1. Appendix I.
OF SUICIDE
This reasoning will throw some light upon the long disputed case of suicide.
"Have I a right to destroy myself in order to escape from pain or distress?"
Circumstances that should justify such an action, can rarely occur. There
are few situations that can exclude the possibility of future life, vigour,
and usefulness. It will frequently happen that the man, who once saw nothing
before him but despair, shall afterwards enjoy a long period of happiness
and honour. In the meantime the power of terminating our own lives, is one
of the faculties with which we are endowed; and therefore, like every other
faculty, is a subject of moral discipline. In common with every branch of
morality, it is a topic of calculation, as to the balance of good and evil
to result from its employment in any individual instance. We should however
be scrupulously upon our guard against the deceptions that melancholy and
impatience are so well calculated to impose. We should consider that, though
the pain to be suffered by ourselves is by no means to be overlooked, we
are but one, and the persons nearly or remotely interested in our possible
usefulness innumerable. Each man is but the part of a great system, and all
that he has is so much wealth to be put to the account of the general stock.
There is another case of suicide of more difficult estimation. What shall
we think of the reasoning of Lycurgus, who, when he determined upon a voluntary
death, remarked "that all the faculties a rational being possessed were
capable of being benevolently employed, and that, after having spent his
life in the service of his country, a man ought, if possible, to render his
death a source of additional benefit?" This was the motive of the suicide
of Codrus, Leonidas and Decius. If the same motive prevailed in the much
admired suicide of Cato, and he were instigated by reasons purely benevolent,
it is impossible not to applaud his intention, even if he were mistaken in
the application. The difficulty is to decide whether in any instance the
recourse to a voluntary death can overbalance the usefulness to be displayed,
in twenty years of additional life.
Additional importance will be reflected upon this disquisition if we remember
that martyrs (martures) are suicides by the very signification of the term.
They die for a testimony (martution). But that would be impossible if their
death were not to a certain degree a voluntary action. We must assume that
it was possible for them to avoid this fate, before we can draw any conclusion
from it in favour of the cause they espoused. They were determined to die,
rather than reflect dishonour on that cause.