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 equallysevere: 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 beforethe 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 andlicentiousness, 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.
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 agreat injuryto 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 awayricheswhich 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 adepravedstate 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.
Rousseau15in his “Nouvelle Heloïse” observes, “The more I reflect upon it (suicide), the more I find that the questionreduces 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 toLord 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 desiredit 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 Staëlattempted 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 momentof 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.
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.
Amongthe 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.16Paley, 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 byconstruction 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 theimage 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 byname; that is, that whatever sins and offences God, as a lawgiver, prohibits, he does so with a penalty; he affixes such a punishment tosuch 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 asin, 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 thatthe self-murderer offends,17he 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 peculiarlyintended 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 throughfear 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 aLear; in another, atyrant; in a third, amonster; and in one of them—which I really did not expect—I am described as acoward. 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
Inour 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 themwe 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 bornWith swelling sails make good the promis’d port,With all their wishes freighted.”Young.
“How few beneath auspicious planets bornWith swelling sails make good the promis’d port,With all their wishes freighted.”Young.
“How few beneath auspicious planets bornWith swelling sails make good the promis’d port,With all their wishes freighted.”Young.
“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 pursuitsPass ye this round of being! Know ye not,Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,But for thebodyfreedom from disease,And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”
“O wretched mortals! race perverse and blind!Through what dread, dark, what perilous pursuitsPass ye this round of being! Know ye not,Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,But for thebodyfreedom from disease,And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”
“O wretched mortals! race perverse and blind!Through what dread, dark, what perilous pursuitsPass ye this round of being! Know ye not,Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,But for thebodyfreedom from disease,And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”
“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 thebodyfreedom 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,likeman 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 ascience, has become atrade.”
“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,And, once ascience, has become atrade.”
“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,And, once ascience, has become atrade.”
“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,
And, once ascience, has become atrade.”
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 anignis 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 thegigantic 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.”
“Nature, gentle, kind,By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,And all the radiant fruits of truth matured.”
“Nature, gentle, kind,By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,And all the radiant fruits of truth matured.”
“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 themodus operandiof 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.