Chapter XXXV: Suicide (2)

[Footnote 146: Some Australian natives cut off the thumb of the right hand of a dead foe in order to make his spirit unable to throw the spear efficiently (Oldfield, in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N.S. iii. 287).]

[Footnote 147: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 148: Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 104.]

[Footnote 149: Dio Chrysostom, _Orationes_, lxiv. 3.]

[Footnote 150: Cicero, _Cato Major_, 20 (73).]

[Footnote 151: Plato, _**Phædo_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 152: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, v. 11. 3.]

[Footnote 153: See Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 83, 441; Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 202, n. 1.]

[Footnote 154: Valerius Maximus, _Factorum dictorumque memorabilia_, ii. 6. 7.]

[Footnote 155: See Geiger, _Der Selbstmord im klassischen Altertum_, p. 5 _sqq._]

[Footnote 156: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 157: Cicero, _Tusculanæ quæstiones_, i. 34 (83 _sq._). Valerius Maximus, viii. 9. Externa 3.]

[Footnote 158: Epicurus, quoted by Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 26.]

[Footnote 159: See Geiger, _op. cit._ p. 15 _sqq._]

[Footnote 160: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 70. See also _Idem_, _De ira_, iii. 15; _Idem_, _Consolatia ad Marciam_, 20.]

[Footnote 161: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 214, n. 1.]

[Footnote 162: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 70.]

[Footnote 163: Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, i. 9. 16.]

[Footnote 164: _Ibid._ i. 24. 20; i. 25. 20 _sq._; ii. 16. 37 _sqq._; iii. 13. 14; iii. 24. 95 _sqq._]

[Footnote 165: Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, ii. 5 (7).]

It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with considerable moral indifference. According to Servius, it was provided by the Pontifical laws that whoever hanged himself should be cast out unburied;[166] but from what has been said before it is probable that this practice only owed its origin to fear of the dead man's ghost. Vergil enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants who have died prematurely and persons who have been condemned to die on a false charge.[167] Throughout the whole history of pagan Rome there was no statute declaring it to be a crime for an ordinary citizen to take his own life. The self-murderer's rights were in no way affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by law, and the regular order of succession was not interfered with.[168] In Roman law there are only two noteworthy exceptions to the rule that suicide is a matter with which the State has nothing to do: it was prohibited in the case of soldiers,[169] and the enactment was made that the suicide of an accused person should entail the same consequences as his condemnation; but in the latter instance the deed was admitted as a confession of guilt.[170] On the other {251} hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and praiseworthy act.[171] Even Cicero, who professed the doctrine of Pythagoras,[172] approved of the death of Cato.[173]

[Footnote 166: Servius, _Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos_, xii. 603.]

[Footnote 167: Vergil, _Æneis_, vi. 426 _sqq._]

[Footnote 168: Bourquelot, 'Recherches sur les opinions et la législation en matière de mort volontaire pendant le moyen age,' in _Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes_, iii. 544. Geiger, _op. cit._ p. 64 _sqq._ Bynkershoek, _Observationes Juris Romani_, iv. 4, p. 350.]

[Footnote 169: _Digesta_, xlix. 16. 6. 7.]

[Footnote 170: _Ibid._ xlviii. 21. 3 pr. _Cf._ Bourquelot, _op. cit._ iii. 543 sq.; Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, v. 326; Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 219.]

[Footnote 171: Stäudlin, _Geschichte der Vorstellungen und Lehren vom Selbstmorde_, p. 62 _sq._]

[Footnote 172: Cicero, _Cato Major_, 20 (72 _sq._).]

[Footnote 173: _Idem_, _De officiis_, i. 31 (112).]

In no question of morality was there a greater difference between classical and Christian doctrines than in regard to suicide. The earlier Fathers of the Church still allowed, or even approved of, suicide in certain cases, namely, when committed in order to procure martyrdom,[174] or to avoid apostacy, or to retain the crown of virginity. To bring death upon ourselves voluntarily, says Lactantius, is a wicked and impious deed; "but when urged to the alternative, either of forsaking God and relinquishing faith, or of expecting all torture and death, then it is that undaunted in spirit we defy that death with all its previous threats and terrors which others fear."[175] Eusebius and other ecclesiastical writers mention several instances of Christian women putting an end to their lives when their chastity was in danger, and their acts are spoken of with tenderness, if not approbation; indeed, some of them were admitted into the calendar of saints.[176] This admission was due to the extreme honour in which virginity was held by the Fathers; St. Jerome, who denied that it was lawful in times of persecution to die by one's own hands, made an exception for cases in which a person's chastity was at stake.[177] But even this exception was abolished by St. Augustine. He allows that the virgins who laid violent hands upon themselves are worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no necessity for their doing so, since chastity is a virtue of {252} the mind which is not lost by the body being in captivity to the will and superior force of another. He argues that there is no passage in the canonical Scriptures which permits us to destroy ourselves either with a view to obtaining immortality or to avoiding calamity. On the contrary, suicide is prohibited in the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," namely, "neither thyself nor another"; for he who kills himself kills no other but a man.[178] This doctrine, which assimilates suicide with murder, was adopted by the Church.[179] Nay, self-murder was declared to be the worst form of murder, "the most grievous thing of all";[180] already St. Chrysostom had declared that "if it is base to destroy others, much more is it to destroy one's self."[181] The self-murderer was deprived of rights which were granted to all other criminals. In the sixth century a Council at Orleans enjoined that "the oblations of those who were killed in the commission of any crime may be received, except of such as laid violent hands on themselves";[182] and a subsequent Council denied self-murderers the usual rites of Christian burial.[183] It was even said that Judas committed a greater sin in killing himself than in betraying his master Christ to a certain death.[184]

[Footnote 174: See Barbeyrac, _Traité de la morale des Pères de l'Église_, pp. 18, 122 _sq._; Buonafede, _Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio_, p. 135 _sqq._; Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 45 _sq._]

[Footnote 175: Lactantius, _Divines Institutiones_, vi. ('De vero cultu') 17 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, vi. 697).]

[Footnote 176: Eusebius, _Historia ecclesiastica_, viii. 12 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, xx. 769 _sqq._), 14 (_ibid._ col. 785 _sqq._). St. Ambrose, _De virginibus_, xiii. 7 (Migne, _op. cit._ xvi. 229 _sqq._). St. Chrysostom, _Homilia encomiastica in S. Martyrem Pelagiam_ (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, l. 579 sqq.).]

[Footnote 177: St. Jerome, _Commentarii in Jonam_, i. 12 (Migne, _op. cit._ xxv. 1129).]

[Footnote 178: St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, i. 16 _sqq._]

[Footnote 179: Gratian, _Decretum_, ii. 23. 5. 9. 3.]

[Footnote 180: Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologica_, ii.-ii. 64. 5. 3.]

[Footnote 181: St. Chrysostom, _In Epistolam ad Galatas commentarius_, i. 4 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, lxi. 618 _sq._).]

[Footnote 182: _Concilium Aurelianense II._ A.D. 533, can. 15 (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, viii. 837). See also _Concilium Autisiodorense_, A.D. 578, can. 17 (Labbe-Mansi, ix. 913).]

[Footnote 183: _Concilium Bracarense II._ A.D. 563, cap. 16 (Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ ix. 779).]

[Footnote 184: Damhouder, _Praxis rerum criminalium_, lviii. 2 _sq._, p. 258. See Gratian, _op. cit._ ii. 33. 3. 3. 38. At the trial of the Marquise de Brinvilliers in 1676, the presiding judge said to the prisoner that "the greatest of all her crimes, horrible as they were, was, not the poisoning of her father and brothers, but her attempt to poison herself" (Ives, _Classification of Crimes_, p. 36).]

According to the Christian doctrine, as formulated by Thomas Aquinas, suicide is utterly unlawful for three reasons. First, everything naturally loves itself and preserves itself in being; suicide is against a natural inclination and contrary to the charity which a man ought to bear towards himself, and consequently a mortal sin. {253} Secondly, by killing himself a person does an injury to the community of which he is a part. Thirdly, "life is a gift divinely bestowed on man, and subject to His power who 'killeth and maketh alive'; and therefore he who takes his own life sins against God, as he who kills another man's slave sins against the master to whom the slave belongs, and as he sins who usurps the office of judge on a point not referred to him; for to God alone belongs judgment of life and death."[185] The second of these arguments is borrowed from Aristotle, and is entirely foreign to the spirit of early Christianity. The notion of patriotism being a moral duty was habitually discouraged by it, and, as Mr. Lecky observes, "it was impossible to urge the civic argument against suicide without at the same time condemning the hermit life, which in the third century became the ideal of the Church."[186] But the other arguments are deeply rooted in some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity--in the sacredness of human life, in the duty of absolute submission to God's will, and in the extreme importance attached to the moment of death. The earthly life is a preparation for eternity; sufferings which are sent by God are not to be evaded, but to be endured.[187] The man who deliberately takes away the life which was given him by the Creator displays the utmost disregard for the will and authority of his Master; and, worst of all, he does so in the very last minute of his life, when his doom is sealed for ever. His deed, as Thomas Aquinas says, is "the most dangerous thing of all, because no time is left to expiate it by repentance."[188] He who kills a fellow-creature does not in the same degree renounce the protection of God; he kills only the body, whereas the self-murderer kills both the body and the soul.[189] By denying the latter the right of Christian {254} burial the Church recognises that he has placed himself outside her pale.

[Footnote 185: Thomas Aquinas, _op. cit._ ii.-ii. 64. 5.]

[Footnote 186: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 44.]

[Footnote 187: _Cf._ St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, i. 23.]

[Footnote 188: Thomas Aquinas, _op. cit._ ii.-ii. 64. 5. 3. _Cf._ St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, i. 25.]

[Footnote 189: Damhouder, _op. cit._ lxxxviii. 1 _sq._, p. 258.]

The condemnation of the Church influenced the secular legislation. The provisions of the Councils were introduced into the law-books. In France Louis IX. enforced the penalty of confiscating the self-murderer's property,[190] and laws to the same effect were passed in other European countries.[191] Louis XIV. assimilated the crime of suicide to that of _lèze majesté_.[192] According to the law of Scotland, "self-murder is as highly criminal as the killing our neighbour."[193] In England suicide is still regarded by the law as murder committed by a man on himself;[194] and, unless declared insane, the self-murderer forfeited his property as late as the year 1870, when forfeitures for felony were abolished.[195] In Russia, to this day, the testamentary dispositions of a suicide are deemed void by the law.[196]

[Footnote 190: _Les Établissements de Saint Louis_, i. 92, vol. ii. 150.]

[Footnote 191: Bourquelot, _op. cit._ iv. 263. Morselli, _op. cit._ p. 196 _sq._]

[Footnote 192: Louis XIV., 'Ordonnance criminelle,' A.D. 1670, xxii. 1, in Isambert, Decrusy, and Taillandier, _Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises_, xviii. 414.]

[Footnote 193: Erskine-Rankine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_, p. 559.]

[Footnote 194: Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, iii. 104. For earlier times see Bracton, _De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ_, fol. 150, vol. ii. 504 _sq._]

[Footnote 195: Stephen, _op. cit._ iii. 105.]

[Footnote 196: Foinitzki, in von Liszt, _La législation pénale comparée_, p. 548.]

The horror of suicide also found a vent in outrages committed on the dead body. Of a woman who drowned herself in Edinburgh in 1598, we are told that her body was "harled through the town backwards, and thereafter hanged on the gallows."[197] In France, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, self-murderers were dragged upon a hurdle through the streets with the face turned to the ground; they were then hanged up with the head downwards, and finally thrown into the common sewer.[198] However, in most cases the treatment to which suicides bodies were subject was not originally meant as a punishment, but was intended to prevent their spirits {255} from causing mischief. All over Europe wandering tendencies have been ascribed to their ghosts.[199] In some countries the corpse of a suicide is supposed to make barren the earth with which it comes in contact,[200] or to produce hailstorms or tempests[201] or drought.[202] At Lochbroom, in the North-West of Scotland, the people believe that if the remains of a self-murderer be taken to any burying-ground which is within sight of the sea or of cultivated land, this would prove disastrous both to fishing and agriculture, or, in the words of the people, would cause "famine (or dearth) on sea and land"; hence the custom has been to inter suicides in out-of-the-way places among the lonely solitudes of the mountains.[203] The practice of burying them apart from other dead has been very wide-spread in Europe, and in many cases there are obvious indications that it arose from fear.[204] In the North-East of Scotland a suicide was buried outside a churchyard, close beneath the wall, and the grave was marked by a single large stone, or by a small cairn, to which the passing traveller was bound to cast a stone; and afterwards, when the suicide's body was allowed to rest in the churchyard, it was laid below the wall in such a position that no one could walk over the grave, as the people believed that if a woman enceinte stepped over such a {256} grave, her child would quit this earth by its own act.[205] In England persons against whom a coroner's jury had found a verdict of _felo de se_ were buried at cross-roads, with a stake driven through the body so as to prevent their ghosts from walking.[206] For the same purpose the bodies of {257} suicides were in many cases burned.[207] And when removed from the house where the act had been committed, they were commonly carried out, not by the door, but by a window,[208] or through a perforation specially made for the occasion in the door,[209] or through a hole under the threshold,[210] in order that the ghost should not find its way back into the house, or perhaps with a view to keeping the entrance of the house free from dangerous infection.[211]

[Footnote 197: Ross, 'Superstitions as to burying Suicides in the Highlands,' in _Celtic Magazine_, xii. 354.]

[Footnote 198: Serpillon, _Code Criminel_, ii. 223. _Cf._ Louis XIV., 'Ordonnance criminelle,' A.D. 1670, xxii. 1, in Isambert, Decrusy, and Taillandier, _op. cit._ xviii. 414.]

[Footnote 199: Ross, in _Celtic Magazine_, xii. 352 (Highlanders of Scotland). Atkinson, _Forty Years in a Moorland Parish_, p. 217. Hyltén-Cavallius, _Wärend och Wirdarne_, i. 472 _sq._ (Swedes). Allardt, 'Nyländska folkseder och bruk,' in _Nyland_, iv. 114 (Swedish Finlanders). Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_, §756, p. 474 _sq._ Schiffer, 'Totenfetische bei den Polen,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 50 (Polanders), 52 (Lithuanians). Volkov, 'Der Selbstmörder in Lithauen,' _ibid._ v. 87. von Wlislocki, 'Tod und Totenfetische im Volkglauben der Siebenbürger Sachsen,' _ibid._ iv. 53. Lippert, _Christenthum, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch_, p. 391. Dyer, _The Ghost World_, pp. 53, 151. Gaidoz, 'Le suicide,' in _Mélusine_, iv. 12.]

[Footnote 200: Schiffer, in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 52 (Lithuanians).]

[Footnote 201: _Ibid._ pp. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Magyaren_, p. 61. Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_, p. 455. Prexl, 'Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,' in _Globus_, lvii. 30.]

[Footnote 202: Strausz, _op. cit._ p. 455 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 203: Ross, in _Celtic Magazine_, xii. 350 _sq._]

[Footnote 204: Gaidoz, in _Mélusine_, iv. 12. Frank, _System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey_, iv. 499. Moore, _op. cit._ i. 310 (Danes). Schiffer, in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). Volkov, _ibid._ v. 87 (Lithuanians). Strausz, _op. cit._ p. 455 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 205: Gregor, _Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland_, p. 213 _sq._]

[Footnote 206: Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, iii. 105. Atkinson, _op. cit._ p. 217. This custom was formally abolished in 1823 by 4 Geo. IV. c. 52 (Stephen, _op. cit._ iii. 105). Why were suicides buried at cross-roads? Possibly because the cross was supposed to disperse the evil energy ascribed to their bodies. Both in Europe and India the cross-road has, since ancient times, been a favourite place to divest oneself of diseases or other influences (Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_, §§ 483, 484, 492, 508, 514, 522, 545, pp. 325, 326, 331, 341, 345, 349, 361. _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, pp. 272, 473, 519. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp. 267, 268 n. 1). In the sacred books of India it is said that "a student who has broken the vow of chastity shall offer an ass to Nirriti on a cross-road" (_Gautama_, xxiii. 17), and that a person who has previously undergone certain other purification ceremonies "is freed from all crimes, even mortal sins, after looking on a cross-road at a pot filled with water, and reciting the text, 'Simhe me manyuh'" (_Baudhâyana_, iv. 7. 7). In the hills of Northern India and as far as Madras, an approved charm for getting rid of a disease of demoniacal origin is to plant a stake where four roads meet, and to bury grains underneath, which crows disinter and eat (_North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. § 652, p. 100; Madden, 'The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xvii. pt. i. 583; Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, i. 290). In the Province of Bih[=a]r, "in cases of sickness various articles are exposed in a saucer at a cross-road" (Grierson, _Bih[=a]r Peasant Life_, p. 407). According to a Bulgarian tale, Lot was enjoined by the priest to plant on a cross-road three charred twigs in order to free himself from his sin (Strausz, _op. cit._ p. 115). The Gypsies of Servia believe that a thief may divert from himself all suspicions by painting with blood a cross and a dot above it on the spot where he committed the theft (von Wlislocki, 'Menschenblut im Glauben der Zigeuner,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 64 _sq._). In Morocco the cross is used as a charm against the evil eye, and the chief reason for this is, I believe, that it is regarded as a conductor of the baneful energy emanating from the eye, dispersing it in all the quarters of the wind and thus preventing it from injuring the person or object looked at (Westermarck, 'Magic Origin of Moorish Designs,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxiv. 214). In Japan, if a criminal belonging to one of the lower classes commits suicide, his body is crucified (_Globus_, xviii. 197). When, under Tarquinius Priscus (or Tarquinius Superbus), many Romans preferred voluntary death to compulsory labour in the _cloaca_, or artificial canals by which the sewage was carried into the Tiber, the king ordered that their bodies should be crucified and abandoned to birds and beasts of prey (Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, xxxvi. 24; Servius, _Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos_, xii. 603). The reason for thus crucifying the bodies of self-murderers is not stated; but it is interesting to notice, in this connection, the idea expressed by some Christian writers that the cross of the Saviour symbolised the distribution of his benign influence in all directions (d'Ancona, _Origini del teatro italiano_, i. 646; Tauler, quoted by Peltzer, _Deutsche Mystik und deutsche Kunst_, p. 191. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Yrjö Hirn for drawing my attention to this idea). With reference to persons who had killed a father, mother, brother, or child, Plato says in his 'Laws' (ix. 873):--"If he be convicted, the servants of the judges and the magistrates shall slay him at an appointed place without the city where three ways meet, and there expose his body naked, and each of the magistrates on behalf of the whole city shall take a stone and cast it upon the head of the dead man, and so deliver the city from pollution; after that, they shall bear him to the borders of the land, and cast him forth unburied, according to law." The duels by which the ancient Swedes were legally compelled to repair their wounded honour were to be fought on a place where three roads met (Leffler, _Om den fornsvenska hednalagen_, p. 40 _sq._; _supra_, i. 502). In various countries it has been the custom to bury the dead at cross-roads (Grimm, 'Ueber das Verbrennen der Leichen,' in _Kleinere Schriften_, ii. 288 (Bohemians). Lippert, _Die Religionen der europäischen Culturvölker_, p. 310 (Slavonians); Winternitz, _Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell_, p. 68; Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp. 267, 268, 562 n. 3)--a custom which may have given rise to the idea that cross-roads are haunted (Winternitz, _op. cit._ p. 68; Oldenberg, _op. cit._ p. 267 _sq._; _cf._ Wuttke, _op. cit._ § 108, p. 89 _sq._).]

[Footnote 207: Bourquelot, _loc. cit._ iv. 263. Hyltén-Cavallius, _op. cit._ i. 459; Nordström, _Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia_, ii. 331 (Swedes), von Wlislocki, 'Tod und Totenfetische im Volkglauben der Siebenbürger Sachsen,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, iv. 53.]

[Footnote 208: Wuttke, _op. cit._ § 756, p. 474; Frank, _op. cit._ iv. 498 _sq._; Lippert, _Der Seelencult_, p. 11 (people in various parts of Germany). Schiffer, in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 50 (Polanders).]

[Footnote 209: Bourquelot, _loc. cit._ iv. 264 (at Abbeville).]

[Footnote 210: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 726 _sqq._ Hyltén-Cavallius, _op. cit._ i. 472 _sq._ (Swedes).]

[Footnote 211: See _infra_, on Regard for the Dead. Contact with a self-murderer's body is considered polluting (Prexl, 'Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,' in _Globus_, lvii. 30; Hyltén-Cavallius, _Wärend och Wirdarne_, i. 459, 460, and ii. 412). We are told that in the eighteenth century people did not dare to cut down a person who had hanged himself, though he was found still alive (Frank, _op. cit._ iv. 499). Among the Bannavs of Cambodia **everybody who takes part in the burial of a self-murderer is obliged to undergo a certain ceremony of purification, whereas no such ceremony is prescribed in the case of other burials (_Mittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena_, iii. 9).]

However, side by side with the extreme seventy with which suicide is viewed by the Christian Church, we find, even in the Middle Ages, instances of more humane feelings towards its perpetrator. In mediæval tales and ballads true lovers die together and are buried in the same grave; two roses spring through the turf and twine lovingly together.[212] In the later Middle Ages, says M. {258} Bourquelot, "on voit qu'à mesure qu'on avance, l'antagonisme devient plus prononcé entre l'esprit religieux et les idées mondaines relativement à la mort volontaire. Le clergé continue à suivre la route qui a été tracée par Saint Augustin et à déclarer le suicide criminel et impie; mais la tristesse et le désespoir n'entendent pas sa voix, ne se souviennent pas de ses prescriptions."[213] The revival of classical learning, accompanied as it was by admiration for antiquity and a desire to imitate its great men, not only increased the number of suicides, but influenced popular sentiments on the subject.[214] Even the Catholic casuists, and later on philosophers of the school of Grotius and others, began to distinguish certain cases of legitimate suicide, such as that committed to avoid dishonour or probable sin, or that of a condemned person saving himself from torture by anticipating an inevitable death, or that of a man offering himself to death for the sake of his friend.[215] Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, permits a person who is suffering from an incurable and painful disease to take his own life, provided that he does so with the agreement of the priests and magistrates; nay, he even maintains that these should exhort such a man to put an end to a life which is only a burden to himself and others.[216] Donne, the well-known Dean of St. Paul's, wrote in his younger days a book in defence of suicide, "a Declaration," as he called it, "of that paradoxe, or thesis, that Self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise." He there pointed out the fact--which ought never to be overlooked by those who derive their arguments from "nature"--that some things may be natural to the species, and yet not natural to every individual member of it.[217] In one of his essays Montaigne pictures classical cases of suicide with colours of unmistakable sympathy. "La plus volontaire mort," he {259} observes, "c'est la plus belle. La vie despend de la volonté d'aultruy; la mort, de la nostre."[218] The rationalism of the eighteenth century led to numerous attacks both upon the views of the Church and upon the laws of the State concerning suicide. Montesquieu advocated its legitimacy:--"La société est fondée sur un avantage mutuel; mais lorsqu'elle me devient onéreuse, qui m'empêche d'y renoncer? La vie m'a été donnée comme une faveur; je puis donc la rendre lorsqu'elle ne l'est plus: la cause cesse, l'effet doit donc cesser aussi."[219] Voltaire strongly opposed the cruel laws which subjected a suicide's body to outrage and deprived his children of their heritage.[220] If his act is a wrong against society, what is to be said of the voluntary homicides committed in war, which are permitted by the laws of all countries? Are they not much more harmful to the human race than self-murder, which nature prevents from ever being practised by any large number of men?[221] Beccaria pointed out that the State is more wronged by the emigrant than by the suicide, since the former takes his property with him, whereas the latter leaves his behind.[222] According to Holbach, he who kills himself is guilty of no outrage on nature or its author; on the contrary, he follows an indication given by nature when he parts from his sufferings through the only door which has been left open. Nor has his country or his family any right to complain of a member whom it has no means of rendering happy, and from whom it consequently has nothing more to hope.[223] Others eulogised suicide when committed for a noble end,[224] or recommended it on certain occasions. "Suppose," says Hume, "that it is no longer in my {260} power to promote the interest of society; suppose that I am a burthen to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable."[225] Hume also attacks the doctrine that suicide is a transgression of our duty to God. "If it would be no crime in me to divert the Nile from its course, were I able to do so, how could it be a crime to turn a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment on his right for men to dispose of their own lives, would it not be equally wrong of them to lengthen out their lives beyond the period which by the general laws of nature he had assigned to it? My death, however voluntary, does not happen without the consent of Providence; when I fall upon my own sword, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever."[226]

[Footnote 212: See Bourquelot, _loc. cit._ iv. 248; Gummere, _Germanic Origins_, p. 322.]

[Footnote 213: Bourquelot, _loc. cit._ iv. 253.]

[Footnote 214: _Ibid._ iv. 464. Morselli, _op. cit._ p. 35.]

[Footnote 215: Buonafede, _op. cit._ p. 148 _sqq._ Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 55.]

[Footnote 216: More, _Utopia_, p. 122.]

[Footnote 217: Donne, _Biathanatos_, p. 45. Donne's book was first committed to the press in 1644, by his son.]

[Footnote 218: Montaigne, _Essais_, ii. 3 (_[OE]uvres_, p. 187).]

[Footnote 219: Montesquieu, _Lettres Persanes_, 76 (_[OE]uvres_, p. 53).]

[Footnote 220: Voltaire, _Commentaire sur le livre Des délits et des peines_, 19 (_[OE]uvres complètes_, v. 416). _Idem_, _Prix de la justice et de l'humanité_, 5 (_ibid._ v. 424).]

[Footnote 221: _Idem_, _Note to Olympie acte v. scène_ 7 (_[OE]uvres complètes_, i. 826, n. _b_). _Idem_, _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, art. Suicide (_ibid._ viii. 236).]

[Footnote 222: Beccaria, _Dei delitti e delle pene_, § 35 (_Opere_, i. 101).]

[Footnote 223: Holbach, _Système de la nature_, i. 369.]

[Footnote 224: In the early part of the nineteenth century this was done by Fries, _Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft_, iii. 197.]

[Footnote 225: Hume, 'Suicide,'in _Philosophical Works_, iv. 413.]

[Footnote 226: _Ibid._ p. 407 _sqq._]

Thus the main arguments against suicide which had been set forth by pagan philosophers and Christian theologians were scrutinised and found unsatisfactory or at least insufficient to justify that severe and wholesale censure which was passed on it by the Church and the State. But a doctrine which has for ages been inculcated by the leading authorities on morals is not easily overthrown; and when the old arguments are found fault with new ones are invented. Kant maintained that a person who disposes of his own life degrades the humanity subsisting in his person and entrusted to him to the end that he might uphold it.[227] Fichte argued that it is our duty to preserve our life and to will to live, not for the sake of life, but because our life is the exclusive condition of the realisation of the moral law through us.[228] According to Hegel it is a contradiction to speak of a person's right over his life, since this would {261} imply a right of a person over himself, and no one can stand above and execute himself.[229] Paley, again, feared that if religion and morality allowed us to kill ourselves in any case, mankind would have to live in continual alarm for the fate of their friends and dearest relations[230]--just as if there were a very strong temptation for men to shorten their lives. But common sense is neither a metaphysician nor a sophist. When not restrained by the yoke of a narrow theology, it is inclined in most cases to regard the self-murderer as a proper object of compassion rather than of condemnation, and in some instances to admire him as a hero. The legislation on the subject therefore changed as soon as the religious influence was weakened. The laws against suicide were abolished in France by the Revolution,[231] and afterwards in various other continental countries;[232] whilst in England it became the custom of jurymen to presume absence of a sound mind in the self-murderer--perjury, as Bentham said, being the penance which prevented an outrage on humanity.[233] These measures undoubtedly indicate not only a greater regard for the innocent relatives of the self-murderer, but also a change in the moral ideas concerning the act itself**.

[Footnote 227: Kant, _Metaphysische Anfangungsgründe der Tugendlehre_, p. 73.]

[Footnote 228: Fichte, _Das System der Sittenlehre_, p. 339 _sqq._ See also _ibid._ pp. 360, 391.]

[Footnote 229: Hegel, _Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts_, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72.]

[Footnote 230: Paley, _Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_, iv. 3 (_Complete Works_, ii. 230).]

[Footnote 231: Legoyt, _op. cit._ p. 109.]

[Footnote 232: Bourquelot, _loc. cit._ iv. 475.]

[Footnote 233: Bentham, _Principles of Penal Law_, ii. 4. 4 (_Works_, i. 479 _sq._).]

As appears from this survey of facts, the moral valuation of suicide varies to an extreme degree. It depends partly on the circumstances in which the act is committed, partly on the point of view from which it is regarded and the notions held about the future life. When a person sacrifices his life for the benefit of a fellow-man or for the sake of his country or to gratify the supposed desire of a god, his deed may be an object of the highest praise. It may, further, call forth approval or admiration as indicating a keen sense of honour or as a test of courage; in Japan, says Professor Chamberlain, "the courage to take {262} life--be it one's own or that of others--ranks extraordinarily high in public esteem."[234] In other cases suicide is regarded with indifference as an act which concerns the agent alone. But for various reasons it is also apt to give rise to moral disapproval. The injury which the person committing it inflicts upon himself may excite sympathetic resentment towards him; he may be looked upon as injurer and injured at the same time. Plato asks in his 'Laws':--"What ought he to suffer who murders his nearest and so-called dearest friend? I mean, he who kills himself."[235] And the same point of view is conspicuous in St. Augustine's argument, that the more innocent the self-murderer was before he committed his deed the greater is his guilt in taking his life[236]--an argument of particular force in connection with a theology which condemns suicides to everlasting torments and which regards it as a man's first duty to save his soul. The condemnation of killing others may by an association of ideas lead to a condemnation of killing one's self,[237] as is suggested by the Christian doctrine that suicide is prohibited in the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." The horror which the act inspires, the fear of the malignant ghost, and the defiling effect attributed to the shedding of blood, also tend to make suicide an object of moral reprobation or to increase the disapproval of it;[238] and the same is the case with the exceptional treatment to which the self-murderer's body is subject and his supposed annihilation or miserable existence after death, which easily come to be looked upon in the light of a punishment.[239] Suicide is, moreover, blamed as an act of moral cowardice,[240] and, especially, as an injury inflicted upon other persons, to whom the agent {263} owed duties from which he withdrew by shortening his life.[241] Even among savages we meet with the notion that a person is not entitled to treat himself just as he pleases. Among the Goajiro Indians of Colombia, if anybody accidentally cuts himself, say with his own knife, or breaks a limb, or otherwise does himself an injury, his family on the mother's side immediately demands blood-money, since, being of their blood, he is not allowed to spill it without paying for it; the father's relatives demand tear-money, and friends present claim compensation to repay their sorrow at seeing a friend in pain.[242] That a similar view is sometimes taken by savages with regard to suicide appears from a few statements quoted above.[243] The opinion that suicide is an offence against society at large is particularly likely to prevail in communities where the interests of the individual are considered entirely subordinate to the interests of the State. The religious argument, again, that suicide is a sin against the Creator, an illegitimate interference with his work and decrees, comes to prominence in proportion as the moral consciousness is influenced by theological considerations. In Europe this influence is certainly becoming less and less. And considering that the religious view of suicide has been the chief cause of the extreme severity with which it has been treated in Christian countries, I am unable to subscribe to the opinion expressed by Professor Durkheim, that the more lenient judgment passed on it by the public conscience of the present time is merely accidental and transient. The argument adduced in support of this opinion leaves out of account the real causes to which the valuation of suicide is due: it is said that the moral evolution is not likely to be retrogressive in this particular point after it has followed {264} a certain course for centuries.[244] It is true that moral progress has a tendency to increase our sense of duty towards our fellow-men. But at the same time it also makes us more considerate as regards the motives of conduct; and--not to speak of suicides committed for the benefit of others--the despair of the self-murderer will largely serve as a palliation of the wrong which he may possibly inflict upon his neighbour.

[Footnote 234: Chamberlain, _Things Japanese_, p. 221.]

[Footnote 235: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 236: St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, i. 17.]

[Footnote 237: See Simmel, _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_, i. 187.]

[Footnote 238: _Cf._ _supra_, i. 377.]

[Footnote 239: See _supra_, ii. 237 _sqq._; Josephus, _De bello Judaico_, iii. 8. 5; Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873; Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, v. 11. 2 _sq._]

[Footnote 240: Hegel, _Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts_, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72; Fowler, _Progressive Morality_, p. 151; &c.]

[Footnote 241: English lawyers have represented suicide as an offence both against God and against the sovereign, who "has an interest in the preservation of all his subjects" (Plowden, _Commentaries_, i. 261; Blackstone, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_, iv. 190. _Cf._ Ives, _op. cit._ p. 40 _sq._).]

[Footnote 242: Simons, 'Exploration of the Goajira Peninsula,' in _Proceed. Roy. Geo. Soc._ N. Ser. vii. 790.]

[Footnote 243: _Supra_, ii. 240 _sq._]

[Footnote 244: Durkheim, _Le suicide_, p. 377.]