favoured by indolence and self contemplation, might be in danger of monopolizing the mind, and occasions us to lose a sense of our personal concerns in an enlarged and liberal sympathy with the general good.”

Villeneuve, the celebrated French admiral, when he was taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat that he studied anatomy in order to destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France, Buonaparte ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and consequently losing his fleet, (for Napoleon had ordered him not to sail or to engage the English,) determined to destroy himself; and accordingly took his plates and compared them with the position of his heart. Exactly in the centre he made a mark with a large pin; then fixed it, as near as he could judge, in the same spot in his own breast, and shoved it on to its head; it penetrated his heart, and he expired. When the room was opened, he was found dead, the pin through his breast, and a mark in the plate corresponding with the wound.[29]

It has been said that after the death of Josephine, and when Buonaparte was overwhelmed with misfortunes, he attempted suicide. Those who consider Napoleon immaculate deny the accuracy of the charge. But in order to give the reader an opportunity of judging for himself, we lay before him Sir Walter Scott’s account of the transaction referred to. “Buonaparte,” he observes, “belonged to the Roman school of philosophy; and it is confidently reported by Baron Fane, his secretary—though not universally believed—that he designed to escape from life by an act of suicide. The Emperor, according to this account, had carried with him, ever since his retreat from Moscow, a packet containing a preparation of opium, made up in the same manner with that used by Condorcet, for self-destruction. His valet-de-chambre, in the night of the 12th or 13th of April, heard him arise, and pour something into a glass of water, drink, and return to bed. In a short time afterwards the man’s attention was called by sobs and stifled groans; an alarm took place in the chateau; some of the principal persons were roused, and repaired to Napoleon’s chamber. Yvan, the surgeon who had procured him the poison, was also summoned; but hearing the Emperor complain that the operation of the potion was not quick enough, he was seized with a panic of terror, and fled from the palace at full gallop. Napoleon took the remedies recommended, and a long fit of stupor ensued, with profuse perspiration. He awakened much exhausted, and surprised at finding himself still alive. He said aloud, after a few moments’ reflection, ‘Fate will not have it so;’ and afterwards appeared reconciled to undergo his destiny without similar attempts at personal violence.” Napoleon’s illness was, at the time, imputed to indigestion. A general of the highest distinction transacted business with Napoleon on the morning of the 13th of April. He seemed pale and dejected, as from recent and exhausting illness. His only dress was a night-gown and slippers; and he drank, from time to time, a quantity of ptisan, or some such liquid, which was placed beside him, saying he had suffered severely during the night, but that his complaint had left him.[30]

We cannot conceive a more piteous condition than that of a man of great ambition without the powers of mind which are indispensable for its gratification. In him a constant contest is going on between an intellect constitutionally weak, and a desire to distinguish himself in some particular department of life. How often a man so unhappily organized ends his career in a mad-house, or terminates his miserable existence by suicide! Let men be taught to make correct estimates of their own capabilities, to curb in the imagination, to cease “building castles in the air,” if we wish to advance their mental and bodily health. “Ne sutor ultra crepidam,” said Apelles to the cobbler. A young man who “penned a stanza when he ought to engross,” blew out his brains because he had failed in inducing a London publisher to purchase an epic poem which he had written, and which he had the vanity to conceive was equal to Paradise Lost, forgetting that, in order to be a poet,—

“Nature’s kindling breath

Must fire the chosen genius; nature’s hand

Must string his nerves and imp his eagle wings.”

That this state of mind predisposes and often leads to the commission of suicide, numerous cases testify.