Suicide. William Wynn Westcott

conviction (which has always been propounded by the Christian church) that a self-inflicted death is an evil to which nothing on this side of the grave can compare, and that to rush unsolicited into the presence of the Creator is an inexpiable crime.

      As a general preventive, the force of a well directed system of education, acting on the probably unlimited capacity for improvement inherent in the human race, is the lever to which modern civilization is disposed to trust.

      But as I have already stated, several modern systems of philosophy and ethics, whilst they are the offshoots and result of a more highly developed mind, yet have not assisted in the extinction of this blot, but have rather tended to exculpate suicide, and remove the idea of its moral sinfulness.

      The line of argument with respect to our subject, which is followed by some of those who lead modern philosophical thought, may perhaps be briefly outlined as follows:─

      It is an essential attribute of Humanity that it is progressive; systems of Morality arise which are each of a higher nature than the preceding; there is no finality even in Religious improvement.

      All Religions become improved in the course of time, by casting aside their harsher outlines and less delicate features; for example, the Christian’s Hell, from being a fiery corporeal dungeon, is developed into a period of mental torture and remorse.

      Even Christianity then is exalting itself; it has of late tacitly consented to the removal of earthly penalties from the sin of Suicide, penalties which in a bygone age statute law borrowed from ecclesiastical law; this is one mark of its progressiveness.

      Nothing is practically gained by calling Suicide a crime; no one about to slay himself to be rid of brain-distracting trouble will be restrained by the thought that his proposed action is criminal; in some cases self-destruction is contemptible and cowardly; in some it is venial; in some cases death is distinctly the lesser evil, in a few it has been honourable, and as such should escape all condemnation, and merit the approval of men of development and refinement. In conclusion, says Philosophy, neither marks of contempt to the corpse, nor legal forfeitures, nor branding the suicide’s memory,─the three ecclesiastical penalties,─have had any obvious effect in checking the act.

      Nothing but the increase of education will suffice to prevent those suicides which are prompted by immoral thoughts and feelings; as to the venial ones, such as we see in those who but anticipate the hour of release from the tortures of disease, why should we, who are not ill, grudge them this relief: and as to those inspired by the highest and most refined sentiments of honour, we are well content to live in a world in which such valour and self-sacrifice are exhibited.

      The author hopes no individual will feel aggrieved at this resumé of the so-called advanced views on Suicide of to-day; he does not associate them with any person in particular. These maxims simply represent the impressions remaining on his mind after several conversations with men who cultivate the modern developments of thought.

      With this apology to the readers of these pages, the divergence between Christian and philosophic views is left behind; and the main object of the work is pursued in an independent scientific vein, without straying into the bye-ways of Ethical discussion.

      Chapter II.

       The History of Suicide.

       Table of Contents

      The history of Greece extends back to such a remote period that it is not clearly evident what the general opinion on Suicide was among its early inhabitants. However, a few landmarks occur. In such a dim past as the time of the Trojan War, Ajax, one of the Grecian heroes, slew himself, in a fit of passion, brought on by offended vanity. Lycurgus, the legislator of Sparta, was one who killed himself for his country’s good.

      Strabo, the historian, in his Tenth Book, tells us that at Ceos, the country of Simonides, B.C. 500, it was an established custom to allow the act of self-destruction to persons who had attained the age of 60, or who had become incapacitated by their infirmities. Several suicides can be directly traced to oracles; the great Oracle at Delphi has become especially notorious; Codrus, king of Athens, and Aristodemus, killed themselves distinctly in consequence of these oracular utterances.

      There is a tradition mentioned by Plutarch, Pliny, and Virgil, that on the coast of Epirus, on the peninsula called Neritos (Virgil, Æneid, iii., 271), overlooking the Ionian Sea, was the hill then named Leucate, or Leucadia; here stood a Temple dedicated to Apollo, and from this rock a suicidal leap into the sea became the common sequence to disappointed love, for the Greeks of those times. Sappho, a poetess, whose love for Phaon was unrequited, is said to have originated the custom; an arm of the sea has, since then, cut off this promontory from the mainland, and the island is now called St. Maur. Tradition is evidence of the existence of a custom, even if it be objected to as proof of an individual fact.

      Timon of Athens, the Misanthrope, whose exact era is also uncertain, is narrated to have been a suicide; he met with some curable accident, but from his intense dislike of his fellowmen he refused all assistance, and allowed himself to die unrelieved. This was the philosopher who is said to have kept in his garden a fig-tree specially convenient for hanging oneself on, and which he refrained from having cut down, so as to be able to accommodate his friends. Shakespeare’s play “Timon of Athens,” refers to this odd character.

      The Spartans, that brave and hardy race, are known to have disapproved of Suicide; it is narrated that an honourable burial was refused to Artemidorus, who sacrificed his life unnecessarily at the battle of Platœa, which was fought B. C. 479, between the united Greeks and the Persians. Among the suicides of Greece, however, occur the names of some of her greatest men, lawgivers, orators, generals, philosophers, and statesmen; although we find in Greek custom more condemnation of the practice than in Roman law.

      In Thebes, it was a custom that no honours should be paid at the death of a suicide, and no funeral rites were allowed; the body was ordered to be burned in the absence of the relatives of the deceased.

      At Athens, a suicide was not allowed to be burned and his ashes preserved, as was the custom for the rich and great, if such died in war, or by a natural death. See Samuel Petit, “De Legibus Atticis.”

      The body was buried instead, and the right hand struck off and buried in a separate place. See Æschines, Ctesiphon, and in Plato, Laws, Book ix., regulations are laid down for the burial of suicides.

      Aristotle, in his Ethics, v., cap. xi., describes his views of the crime, calling it a “sin against the state,” and adds that the memory of the Suicide should be marked by infamy.

      A reference to the List of Notable Suicides which follows in Chapter III., will show that persons of the highest intelligence have committed suicide at each epoch of ancient history.

      In a survey of the history of Rome we find mention of an Epidemic of Suicide among the soldiers of Tarquin the First; they were ordered to the task of excavating sewers in Rome, and believing this work to be derogatory to their dignity, they killed themselves in large numbers: the tendency was checked by an edict that the bodies of all suicides should be exposed to public view nailed on crosses. See Pliny, Nat. Hist., Book xxvi. cap. xv.

      But in the very long period during which the Roman state was advancing to greatness, and throughout the times of the Republic, suicide was a very rare occurrence.

      In the later part of Rome’s history, during the empire, it became a very prominent crime; when luxury and sloth predominated, and the doctrines of the philosophers Zeno and Epicurus became fashionable, suicide became rampant. In the reigns of Claudius, A.D. 42, and Nero, A.D. 55, even Seneca, that cultured villain, acknowledged its practice to be excessively frequent, although he ultimately committed the act himself. At this time the prevailing sentiment was thus tersely expressed, “Mori licet cui vivere non placet,” in the language of the Stoic school.

      But throughout the whole history of Rome there was no statute declaring it to be either a crime or a misdemeanour, and no punishment for