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ESSAYS ON SUICIDE AND THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL:
THE COMPLETE 1783 EDITION
David Hume
5/1/95
Copyright 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu). See end note for
details on copyright and editing conventions. This is a working
draft; please report errors.[1]
Editor's Note: Hume's essays on the suicide and the immortality of
the soul were completed around 1755 and printed as part of a book of
essays titled <Five Dissertations>. When pre-release copies of <Five
Dissertations> provoked controversy among influential readers, Hume
and his printer Andrew Millar agreed to have the two essays
physically removed from the printed copies. They were replaced with
an essay titled "Of the Standard of Taste," and the book of essays
appeared in 1757 under the title <Four Dissertations>. Rumors about
the two withdrawn essays circulated for years, and clandestine
copies appeared anonymously in French (1770) and later in English
(1777). In 1783 the two essays were published more openly, and this
time with Hume's name attached. Like the 1770 and 1777 publications,
the 1783 publication was not authorized by Hume. Along with Hume's
two essays, the anonymous editor of the 1783 edition included his
own critical notes to Hume's two pieces, and excerpts from
Rousseau's <La Nouvelle Heloise> on the subject of suicide. The
contents, then, of the 1883 publication are as follows:
Preface p. iii
Essay I. On Suicide (Hume) p. 1
Essay II. On the immortality of the soul (Hume) p. 23
Anti-Suicide (anonymous editor) p. 39
Immortality of the Soul (anonymous editor) p. 53
Letter 114 from Rousseau's <Eloisa> p. 67
Letter 115 from Rousseau's <Eloisa> p. 90
A copy of the original two essays as they were printed in <Five
Dissertations> is in the possession of the National Library of
Scotland. That copy contains nineteen corrections in Hume's hand and
is Hume's final surviving revision of the essays. None of these
corrections appear in the 1783 edition.
* * * *
ESSAYS
ON
<SUICIDE>,
AND
<THE IMMORTALITY>
OF THE
<SOUL>,
ASCRIBED TO THE LATE
<DAVID HUME>, E/SQ\.
Never before published.
With REMARKS, intended as an Antidote to the
Poison contained in these Performances,
BY THE EDITOR.
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
TWO LETTERS ON SUICIDE,
F/ROM\ R/OSSEAU'S\ E/LOISA.\
----
Printed for M. S/MITH\; and sold by the booksellers in piccadilly,
Fleet-street, and Paternoster-row.
1783
(Price 3 <s>. 6 <d>. sewed)
{iii}
PREFACE
THESE two Essays on <Suicide> and <the Immortality of the Soul>,
though not published in any edition of his works, are generally
attributed to the late ingenious Mr. Hume.
The well-known contempt of this eminent philosopher for the
common convictions of mankind, raised an apprehension of the
contents from the very title of these pieces. But the celebrity of
the author's name, renders them, notwithstanding, in some degree
objects of great curiosity.
Owing to this circumstance, a few copies have been
clandestinely circulated, at a large price, for some time, but
without any comment. The very mystery attending this mode of selling
them, made them more an object of request than they would otherwise
have been. {iv}
The present publication comes abroad under no such restraint,
and possesses very superior advantages. The <Notes> annexed are
intended to expose the sophistry contained in the original Essays,
and may shew how little we have to fear from the adversaries of
these great truths, from the pitiful figure which even Mr. Hume
makes in thus violently exhausting his last strength in an abortive
attempt to traduce or discredit them.
The two very matterly Letters from the Eloisa of Rosseau on the
subject of <Suicide>, have been much celebrated, and we hope will be
considered as materially increasing the value of this curious
collection.
The admirers of <Mr. Hume> will be pleased with seeing the
remains of a favourite author rescued in this manner from that
oblivion to which the prejudices of his countrymen had, in all
appearance, consigned them; and even the religious part of mankind
have some reason of triumph from the striking instance here given of
truth's superiority to error, even when error has all the advantage
of an elegant genius, and a great literary reputation to recommend
it.
{1}
ESSAY I.
ON <SUICIDE>.
O/NE\ considerable advantage that arises from Philosophy, consists
in the sovereign antidote which it affords to superstition and false
religion. All other remedies against that pestilent distemper are
vain, or at least uncertain. Plain good sense and the practice of
the world, which alone serve most purposes of life, are here found
ineffectual: History as well as daily experience furnish instances
of men endowed with the {2} strongest capacity for business and
affairs, who have all their lives crouched under slavery to the
grossest superstition. Even gaiety and sweetness of temper, which
infuse a balm into every other wound, afford no remedy to so
virulent a poison; as we may particularly observe of the fair sex,
who tho' commonly possest of their rich presents of nature, feel
many of their joys blasted by this importunate intruder. But when
found Philosophy has once gained possession of the mind,
superstition is effectually excluded, and one may fairly affirm that
her triumph over this enemy is more complete than over most of the
vices and imperfections incident to human nature. Love or anger,
ambition or avarice, have their root in the temper and affection,
which the soundest reason is scarce ever able fully to correct, but
superstition being founded on false opinion, must immediately vanish
when true philosophy has inspired juster sentiments of superior
powers. The contest is here more equal between the distemper and the
medicine, {3} and nothing can hinder the latter from proving
effectual but its being false and sophisticated.
I/T\ will here be superfluous to magnify the merits of
Philosophy by displaying the pernicious tendency of that vice of
which it cures the human mind. ([editor's note] 1) The superstitious
man says Tully[2] is miserable in every scene, in every incident in
life; even sleep itself, which banishes all other cares of unhappy
mortals, affords to him matter of new terror; while he examines his
dreams, and finds in those visions of the night prognostications of
future calamities. I may add that tho' death alone can put a full
period to his misery, he dares not fly to this refuge, but still
prolongs a miserable existence from a vain fear left he offend his
Maker, by using the power, with which that beneficent being has
endowed him. The presents of God and nature are ravished from us by
this {4} cruel enemy, and notwithstanding that one step would remove
us from the regions of pain and sorrow, her menaces still chain us
down to a hated being which she herself chiefly contributes to
render miserable.
'T/IS\ observed by such as have been reduced by the calamities
of life to the necessity of employing this fatal remedy, that if the
unseasonable care of their friends deprive them of that species of
Death which they proposed to themselves, they seldom venture upon
any other, or can summon up so much resolution a second time as to
execute their purpose. So great is our horror of death, that when it
presents itself under any form, besides that to which a man has
endeavoured to reconcile his imagination, it acquires new terrors
and overcomes his feeble courage: But when the menaces of
superstition are joined to this natural timidity, no wonder it quite
deprives men of all power over their lives, since even many
pleasures and enjoyments, {5} to which we are carried by a strong
propensity, are torn from us by this inhuman tyrant. Let us here
endeavour to restore men to their native liberty, by examining all
the common arguments against Suicide, and shewing that that action
may be free from every imputation of guilt or blame, according to
the sentiments of all the antient philosophers. ([editor's note] 2)
I/F\ Suicide be criminal, it must be a transgression of our
duty either to God, our neighbour, or ourselves. -- To prove that
suicide is no transgression of our duty to God, the following
considerations may perhaps suffice. In order to govern the material
world, the almighty Creator has established general and immutable
laws, by which all bodies, from the greatest planet to the smallest
particle of matter, are maintained in their proper sphere and
function. To govern the animal world, he has endowed all living
creatures with bodily and mental powers; with senses, passions, {6}
appetites, memory, and judgement, by which they are impelled or
regulated in that course of life to which they are destined. These
two distinct principles of the material and animal world,
continually encroach upon each other, and mutually retard or forward
each others operation. The powers of men and of all other animals
are restrained and directed by the nature and qualities of the
surrounding bodies, and the modifications and actions of these
bodies are incessantly altered by the operation of all animals. Man
is stopt by rivers in his passage over the surface of the earth; and
rivers, when properly directed, lend their force to the motion of
machines, which serve to the use of man. But tho' the provinces of
the material and animal powers are not kept entirely separate, there
results from thence no discord or disorder in the creation; on the
contrary, from the mixture, union, and contrast of all the various
powers of inanimate bodies and living creatures, arises that
sympathy, harmony, {7} and proportion, which affords the surest
argument of supreme wisdom. The providence of the Deity appears not
immediately in any operation, but governs every thing by those
general and immutable laws, which have been established from the
beginning of time. All events, in one sense, may be pronounced the
action of the Almighty, they all proceed from those powers with
which he has endowed his creatures. A house which falls by its own
weight, is not brought to ruin by his providence, more than one
destroyed by the hands of men; nor are the human faculties less his
workmanship, than the laws of motion and gravitation. When the
passions play, when the judgment dictates, when the limbs obey; this
is all the operation of God, and upon these animate principles, as
well as upon the inanimate, has he established the government of the
universe. Every event is alike important in the eyes of that
infinite being, who takes in at one glance the most distant regions
of space, and {8} remotest periods of time. There is no event,
however important to us, which he has exempted from the general laws
that govern the universe, or which he has peculiarly reserved for
his own immediate action and operation. The revolution of states and
empires depends upon the smallest caprice or passion of single men;
and the lives of men are shortened or extended by the smallest
accident of air or dies, sunshine or tempest. Nature still continues
her progress and operation; and if general laws be ever broke by
particular volitions of the Deity, 'tis after a manner which
entirely escapes human observation. As on the one hand, the elements
and other inanimate parts of the creation carry on their action
without regard to the particular interest and situation of men; so
men are entrusted to their own judgment and discretion in the
various shocks of matter, and may employ every faculty with which
they are endowed, in order to provide for their ease, happiness, or
{9} preservation. What is the meaning then of that principle, that a
man who tired of life, and hunted by pain and misery, bravely
overcomes all the natural terrors of death, and makes his escape
from this cruel scene: that such a man I say, has incurred the
indignation of his Creator by encroaching on the office of divine
providence, and disturbing the order of the universe? Shall we
assert that the Almighty has reserved to himself in any peculiar
manner the disposal of the lives of men, and has not submitted that
event, in common with others, to the general laws by which the
universe is governed? This is plainly false; the lives of men depend
upon the same laws as the lives of all other animals; and these are
subjected to the general laws of matter and motion. The fall of a
tower, or the infusion of a poison, will destroy a man equally with
the meanest creature; an inundation sweeps away every thing without
distinction that comes within the reach of its fury. Since therefore
the lives of men {10} are for ever dependant on the general laws of
matter and motion, is a man's disposing of his life criminal,
because in every case it is criminal to encroach upon these laws, or
disturb their operation? But this seems absurd; all animals are
entrusted to their own prudence and skill for their conduct in the
world, and have full authority as far as their power extends, to
alter all the operations of nature. Without the excercise of this
authority they could not subsist a moment; every action, every
motion of a man, innovates on the order of some parts of matter, and
diverts from their ordinary course the general laws of motion.
Putting together, therefore, these conclusion, we find that human
life depends upon the general laws of matter and motion, and that it
is no encroachment on the office of providence to disturb or alter
these general laws: Has not every one, of consequence, the free
disposal of his own life? And may he not lawfully employ that power
with which nature has endowed him? In order {11} to destroy the
evidence of this conclusion, we must shew a reason why this
particular case is excepted; is it because human life is of such
great importance, that 'tis a presumption for human prudence to
dispose of it? But the life of a man is of no greater importance to
the universe than that of an oyster. And were it of ever so great
importance, the order of human nature has actually submitted it to
human prudence, and reduced us to a necessity, in every incident, of
determining concerning it. -- 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;
it would be equally criminal to act for the preservation of life as
for its destruction. If I turn aside a stone which is falling upon
my head, I disturb the course of nature, and I invade the peculiar
province of the Almighty, by lengthening out my life beyond the
period which by the general laws of matter and motion he had
assigned it. ([editor's note] 3) {12}
A hair, a fly, an insect is able to destroy this mighty being
whose life is of such importance. Is it an absurdity to suppose that
human prudence may lawfully dispose of what depends on such
insignificant causes? It would be no crime in me to divert the
<Nile> or <Danube> from its course, were I able to effect such
purposes. Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood
from their natural channel? -- Do you imagine that I repine at
Providence or curse my creation, because I go out of life, and put a
period to a being, which, were it to continue, would render me
miserable? Far be such sentiments from me; I am only convinced of a
matter of fact, which you yourself acknowledge possible, that human
life may be unhappy, and that my existence, if further prolonged,
would become ineligible; but I thank Providence, both for the good
which I have already enjoyed, and for the power with which I am
endowed of escaping the ill that {13} threatens me.[3] To you it
belongs to repine at providence, who foolishly imagine that you have
no such power, and who must still prolong a hated life, tho' loaded
with pain and sickness, with shame and poverty -- Do not you teach,
that when any ill befals me, tho' by the malice of my enemies, I
ought to be resigned to providence, and that the actions of men are
the operations of the Almighty as much as the actions of inanimate
beings? When I fall upon my own sword, therefore, I receive my death
equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a
lion, a precipice, or a fever. The submission which you require to
providence, in every calamity that befals me, excludes not human
skill and industry, if possible by their means I can avoid or escape
the calamity: And why may I not employ one remedy as well as
another? -- If my life be not my own, it were criminal for me to put
it in danger, as {14} well as to dispose of it; nor could one man
deserve the appellation of <hero>, whom glory or friendship
transports into the greatest dangers, and another merit the reproach
of <wretch> or <misereant> who puts a period to his life, from the
same or like motives. -- There is no being, which possesses any
power or faculty, that it receives not from its Creator, nor is
there any one, which by ever so irregular an action can encroach
upon the plan of his providence, or disorder the universe. Its
operations are his works equally with that chain of events which it
invades, and which ever principle prevails, we may for that very
reason conclude it to be most favoured by him. Be it animate, or
inanimate, rational, or irrational, 'tis all a case: its power is
still derived from the supreme Creator, and is alike comprehended in
the order of his providence. When the horror of pain prevails over
the love of life; when a voluntary action anticipates the effects of
blind causes, 'tis only in consequence of those {15} powers and
principles which he has implanted in his creatures. Divine
providence is still inviolate, and placed far beyond the reach of
human injuries. 'Tis impious says the old Roman superstition[4] to
divert rivers from their course, or invade the prerogatives of
nature. 'Tis impious says the French superstition to inoculate for
the small-pox, or usurp the business of providence by voluntarily
producing distempers and maladies. 'Tis impious says the modern
<European> superstition, to put a period to our own life, and
thereby rebel against our Creator; and why not impious, say I, to
build houses, cultivate the ground, or fail upon the ocean? In all
these actions we employ our powers of mind and body, to produce some
innovation in the course of nature; and in none of them do we any
more. They are all of them therefore equally innocent, or equally
criminal. <But you are placed by providence, like a centinal, in a
particular station, {16} and when you desert it without being
recalled, you are equally guilty of rebellion against your almighty
sovereign, and have incurred his displeasure>. -- I ask, why do you
conclude that providence has placed me in this station? For my part
I find that I owe my birth to a long chain of causes, of which many
depended upon voluntary actions of men. <But providence guided all
these causes, and nothing happens in the universe without its
consent and co-operation>. If so, then neither does my death,
however voluntary, happen without its consent; and whenever pain or
sorrow so far overcome my patience, as to make me tired of life, I
may conclude that I am recalled from my station in the clearest and
most express terms. 'Tis providence surely that has placed me at
this present in this chamber: But may I not leave it when I think
proper, without being liable to the imputation of having deserted my
post or station? When I shall be dead, the principles of {17} which
I am composed will still perform their part in the universe, and
will be equally useful in the grand fabrick, as when they composed
this individual creature. The difference to the whole will be no
greater than betwixt my being in a chamber and in the open air. The
one change is of more importance to me than the other; but not more
so to the universe.
-- 'T/IS\ a kind of blasphemy to imagine that any created being
can disturb the order of the world, or invade the business of
Providence! It supposes, that that being possesses powers and
faculties, which it received not from its creator, and which are not
subordinate to his government and authority. A man may disturb
society no doubt, and thereby incur the displeasure of the Almighty:
But the government of the world is placed far beyond his reach and
violence. And how does it appear that the Almighty is displeased
with those actions that disturb society? By the principles {18}
which he has implanted in human nature, and which inspire us with a
sentiment of remorse if we ourselves have been guilty of such
actions, and with that of blame and disapprobation, if we ever
observe them in others: -- Let us now examine, according to the
method proposed, whether Suicide be of this kind of actions, and be
a breach of our duty to our <neighbour> and to <society>.
A /MAN\ who retires from life does no harm to society: He only
ceases to do good; which, if it is an injury, is of the lowest kind.
-- All our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something
reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society, and therefore ought
to promote its interests; but when I withdraw myself altogether from
society, can I be bound any longer? But allowing that our
obligations to do good were perpetual, they have certainly some
bounds; I am not obliged to do a small good to society at the
expence of a {19} great harm to myself; why then should I prolong a
miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the
public may perhaps receive from me? If upon account of age and
infirmities, I may lawfully resign any office, and employ my time
altogether in fencing against these calamities, and alleviating, as
much as possible, the miseries of my future life: why may I not cut
short these miseries at once by an action which is no more
prejudicial to society? -- But suppose that it is no longer in my
power to promote the interest of society, suppose that I am a burden
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. And most people who lie under any
temptation to abandon existence, are in some such situation; those
who have health, or power, or authority, have commonly better reason
to be in humour with the world. ([editor's note] 4) {20}
A /MAN\ is engaged in a conspiracy for the public interest; is
seized upon suspicion; is threatened with the rack; and knows from
his own weakness that the secret will be extorted from him: Could
such a one consult the public interest better than by putting a
quick period to a miserable life? This was the case of the famous
and brave <Strozi> of <Florence>. -- Again, suppose a malefactor is
justly condemned to a shameful death, can any reason be imagined,
why he may not anticipate his punishment, and save himself all the
anguish of thinking on its dreadful approaches? He invades the
business of providence no more than the magistrate did, who ordered
his execution; and his voluntary death is equally advantageous to
society, by ridding it of a pernicious member.
T/HAT\ Suicide may often be consistent with interest and with
our duty to ourselves, no one can question, who allows that age,
{21} sickness, or misfortune, may render life a burthen, and make it
worse even than annihilation. I believe 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;
and though perhaps the situation of a man's health or fortune did
not seem to require this remedy, we may at least be assured that any
one who, without apparent reason, has had recourse to it, was curst
with such an incurable depravity or gloominess of temper as must
poison all enjoyment, and render him equally miserable as if he had
been loaded with the most grievous misfortunes. -- If suicide be
supposed a crime, 'tis only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be
no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid
ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burthen. 'Tis the
only way that we can then be useful to society, by setting an
example, which if imitated, would preserve to every one his chance
for happiness in life, {22} and would effectually free him from all
danger of misery.[5]{23}
ESSAY II.
ON THE
<IMMORTALITY> OF THE <SOUL>.
B/Y\ the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the
<Immortality> of the <Soul>; the arguments for it are commonly
derived either from <metaphysical> topics, or <moral> or <physical>.
But in reality 'tis the Gospel and the Gospel alone, that has
brought <life and immortality to light>.
I. M/ETAPHYSICAL\ topics suppose that the soul is immaterial,
and that 'tis impossible {24} for thought to belong to a material
substance. -- ([editor's note] 1) But just metaphysics teach us that
the notion of substance is wholly confused and imperfect, and that
we have no other idea of any substance, than as an aggregate of
particular qualities, inhering in an unknown something. Matter,
therefore, and spirit, are at bottom equally unknown, and we cannot
determine what qualities inhere in the one or in the other.
([editor's note] 2) They likewise teach us that nothing can be
decided <a priori> concerning any cause or effect, and that
experience being the only source of our judgements of this nature,
we cannot know from any other principle, whether matter, by its
structure or arrangement, may not be the cause of thought. Abstract
reasonings cannot decide any question of fact or existence. -- But
admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the
universe, like the etherial fire of the <Stoics>, and to be the only
inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude {25} from
<analogy> that nature uses it after the manner she does the other
substance, <matter>. She employs it as a kind of paste or clay;
modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after
a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form.
As the same material substance may successively compose the bodies
of all animals, the same spiritual substance may compose their
minds: Their consciousness, or that system of thought which they
formed during life, may be continually dissolved by death. And
nothing interests them in the new modification. The most positive
asserters of the mortality of the soul, never denied the immortality
of its substance. And that an immaterial substance, as well as a
material, may lose its memory or consciousness, appears in part from
experience, if the soul be immaterial. -- Reasoning from the common
course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the
supreme cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy,
{26} what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The Soul
therefore if immortal, existed before our birth; and if the former
existence no ways concerned us, neither will the latter. -- Animals
undoubtedly feel, think, love, hate, will, and even reason, tho' in
a more imperfect manner than men; are their souls also immaterial
and immortal? ([editor's note] 3)
II. L/ET\ us now consider the moral arguments, chiefly those
derived from the justice of God, which is supposed to be farther
interested in the farther punishment of the vicious and reward of
the virtuous. -- But these arguments are grounded on the supposition
that God has attributes beyond what he has exerted in this universe,
with which alone we are acquainted. Whence do we infer the existence
of these attributes? -- 'Tis very safe for us to affirm, that
whatever we know the Deity to have actually done, is best; but 'tis
very dangerous to affirm, that he must always do {27} what to us
seems best. In how many instances would this reasoning fail us with
regard to the present world? -- But if any purpose of nature be
clear, we may affirm, that the whole scope and intention of man's
creation, so far as we can judge by natural reason, is limited to
the present life. With how weak a concern from the original inherent
structure of the mind and passions, does he ever look farther? What
comparison either for steadiness or efficacy, betwixt so floating an
idea, and the most doubtful persuasion of any matter of fact that
occurs in common life. There arise indeed in some minds some
unaccountable terrors with regard to futurity; but these would
quickly vanish were they not artificially fostered by precept and
education. And those who foster them, what is their motive? Only to
gain a livelihood, and to acquire power and riches in this world.
Their very zeal and industry therefore is an argument against them.
{28}
W/HAT\ cruelty, what iniquity, what injustice in nature, to
confine all our concern, as well as all our knowledge, to the
present life, if there be another scene still waiting us, of
infinitely greater consequence? Ought this barbarous deceit to be
ascribed to a beneficent and wise being? -- Observe with what exact
proportion the task to be performed and the performing powers are
adjusted throughout all nature. If the reason of man gives him great
superiority above other animals, his necessities are proportionably
multiplied upon him; his whole time, his whole capacity, activity,
courage, and passion, find sufficient employment in fencing against
the miseries of his present condition, and frequently, nay almost
always are too slender for the business assigned them. -- A pair of
shoes perhaps was never yet wrought to the highest degree of
perfection which that commodity is capable of attaining. Yet it is
necessary, at least very useful, that there should be some
politicians and moralists, {29} even some geometers, poets, and
philosophers among mankind. The powers of men are no more superior
to their wants, considered merely in this life, than those of foxes
and hares are, compared to <their> wants and to their period of
existence. The inference from parity of reason is therefore obvious.
--
O/N\ the theory of the Soul's mortality, the inferiority of
women's capacity is easily accounted for. Their domestic life
requires no higher faculties, either of mind or body. This
circumstance vanishes and becomes absolutely insignificant, on the
religious theory: the one sex has an equal task to perform as the
other; their powers of reason and resolution ought also to have been
equal, and both of them infinitely greater than at present. As every
effect implies a cause, and that another, till we reach the first
cause of all, which is the Deity; every thing that happens is
ordained by him, and nothing can be the object of his punishment or
vengeance. -- By what rule are punishments {30} and rewards
distributed? What is the divine standard of merit and demerit? shall
we suppose that human sentiments have place in the Deity? How bold
that hypothesis. We have no conception of any other sentiments. --
According to human sentiments, sense, courage, good manners,
industry, prudence, genius, &c. are essential parts of personal
merits. Shall we therefore erect an elysium for poets and heroes
like that of the antient mythology? Why confine all rewards to one
species of virtue? Punishment, without any proper end or purpose, is
inconsistent with <our> ideas of goodness and justice, and no end
can be served by it after the whole scene is closed. Punishment,
according to <our> conception, should bear some proportion to the
offence. Why then eternal punishment for the temporary offences of
so frail a creature as man? Can any one approve of <Alexander>'s
rage, who intended to extirminate a whole nation because they had
seized his favorite horse Bucephalus?[6] {31}
H/EAVEN\ and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good
and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and
virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of
giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the
wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would
find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely
amount to the value of either. -- To suppose measures of approbation
and blame different from the human confounds every thing. Whence do
we learn that there is such a thing as moral distinctions, but from
our own sentiments? -- What man who has not met with personal
provocation (or what good-natured man who has) could inflict on
crimes, from the sense of blame alone, even the common, legal,
frivolous punishments? And does any thing steel the breast of judges
and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflection on
necessity and public interest? {32} By the Roman law those who had
been guilty of parricide and confessed their crime, were put into a
sack alone with an ape, a dog, and a serpent, and thrown into the
river. Death alone was the punishment of those whose who denied
their guilt, however fully proved. A criminal was tried before
<Augustus>, and condemned after a full conviction, but the humane
emperor, when he put the last interrogatory, gave it such a turn as
to lead the wretch into a denial of his guilt. "You surely (said the
"prince) did not kill your father."[7] This lenity suits our natural
ideas of <right> even towards the greatest of all criminals, and
even though it prevents so inconsiderable a sufference. Nay even the
most bigotted priest would naturally without reflection approve of
it, provided the crime was not heresy or infidelity; for as these
crimes hurt himself in his <temporal> interest and advantages,
perhaps he may not be altogether so {33} indulgent to them. The
chief source of moral ideas is the reflection on the interest of
human society. Ought these interests, so short, so frivolous, to be
guarded by punishments eternal and infinite? The damnation of one
man is an infinitely greater evil in the universe, than the
subversion of a thousand millions of kingdoms. Nature has rendered
human infancy peculiarly frail and mortal, as it were on purpose to
refute the notion of a probationary state; the half of mankind die
before they are rational creatures.
III. T/HE\ <Physical> arguments from the analogy of nature are
strong for the mortality of the soul, and are really the only
philosophical arguments which ought to be admitted with regard to
this question, or indeed any question of fact. -- Where any two
objects are so closely connected that all alterations which we have
ever seen in the one, are attended with proportionable alterations
in the other; we ought to conclude {34} by all rules of analogy,
that, when there are still greater alterations produced in the
former, and it is totally dissolved, there follows a total
dissolution of the latter. -- Sleep, a very small effect on the
body, is attended with a temporary extinction, at least a great
confusion in the soul. -- The weakness of the body and that of the
mind in infancy are exactly proportioned, their vigour in manhood,
their sympathetic disorder in sickness; their common gradual decay
in old age. The step further seems unavoidable; their common
dissolution in death. The last symptoms which the mind discovers are
disorder, weakness, insensibility, and stupidity, the fore-runners
of its annihilation. The farther progress of the same causes
encreasing, the same effects totally extinguish it. Judging by the
usual analogy of nature, no form can continue when transferred to a
condition of life very different from the original one, in which it
was placed. Trees perish in the water, fishes in the air, animals in
the earth. Even so small a difference as that of climate is often
{35} fatal. What reason then to imagine, that an immense alteration,
such as is made on the soul by the dissolution of its body and all
its organs of thought and sensation, can be effected without the
dissolution of the whole? Every thing is in common betwixt soul and
body. The organs of the one are all of them the organs of the other.
The existence therefore of the one must be dependant on that of the
other. -- The souls of animals are allowed to be mortal; and these
bear so near a resemblance to the souls of men, that the analogy
from one to the other forms a very strong argument. Their bodies are
not more resembling; yet no one rejects the argument drawn from
comparative anatomy. The <Metempsychosis> is therefore the only
system of this kind that philosophy can harken to. ([editor's note]
4)
N/OTHING\ in this world is perpetual, every thing however
seemingly firm is in continual flux and change, the world itself
gives symptoms of frailty and dissolution. How contrary to analogy,
therefore, to imagine {36} that one single from, seemingly the
frailest of any, and subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal
and indissoluble? ([editor's note] 5) What daring theory is that!
how lightly, not to say how rashly entertained! How to dispose of
the infinite number of posthumous existences ought also to embarrass
the religious theory. Every planet in every solar system we are at
liberty to imagine peopled with intelligent mortal beings, at least
we can fix on no other supposition. For these then a new universe
must every generation be created beyond the bounds of the present
universe, or one must have been created at first so prodigiously
wise as to admit of this continual influx of beings. ([editor's
note] 6) Ought such bold suppositions to be received by any
philosophy, and that merely on there pretext of a bare possibility?
When it is asked whether <Agamemnon> <Thersites Hannibal>, <Varro>,
and every stupid clown that ever existed in <Italy>, <Scythia>,
<Bactria> or <Guinea>, are now alive; can any man think, that a
scrutiny of nature will furnish arguments {37} strong enough to
answer so strange a question in the affirmative? The want of
argument without revelation sufficiently establishes the negative. -
- "<Quanto facilius> (says <Pliny>[8]) "<certius que sibi quemque
credere, ac specimen securitatis antigene tali sumere experimento>."
Our insensibility before the composition of the body, seems to
natural reason a proof of a like state after dissolution. Were our
horrors of annihilation an original passion, not the effect of our
general love of happiness, it would rather prove the mortality of
the soul. For as nature does nothing in vain, she would never give
us a horror against an impossible event. She may give us a horror
against an unavoidable; yet the human species could not be preserved
had not nature inspired us with and aversion toward it. All
doctrines are to be suspected which are favoured by {38} our
passions, and the hopes and fears which gave rise to this doctrine
are very obvious.
'T/IS\ an infinite advantage in every controversy to defend the
negative. If the question be out of the common experienced course of
nature, this circumstance is almost if not altogether decisive. By
what arguments or analogies can we prove any state of existence,
which no one ever saw, and which no way resembles any that ever was
seen? Who will repose such trust in any pretended philosophy as to
admit upon its testimony the reality of so marvellous a scene? Some
new species of logic is requisite for that purpose, and some new
faculties of the mind, that may enable us to comprehend that logic.
N/OTHING\ could set in a fuller light the infinite obligations
which mankind have to divine revelation, since we find that no other
medium could ascertain this great and important truth. {39}
ANTI SUICIDE.
(1) THIS elaborate eulogium on philosophy points obliquely at
religion, which we christians consider as the only sovereign
antidote to every disease incident to the mind of man. It is indeed
hard to say what reason might do were it freed from all restraints,
especially if a succession of philosophers were incessantly
improving on one another as they went on, avoiding and correcting
the mistakes of those who preceded them in the same pursuit, till at
last one complete and rational system was effected. Great things
might probably be accomplished in this manner. But no such plan in
fact ever was or is likely to be finished. Neither priestcraft, nor
magisterial powers, however, cramped the progress of improving
reason, or baffled the genius of enquiring man. The principles of
religion and virtue were freely canvassed by the boldest spirits of
antiquity. In truth, the superior advantage and necessity of the
christian religion seems manifest from this particular circumstance,
{40} that it has taken away every possible restraint from natural
religion, allowing it to exert itself to the utmost in finding out
the fundamental truths of virtue, and in acquiescing in them, in
openly avowing and acknowledging them when revealed, in extending
the views and expectations of men, in giving them more just and
liberal sentiments, and in publickly and uniformly disclaiming any
intention of establishing a kingdom for its votaries or believers in
this world.
T/HE\ doctrines of the gospel are not intended to instruct us
in the knowledge of every thing which may be really useful in the
present life, far less of every thing, which, from curiosity alone,
we may have a mighty desire to know. Revelation considers mankind in
their highest capacity, as the rational and accountable subjects of
God, and as capable both of present and future happiness or misery,
according to their behaviour. Its chief, if not its sole design, is
to give us those views and impressions of our nature, of our state,
of the perfections, the counsels, the laws, and the government of
God, which, under the influence of providence, are the immediate and
infallible means of the purity, of the comfort, and of the moral
order, rectitude, and excellence of our immortal souls. As corrupted
and disordered, we are incapable of true happiness, till purified
and restored to order. As guilty and {41} mortal creatures, we can
have no true consolation without the hopes of pardon in a future and
seperate state of existence. As surrounded with dangers, and
obnoxious to every dismal apprehension, we can possess no solid, or
permanent content, but in the sincere and well grounded convictions
of that gracious and righteous administration so minutely and
explicitly delineated in the scriptures. It is evident, therefore,
that the principal excellence and utility of revealed truths upon
the sanctification and consolation of our hearts. They tally exactly
with the present circumstances of mankind, and are admirably adapted
to cure every disease, every disorder of the human mind, to beget,
to cherish, and confirm every pure, every virtuous, every pious
disposition.
M/ANKIND\ are certainly at present in a state of the deepest
corruption and depravity, and at the same time apt to continue
strangely insensible of the misery and danger to which, under the
government of infinite wisdom, it necessarily renders them. Nothing
can be conceived more fit to rouse them from their lethargy, and to
awaken them to a just sense of their condition, than a messenger
from Heaven, clothed with divine authority, setting before them the
intrinsic {42} baseness, malignity, and wretchedness of vice,
together with the certain, the dreadful, the eternal consequences of
continuing in it.
C/OULD\ we enter upon a particular view of all those maladies
and disorders which infest and destroy the souls of men, it were
easy to shew, that a steadfast belief of religion is, in truth, the
most natural and the best antidote or remedy for each of them. It is
obvious, or least, that the clear and full manifestation, which the
gospel has given of the character of God, and the laws of his moral
government, and of the terms of salvation through faith in the
religion of his son, are all finely calculated to root out the
principles of superstition, and all false notions, destructive to
the virtue and happiness of mankind, and to plant in their room
whatever has a natural and direct tendency to promote our virtue,
our perfection, our felicity.
(2) C/LEOMENES\, king of Sparta, when suffering under
misfortune, was advised to kill himself by Tharyceon. "Thinkest
thou, wicked man, (said he) to shew thy fortitude by rushing upon
death, an expedient always at hand, the dastardly resource of the
{43} basest minds? Better than we, by the fortune of arms, or
overpowered by numbers, have left the field of battle to their
enemies; but he who, to avoid pain, or calamity, or censures of men,
gives up the contest, we are to seek death, that death ought to be
in action. It is base to live or die only for ourselves. All we gain
by suicide is to get our own reputation, or doing the least service
to our country. In hopes, then, we may yet be of some use to others,
both methinks are bound to preserve life as long as we can. Whenever
these hopes shall have altogether abandoned us, death, if sought
for, will readily be found.
(3) O/F\ all the refines cobwebs, to which sophistry has given
birth, this seems at once the most elaborate and the most flimsy. It
seems one of the first and most indisputable maxims in all found
reasoning, that no ideas whatever should have a place in the
premises, which do not communicate a sensible energy to the
conclusion. But where is the connection between the beginning and
end of this wire-drawn argument. What have the various beautiful
facts, thus elegantly stated, to do with a man's taking away his own
{44} life? Though the greatest philosopher be of no more consequence
to the general system of things than an oyster, and though the life
of the one were, in every respect, as perfectly insignificant as
that of the other, still the meanest of mankind is not without
importance in his own eyes. And where is he who is guided uniformly,
in all his actions, more by a sense of his relation to the universe
at large, than by the value he retains for himself, or the deference
he has to his own opinion.
N/O\ deduction, however plausible, can produce conviction in
any rational mind, which originates in a supposition grossly absurd.
Is it possible to conceive the author of nature capable of
authenticating a deed, which ultimately terminates in the total
annihilation of the system? By which of the creatures beneath us is
the first law of their being thus daringly violated? And if suicide
be eligible to man, under any possible misfortune or distress, why
not to them? Are not they also subject to the various miseries which
arise from wayward accidents and hostile elements? Why, therefore,
open a door for our escape from those evils of which others have
their share, to whom, however, it must remain for ever shut? {45}
I/N\ truth, the existence of all animals depends entirely on
their inviolable attachment to self-preservation. Their attention to
all is accordingly the obvious and common condition of all their
natures. By this great and operative principle nature has chiefly
consulted her own safety. Our philosopher's notions are so extremely
hostile to her most essential institutions, that she could not
possibly survive a general conviction of them. And, in spite of all
the sophistry he is master of, the question here will eternally
recur, whether the wisdom of nature, or the philosophy of our
author, deserves the preference.
(4) T/HIS\ apology for the commission, arising from man's
insignificance in the moral world, from the reciprocation of social
duty being dissolved, or from the benefit resulting from the
voluntary dismission of being, is contrary to the soundest
principles of jurisprudence, to the condition of human nature, and
to the general establishment of things.
T/HAT\ a man who retires from life <ad libitum>, does no harm
to society, is a proposition peculiarly absurd and erroneous. What
is {46} lawful for one, may be lawful for all, and no society can
subsist in the conviction of a principle thus hostile to its being.
I/T\ seems to be a maxim in human existence, that no creature
has a right to decide peremptorily on the importance, utility, or
necessity of his own being. There are an infinite variety of secret
connections and associations in the vast system of things, which the
eye of created wisdom cannot explore.
M/AN\ is not, perhaps, so ignorant of anything, or any
creature, as of himself. His own system, after all the art and
inquisition of human ingenuity, is still to him the profoundest
mystery in nature. His knowledge and faculties are adequate to the
sphere of his duty. Beyond this, his researches are impertinent, and
all his acquisitions useless. He has no adequate notions what the
laws of the universe are with respect to any species of existence
whatever. A cloud rests on the complicated movements of this great
machine, which baffles all the penetration of mortals: and it will
for ever remain impossible for man, from the most complete analysis
of his present situation, to judge, with any degree of precision, of
his own consequence, either as a citizen of the world at large, or
as a member of any particular society. {47}
F/INAL\ causes form a system of knowledge too wonderful for
man. It is the perrogative of nature alone to decide upon them. In
the fulness of time, her creative hand brought him into existence,
and it belongs to her alone, in consequence of an arrangement
equally wonderful and mysterious to dismiss him from his present
mode of being. This is an authority with which she alone is
invested, and which, according to our apprehensions, it is
impossible fro her to delegate. Dissolution, as well as creation, is
hers. and he who would attempt to infringe her sovereignty in this
instance, would usurp a prerogative which does not belong to him,
and become a traitor to the laws of his being. Nay, on this
extravagant and licentious hypothesis, the right of assuming and
relinquishing existence is made reciprocal. For he who arrogates the
liberty of destroying himself, were he possessed of the power, might
also be his own creator; his imaginary insignificance to society
being as inconclusive in the one case, as any chimerical advantage
that may accidentally strike him can be in the other. It is a
strange doctrine, which cannot be established, but at the obvious
expence of what seem the plainest dictates of common sense.
I/NDEED\, the absurdities of this daring and paradoxical
doctrine are endless and infinite. {48} When we come to pronounce on
the condition of human infancy, and to separate childhood, or non-
age, from a state of maturity, we can scarce trace one useful or
salutary consequence it is calculated to produce in society. In this
view children seem less adapted to serve any special or important
end, than even beetles, gnats, or flies. Experience, however, has
long convinced the world of their present inestimable value from
their future destination. And were a legislator, from the plausible
pretext of their being a burden to the state, to exterminate the
race of mankind in the insignificant stage of infancy, his decree,
like that of a certain monster recorded in the gospel, would shock
the sentiments of every nation under heaven, in whom there remained
only the dregs of humanity.
I/T\ is not only impossible for a man to decide, in any given
period, of the progress of his existence, or what utility or
consequence he may be to society; but without the faculty of
prescience, it is still more impracticable for him to divine what
purposes he may be intended to serve in the many mysterious
revolations of futurity. How far his mortal may be connected with
his immortal life, must rest with him who has the sole disposal of
it. But who told him that his load of misery was too much to bear,
that he was not able to sustain {49} it? or that his merciful father
would not proportionate his sufferings to his abilities? How does he
know how short-lived the pressure of incumbent sorrow may prove? It
becomes not him to prescribe to his maker, or because his evils are
enormous, to conclude they must be permanent. Rash man! thy heart is
in the hand of heaven, and he <who tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb>, may either lighten the burthen that oppresses thee, or blunt
the edge of that sensibility, from which it derives the greatest
poignancy. What medicine is to the wounds of the body, that
resignation is to those of the soul. Be not deficient in this
virtue, and life will never prescribe a duty you cannot perform, or
inflict a pang which you cannot bear. Resignation changes the
grizzly aspect of affliction, turns sickness into health, and
converts the gloomy forebodings of despair into the grateful
presentiments of hope. Besides, the most insignificant instruments
are sometimes, in the hands of eternal providence, employed in
bringing about the most general and beneficent revolutions. It is by
making weakness thus subservient to power, evil to good, and pain to
pleasure, that he who governs the world illustrates his sovereinty
and omnipotence. Till, then, thou art {50} able to comprehend the
whole mysterious system of every possible existence, till thou art
certain that thy life is totally insignificant, till thou art
convinced it is not in the might of infinite power to render thee
serviceable either to thyself or others, counteract not the
benignity of providence by suicide, or, in this manner, by the
blackest of all treasons, betray thy trust, and wage, at fearful
odds, hostility against the very means and author of thy being.
O/NE\ very obvious consequence arising from suicide, which none
of its advocates appear to have foreseen, and which places it in a
light exceedingly gross and shocking, is, that it supposes every man
capable, not only of destroying himself, but of delegating the power
of committing murder to another. That which he may do himself, he
may commission any one to do for him. On this supposition, no law,
human or divine, could impeach the shedding of innocent blood. And
on what principle, of right or expediency, admit that which produces
such a train of the most horrid and detestable consequences?
(5) T/HE\ preceding note is, perhaps, the most audacious part
in the whole of this very extraordinary performance. In our holy
religion it is expressly declared that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him; that murderers shall in no wise inherit the kingdom
of God, and that it is the prerogative of heaven alone to kill and
make alive. It is a fundamental {51} doctrine in the gospel, that,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And how are they to
perform their duty, who, in the instant of dying, contract a guilt,
which renders it indispensible. But this horrid supposition is
repugnant to the whole genius of revelation, which inculcates every
virtue that can possibly administer to our present and future
welfare. It inforces obedience and resignation to the righteous
government of God. It inspires and produces those very dispositions
which it recommends. All its doctrines, exhortations, and duties,
are formed to elevate the mind, to raise the affections, to regulate
the passions, and to purge the heart of whatever is hostile to
happiness in this or another life. This impious slander on the
christian faith is the obvious consequence of the grossest
inattention to its nature and tendency. It is calculated chiefly to
make us happy. And what happy man was ever yet chargeable with
suicide? In short, we may as well say, that, because the physician
does not expressly prohibit certain diseases in his prescriptions,
the very diseases are authenticated by the remedies devised, on
purpose to counteract them. {52}
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
(1) The ingenuity of Scepticism has been long admired, but here
the author boldly outdoes all his former out-doings. Much has been
said against the authenticity of religion, on the supposition that
the evidence to which she appeals, is not either sufficiently
general or intelligible to the bulk of mankind. But surely an
argument is not conclusive in one case, and inconclusive in another.
Admit this reasoning against revelation to be valid, and you must
also admit it against our author's hypothesis. There never at least
was an objection started, that could, in the remotest degree, affect
the truths of the gospel, more intricate, metaphysical, and
abstracted, than that by which our essayest would destroy the
popular doctrine of the soul's <immortality>. How many live and die
in this salutary conviction, to whom these refined speculations must
forever remain as unintelligible as if they had {53} never been
formed! It is a sentiment so congenial to the heart of man, that few
of the species would chuse to exist without it. Unable, as they are,
to account for its origin, they cordially and universally indulge
it, as one of their tenderest, best, and last feelings. It inhabits
alike the rudest and most polished minds, and never leaves any human
breast, which is not either wholly engrossed by criminal pleasure,
deadened by selfish pursuits, or perverted by false reasoning. It
governs with all the ardor and influence of inspiration, and never
meets with any opposition but from the weak, the worthless, or the
<wise above what is written>. All the world have uniformly
considered it as their last resource in every extremity, and for the
most part still regard and cherish the belief of it, as an asylum in
which their best interests are ultimately secured or deposited,
beyond the reach of all temporary disaster or misfortune. Where,
therefore, is the probability of exterminating so popular and
prevailing a notion, by a concatenation of ideas, which, perhaps,
not one out of a million in any country under Heaven is able to
trace or comprehend?
(2) The natural perceptions of pleasure of pain cannot be said
to act on the mind as one part of matter does on another. The
substance of the soul we do not know, but are {54} certain her ideas
must be immaterial. And these cannot possibly act either by contact
of impulse. When one body impels another, the body moved is affected
only by the impulse. But the mind, whenever roused by any pleasing
or painful sensation, in most cases looks round her, and deliberates
whether a change of state is proper, or the present more eligible;
and moves or rests accordingly. Her perceptions, therefore,
contribute no further to action, than by exciting her active powers.
On the contrary, matter is blindly and obstinately in that state in
which it is, whether of motion or rest, till changed by some other
adequate cause. Suppose we rest the state of any body, some external
force is requisite to put it in motion; and, in proportion as this
force is greater or small, the motion must be swift or slow. Did not
this body continue in its former state, no external force would be
requisite to change it; nor, when changed, would different degrees
of force be necessary to move it in different degrees of velocity.
When motion is impressed on any body, to bring it to rest, an
<extra> force must always be applied, in proportion to the intended
effect. This resistance is observeable in bodies both when moved in
particular directions, and to bear an exact proportion to the <vis
impressa>, and to the quantity of matter moved. Were it possible to
extract from matter the qualities of solidity and extension, {55}
the matter whence such qualities were extracted would no longer
resist; and consequently resistance is the necessary result of them,
which, therefore, in all directions must be the same. The degree of
resistance in any body being proportionate to the <vis impressa>, it
follows, when that body is considered in any particular state,
whether of motion or rest, the degrees of resistance must either
indefinitely multiply, or decrease, according to all possible
degrees of the moving force. But when the same body is considered
absolutely, or without fixing any particular state, the resistance
is immutable; and all the degrees of it, which that body would exert
upon the accession of any impressed force, must be conceived as
actually in it. Nor can matter have any tendency contrary to that
resistance, otherwise it must be equal or superior. If equal, the
two contrary tendencies would destroy each other. If superior, the
resistance would be destroyed. Thus change would eternally succeed
to change without one intermediate instant, so that no time would be
assigned when any body was in any particular state. Gravitation
itself, the most simple and universal law, seems far from being a
tendency natural to matter; since it is found to act internally, and
not in proportion to the superfices of any body; which it would not
do, if it were only the mechanical action of matter upon matter.
{56} From all this, it appears, that matter considered merely as
such, is so far from having a principle of spontaneous motion, that
it is stubbornly inactive, and must eternally remain in the same
state in which it happens to be, except influenced by some other --
that is, some immaterial power. Of such a power the human soul is
evidently possessed; for every one is conscious of an internal
activity, and to dispute this would be to dispute us out of one of
the most real and intimate perceptions we have.
Though a material automaton were allowed possible, how
infinitely would it fall short of that force and celerity which
every one feels in himself. how sluggish are all the movements which
fall under our observation. How slow and gradual their transitions
from one part of space to another. But the mind, by one
instantaneous effort, measures the distance from pole to pole, from
heaven to earth, from one fixed star to another; and not confined
within the limits of the visible creation, shoots into immensity
with a rapidity to which even that of lightning, or sunbeams, is no
comparison. Who then shall assign a period, which, though depressed
with so much dead weight, is ever active, and unconscious of fatigue
or relaxation? The mind is not only herself a principle of action,
but probably actuates the body, without the {57} assistance of any
intermediate power, both from the gradual command which she acquires
of its members by habit, and from a capacity of determining, in some
measure, the quantity of pleasure or pain which any sensible
perception can give her. Supposing the interposing power a spirit,
the same difficulty of spirit acting upon matter still remains. And
the volition of our own mind will as well account for the motion of
the body, as the formal interference of any other spiritual
substance. And we may as well ask, why the mind is not conscious of
that interposition, as why she is ignorant of the means by which she
communicates motion to the body.
(3) It is always bad reasoning to draw conclusions from the
premises not denied by your adversary. Whoever, yet, of all the
assertors of the soul's immortality, presumed to make a monopoly of
this great privilege to the human race? Who can tell what another
state of existence may be, or whether every other species of animals
may not possess principles an immortal as the mind of man? But that
mode of reasoning, which militates against all our convictions,
solely on account of the unavoidable ignorance to which our sphere
in the universe subjects us, can never be satisfactory. Reason, it
is true, cannot altogether solve every doubt which arises concerning
this important truth. But neither is there any other {58} truth, of
any denomination whatever, against which sophistry may not conjure
up a multitude of exceptions. We know no mode of existence but those
of matter and spirit, neither of which have uniformly and
successfully defied the extreme subtilty of argumentation. Still a
very great majority of mankind are staunch believers in both. So
well constituted is the present disposition of things, that all the
principles essential to human life and happiness continue, as it is
likely they ever will, to operate, in spite of every sort of clamour
which sophistry or scepticism has raised or can raise against them.
(4) There is not a single word in all this elaborate and
tedious deduction, which has not been urged and refuted five hundred
times. Our ignorance of the divine perfections, as is usual with
this writer, is here stated as an unanswerable exception to the
conclusion usually drawn from them. But he very artfully overlooks,
that this great ignorance will be equally conclusive as applied to
either side of the argument. When we compare, however, the character
of God, as a wise superintendant, and generous benefactor, with the
state in which things at present appear, where virtue is often
depressed and afflicted, and vice apparently triumphs, it will be
treated with the infamy it merits, and virtue receive that {59}
happiness and honour, which, from its own intrinsic worth, it
deserves, and, from its conformity to the nature of God, it has
reason to expect.
This subject, perhaps, has been too much exaggerated, and some
pious men have weakly thought, the best way to convince us that
order and happiness prevailed in a future state, was to persuade us
that there was none at all in this. External advantages have been
taken for the only goods of human nature; and, because, in this
view, all things speak the appearance of mal-administration, we have
been taught to expect a government of rectitude and benevolence
hereafter. Let us, on the contrary, candidly own that virtue is
sovereignly and solely good, left, by depreciating her charms, we
obliquely detract from the character of God himself. Let us confess
her undowered excellence superior to all the inconveniences that may
attend her, even in the present situation. But, without allowing
some difference between poverty and riches, sickness and health,
pain and pleasure, &c. we shall have no foundation to preference;
and it will be in vain to talk of selecting where no one choice can
be more agreeable or disagreeable to nature than another. Upon this
difference, therefore, however it be called, let the present
argument proceed. {60}
If infinite goodness be the spirit and characteristic of this
universal government, then every advantage, however inconsiderable
in kind or degree, must either be supposed immediately bestowed on
virtue; or, at least, that such retributions will, at some time, be
made her, as may not only render her votaries equal, but superior to
those of vice, in proportion to their merit. But how different the
case is in human life, history and observation may easily convince
us; so that one, whose eyes are not intent on the character of God,
and the nature of virtue, would often be tempted to think this world
a theatre merely intended for mournful spectacles and pomps of
horror. How many persons do we see perish by the mere wants of
nature, who, had they been in different circumstances, would have
thanked God with tears of joy for the power of communicating those
advantages they now implore from others in vain? While, at the same
time, they have, perhaps, the additional misery of seeing the most
endeared relations involved in the same deplorable fate! How often
do we see those ties which unite the soul and body, worn out by the
gradual advances of a lingering disease, or burst at once by the
sudden efforts of unutterable agony? While the unhappy sufferers,
had they been continued in life, might have diffused happiness, not
only through the narrow circle of their {61} friends and
neighbourhood, but as extensively as their country, and even the
world at large. How many names do we see buried in obscurity, or
soiled with detraction, which ought to have shone the first in fame?
How many heroes have survived the liberties of their country, or
died in abortive attempts to preserve them; and, by their fall, only
left a larger field for the lawless ravages of tyranny and
oppression?
But were it possible, how long and insuperable would be the
task to enumerate all the ingredients which compose the present cup
of bitterness? And is this the consummation of things? Will supreme
and essential goodness no way distinguish such as have invariably
pursued his honour, and the interest of his government, from those
who have industriously violated the order he has appointed in
things? who have blotted the face of nature with havock, murder, and
desolation; and shewn a constant intention to counteract all the
benevolent designs of providence? It is confessed that the virtuous,
happy in the possession of virtue alone, make their exit from the
present scene with blessings to the Creator, for having called them
to existence, and given them the glorious opportunity of enjoying
what is in itself supremely eligible. They are conscious that this
felicity can receive no accession from any external lustre or
advantage {62} whatever. Yet it seems highly necessary in the divine
administration, that those who have been dazzled with the false
glare of prosperous wickedness, should at last be undeceived; that
they should at last behold virtue conspicuous, in all her native
splendor and majesty as she shines, the chief delight of God, and
ultimate happiness of all intelligent nature.
The language of religion, and our own hearts, on this important
argument, is equally comfortable and decisive. It accumulates and
enforces whatever can inspire us with confidence in that God, who is
not the God of the dead, but of the living; who reigns in the
invisible, as well as in the visible world; and whose attention to
our welfare ceases not with our lives, but is commensurate to the
full extent of our being. Indeed the votaries of the soul's
mortality may as well be honest for once, and speak out what so many
fools think in their hearts. For what is God to us, or we to him, if
our connection extends but to the pitiful space allotted us in such
a pitiful world as this is? To be sure, no absurdity will be
rejected, which can smother the feelings, or keep the vices of
profligates in countenance; but, if only made like worms and
reptiles beneath our feet, to live this moment, and expire the next,
to struggle in a wretched life with every internal and external
calamity, {63} that can assault our bodies, or infest our minds; to
bear the mortifications of malignity, and the unmerited abhorrence
of those who perhaps may owe us the greatest and tenderest esteem,
and then, sunk in everlasting oblivion, our fate would stand on
record, in the annals of the universe, an eternal exception to all
that can be called good.
Suppose a father possessed of the most exquisite tenderness for
his son, delighted with his similarity of form, his promising
constitution, his strength, gracefulness, and agility, his
undisguised emotions of filial affection, with the various presages
of a superior genius and understanding. Let us suppose this father
pleased with the employment of improving his faculties, and
inspiring him with future hopes of happiness and dignity: but that
he may give him a quicker sensibility to the misfortunes of others,
and a more unshaken fortitude to sustain his own, he often prefers
younger brethren, and even strangers, to those advantages which
otherwise merit, and the force of nature would determine him to
bestow on so worthy an offspring. Let us go further, and imagine, if
we can, that this father, without the least diminution of
tenderness, or any other apparent reason, destroys his son in the
bloom of life, and height of expectation: Who would not lament the
fate of such a youth with inconsolable tears? {64} Doomed never more
to behold the agreeable light of Heaven! never more to display his
personal graces, nor exercise his manly powers, never more to feel
his heart warm with benevolent regards, nor taste the soul-
transporting pleasure of obliging and being obliged! Blotted at once
from existence, and the fair creation, he sinks into silence and
oblivion, with all his sublime hopes disappointed, all his immense
desires ungratified, and all his intellectual faculties unimproved.
Without mentioning the instinctive horror which must attend such an
action, how absurd to reason, and how inconsistent with the common
feelings of humanity would it be to suppose a father capable of such
a deed. Forbid it, God! forbid it, Nature! that we should impute to
the munificent father of being and happiness, what, even in the
lowest of rational creatures, would be monstrous and detestable!
(5) The truth is, that form which all mankind have deemed
immortal, is so far from being the frailest, that it seems in fact
the most indissoluble and permanent of any other we know. All the
rational and inventive powers of the mind happily conspire to
proclaim her infinitely different in nature, and superior in dignity
to every possible modification of pure matter. Were mankind {65}
joined in society, was life polished and cultivated, were the
sciences and arts, not only of utility, but elegance, produced by
matter? by a brute mass? A substance so contrary to all activity and
intelligence, that it seems the work of an omnipotent hand alone to
connect them. What judgement should we form of that principle which
informed and enlightened a Galileo, a Copernicus, or a Newton? What
inspiration taught them, to place the fun in the center of this
system, and assign the various orbs their revolutions round him,
reducing motions so diverse and unequal, to uniform and simple laws?
Was it not something like that great eternal mind, which first gave
existence to those luminous orbs, and prescribed each of them their
province? Whence the infinite harmony and variety of sound, the
copious flows of eloquence, the bolder graces and more inspired
elevations of poetry, but from a mind, an immaterial being, the
reflected image of her all-perfect Creator, in whom eternally dwells
all beauty and excellence. Were man only endowed with a principle of
vegetation, fixed to one peculiar spot, and insensible of all that
passed around him; we might, then, with some colour, suppose that
energy, if it may be so called, perishable. Were, he like animals
possessed of mere vitality, and qualified only to move and feel,
still we might have some reason to fear that, {66} in some future
period of duration, our Creator might resume his gift of existence.
but can any one, who pretends to the least reflection, imagine that
such a being as the human soul, adorned with such extensive
intellectual powers, will ever cease to be the object of that love
and care which eternally holds the universe in its embrace? Did she
obtain such a boundless understanding merely to taste the pleasure
of exercising it? to catch a transient glance of its objects, and
perish? Formed, as she is, to operate on herself, and all things
round her, must she cease from action, while yet the mighty task is
scarce begun? must she lose those faculties, by which she retains
the past, comprehends the presents and presages the future? must she
contemplate no more those bright impressions of divinity, which are
discovered in the material world; nor those stronger, and more
animated features of the same eternal beauty which shine in her own
god-like form? And must she be absorbed forever in the womb of
unessential nothing? Strange, that in the view, and even in the arms
of infinite power and goodness, a dawn so fair and promising, should
at one be clouded with all the horrors of eternal night? Such a
supposition would be contrary the whole conduct and laws of nature.
{67}
<The following Letters on> SUICIDE <are
extracted from> ROSSEAU's E/LOISA\.
LETTER CXIV.
<To Lord B-------.>
Y/ES\, my Lord, I confess it; the weight of life is too heavy
for my soul. I have long endured it as a burden; I have lost every
thing which could make it dear to me, and nothing remains but
irksomeness and vexation. I am told, however, that I am not at
liberty to dispose of my life, without the permission of that Being
from whom I received it. I am sensible likewise that you have a
right over it by more titles than one. Your care has twice preserved
it, and your goodness is its constant security. I will never {68}
dispose of it, till I am certain that I may do it without a crime,
and till I have not the least hope of employing it for your service.
You told me that I should be of use to you; why did you deceive
me? Since we have been in London, so far from thinking of employing
me in your concerns, you have been kind enough to make me your only
concern. How superfluous is your obliging solicitude! My lord, you
know I abhor a crime, even worse than I detest life; I adore the
supreme Being -- I owe every thing to you; I have an affection for
you; you are the only person on earth to whom I am attached.
Friendship and duty may chain a wretch to this earth: sophistry and
vain pretences will never detain him. Enlighten my understanding,
speak to my heart; I am ready to hear you, but remember, that
despair is not to be imposed upon.
You would have me apply to the test of reason: I will; let us
reason. You desire me to deliberate in proportion to the importance
{69} of the question in debate; I agree to it. Let us investigate
truth with temper and moderation; let us discuss this general
proposition with the same indifference we should treat any other.
Roebeck wrote an apology for suicide before he put an end to his
life. I will not, after his example, write a book on the subject,
neither am I well satisfied with that which he has penned, but I
hope in this discussion at least to imitate his moderation.
I have for a long time meditated on this awful subject. You
must be sensible that I have, for you know my destiny, and yet I am
alive. The more I reflect, the more I am convinced that the question
may be reduced to this fundamental proposition. Every man has a
right by nature to pursue what he thinks good, and avoid what he
thinks evil, in all respects which are not injurious to others. When
our life therefore becomes a misery to ourselves, and is of
advantage to no one, we are at liberty to put an end to our being.
If there is any such thing as a clear and self-evident {70}
principle, certainly this is one, and if this be subverted, there is
scarce an action in life which may not be made criminal.
Let us hear what the philosophers say on this subject. First,
they consider life as something which is not our own, because we
hold it as a gift; but because it has been given to us, is it for
that reason our own? Has not God given these sophists two arms?
nevertheless, when they are under apprehensions of a mortification,
they do not scruple to amputate one, or both if there be occasion.
By a parity of reasoning, we may convince those who believe in the
immortality of the soul; for if I sacrifice my arm to the
preservation of something more precious, which is my body, I have
the same right to sacrifice my body to the preservation of something
more valuable, which is, the happiness of my existence. If all the
gifts which heaven has bestowed are naturally designed for our good,
they are certainly too apt to change their nature; and Providence
has endowed us with reason, that we may discern the difference. If
this rule {71} did not authorize us to chuse the one, and reject the
other, to what use would it serve among mankind?
But they turn this weak objection into a thousand shapes. They
consider a man living upon earth as a soldier placed on duty. God,
say they, has fixed you in this world, why do you quit your station
without his leave? But you, who argue thus, has he not stationed you
in the town where you was born, why therefore do you quit it without
his leave? is not misery, of itself, a sufficient permission?
Whatever station Providence has assigned me, whether it be in a
regiment, or on the earth at large, he intended me to stay there
while I found my situation agreeable, and to leave it when it became
intolerable. This is the voice of nature, and the voice of God. I
agree that we must wait for an order; but when I die a natural
death, God does not order me to quit life, he takes it from me; it
is by rendering life insupportable, that he orders me to quit it. In
the first case, I resist with all my force; in the second, I have
the merit of obedience. {72}
Can you conceive that there are some people so absurd as to
arraign suicide as a kind of rebellion against Providence, by an
attempt to fly from his laws? but we do not put an end to our being
in order to withdraw ourselves from his commands, but to execute
them. What! does the power of God extend no farther than to my body?
is there a spot in the universe, is there any being in the universe,
which is not subject to his power, and will that power have less
immediate influence over me when my being is refined, and thereby
becomes less compound, and of nearer resemblance to the divine
essence? no, his justice and goodness are the foundation of my
hopes; and if I thought that death would withdraw me from his power,
I would give up my resolution to die.
This is one of the quibbles of the Phaedo, which, in other
respects, abounds with sublime truths. If your slave destroys
himself, says Socrates to Cebes, would you not punish him, for
having unjustly deprived you of your property; {73} prithee, good
Socrates, do we not belong to God after we are dead? The case you
put is not applicable; you ought to argue thus: if you incumber your
slave with a habit which confines him from discharging his duty
properly, will you punish him for quitting it, in order to render
you better service? the grand error lies in making life of too great
importance; as if our existence depended upon it, and that death was
a total annihilation. Our life is of no consequence in the sight of
God; it is of no importance in the eyes of reason, neither ought it
to be of any in our sight; when we quit our body, we only lay aside
an inconvenient habit. Is this circumstance so painful, to be the
occasion of so much disturbance? My Lord, these declaimers are not
in earnest. Their arguments are absurd and cruel, for they aggravate
the supposed crime, as if it put a period to existence, and they
punish it, as if that existence was eternal.
With respect to Plato's Phaedo, which has furnished them with
the only specious argument that has ever been advanced, the question
{74} is discussed there in a very light and desultory manner.
Socrates being condemned, by an unjust judgment, to lose his life in
a few hours, had no occasion to enter into an accurate enquiry
whether he was at liberty to dispose of it himself. Supposing him
really to have been the author of those discourses which Plato
ascribes to him, yet believe me, my lord, he would have meditated
with more attention on the subject, had he been in circumstances
which required him to reduce his speculations to practice; and a
strong proof that no valid objection can be drawn from that immortal
work against the right of disposing of our own lives, is, that Cato
read it twice through the very night that he destroyed himself.
The same sophisters make it a question whether life can ever be
an evil? but when we consider the multitude of errors, torments, and
vices, with which it abounds, one would rather be inclined to doubt
whether it can ever be a blessing. Guilt incessantly besieges the
most virtuous of mankind. Every moment he lives he is in danger of
falling a prey to the wicked, or of being wicked himself. To {75}
struggle and to endure, is his lot in this world; that of the
dishonest man is to do evil, and to suffer. In every other
particular they differ, and only agree in sharing the miseries of
life in common. If you required authorities and facts, I could
recite you the oracles of old, the answers of the sages, and produce
instances where acts of virtue have been recompensed with death. But
let us leave these considerations, my lord; it is to you whom I
address myself, and I ask you what is the chief attention of a wise
man in this life, except, if I may be allowed the expression, to
collect himself inwardly, and endeavour, even while he lives, to be
dead to every object of sense? The only way by which wisdom directs
us to avoid the miseries of human nature, is it not to detach
ourselves from all earthly objects, from every thing that is gross
in our composition, to retire within ourselves, and to raise our
thoughts to sublime contemplations? If therefore our misfortunes are
derived from our passions and errors, with what eagerness should we
wish for a state which will deliver us both from the one and the
other? What is {76} the fate of those sons of sensuality, who
indiscreetly multiply their torments by their pleasures? they in
fact destroy their existence by extending their connections in this
life; they increase the weight of their crimes by their numerous
attachments; they relish no enjoyments, but what are succeeded by a
thousand bitter wants; the more lively their sensibility, the more
acute their sufferings; the stronger they are attached to life, the
more wretched they become.
But admitting it, in general, a benefit to mankind to crawl
upon the earth with gloomy sadness, I do not mean to intimate that
the human race ought with one common consent to destroy themselves,
and make the world one immense grave. But there are miserable
beings, who are too much exalted to be governed by vulgar opinion;
to them despair and grievous torments are the passports of nature.
It would be as ridiculous to suppose that life can be a blessing to
such men, as it was absurd in the sophister Possidonius to deny that
is was an {77} evil, at the same time that he endured all the
torments of the gout. While life is agreeable to us, we earnestly
wish to prolong it, and nothing but a sense of extreme misery can
extinguish the desire of existence; for we naturally conceive a
violent dread of death, and this dread conceals the miseries of
human nature from our sight. We drag a painful and melancholy life,
for a long time before we can resolve to quit it; but when once life
becomes so insupportable as to overcome the horror of death, then
existence is evidently a great evil, and we cannot disengage
ourselves from it too soon. Therefore, though we cannot exactly
ascertain the point at which it ceases to be a blessing, yet at
least we are certain in that it is an evil long before it appears to
be such, and with every sensible man the right of quitting life is,
by a great deal, precedent to the temptation.
This is not all. After they have denied that life can be an
evil, in order to bar our right of making away with ourselves; they
confess immediately afterwards that it is an {78} evil, by
reproaching us with want of courage to support it. According to
them, it is cowardice to withdraw ourselves from pain and trouble,
and there are none but dastards who destroy themselves. O Rome, thou
victrix of the world, what a race of cowards did thy empire produce!
Let Arria, Eponina, Lucretia, be of the number; they were women. But
Brutus, Cassius, and thou great and divine Cato, who didst share
with the gods the adoration of an astonished world, thou whose
sacred and august presence animated the Romans with holy zeal, and
made tyrants tremble, little did thy proud admirers imagine that
paltry rhetoricians, immured in the dusty corner of a college, would
ever attempt to prove that thou wert a coward, for having preferred
death to a shameful existence.
O the dignity and energy of your modern writers! How sublime,
how intrepid are you with your pens? but tell me, thou great and
valiant hero, who dost so courageously decline the battle, in order
to endure the pain of living somewhat longer; when spark of fire
{79} lights upon your hand, why do you withdraw it in such haste?
how? are you such a coward that you dare not bear the scorching of
fire? nothing, you say, can oblige you to endure the burning spark;
and what obliges me to endure life? was the creation of a man of
more difficulty to Providence, than that of a straw? and is not both
one and the other equally the work of his hands?
Without doubt, it is an evidence of great fortitude to bear
with firmness the misery which we cannot shun; none but a fool,
however, will voluntarily endure evils which he can avoid without a
crime; and it is very often a great crime to suffer pain
unnecessarily. He who has not resolution to deliver himself from a
miserable being by a speedy death, is like one who would rather
suffer a wound to mortify, than trust to a surgeon's knife for his
cure. Come, thou worthy -- cut off this leg, which endangers my
life. I will see it done without shrinking, and will give that hero
leave to call me coward, who suffers his leg to mortify, because he
dares not undergo the same operation. {80}
I acknowledge that there are duties owing to others, the nature
of which will not allow every man to dispose of his life; but, in
return, how many are there which give him a right to dispose of it?
let a magistrate on whom the welfare of a nation depends, let a
father of a family who is bound to procure subsistence for his
children, let a debtor who might ruin his creditors, let these at
all events discharge their duty; admitting a thousand other civil
and domestic relations to oblige an honest and unfortunate man to
support the misery of life, to avoid the greater evil of doing
injustice; is it, therefore, under circumstances totally different,
incumbent on us to preserve a life oppressed with a swarm of
miseries, when it can be of no service but to him who has not
courage to die? "Kill me, my child," says the decrepid savage to his
son, who carries him on his shoulders, and bends under his weight;
the "enemy is at hand; go to battle with thy brethren; go and
preserve thy children, and do not suffer thy helpless father to fall
{81} alive into the hands of those whose relations he has mangled."
Though hunger, sickness, and poverty, those domestic plagues, more
dreadful than savage enemies, may allow a wretched cripple to
consume, in a sick bed, the provisions of a family which can scarce
subsist itself, yet he who has no connections, whom heaven has
reduced to the necessity of living alone, whose wretched existence
can produce no good, why should not he, at least, have the right of
quitting a station, where his complaints are troublesome, and his
sufferings of no benefit?
Weigh these considerations, my lord; collect these arguments,
and you will find that they may be reduced to the most simple of
nature's rights, of which no man of sense ever yet entertained a
doubt. In fact, why should we be allowed to cure ourselves of the
gout, and not to get rid of the misery of life? do not both evils
proceed from the same hand? to what purpose is it to say, that death
is painful? are drugs agreeable to be taken? no, nature revolts
against both. Let them prove therefore {82} that it is more
justifiable to cure a transient disorder by the application of
remedies, than to free ourselves from an incurable evil by putting
an end to our life; and let them shew how it can be less criminal to
use the bark for a fever, than to take opium for the stone. If we
consider the object in view, it is in both cases to free ourselves
from painful sensations; if we regard the means, both one and the
other are equally natural; if we consider the repugnance of our
nature, it operates equally on both sides; if we attend to the will
of providence, can we struggle against any evil of which it is not
the author can we deliver ourselves from any torment which the hand
of God has not inflicted? what are the bounds which limit his power,
and when resistance lawful? are we then to make no alteration in the
condition of things, because every thing is in the state he
appointed? must we do nothing in this life, for fear of infringing
his laws, or is it in our power to break them if we would? no, my
lord, the occupation of man is more great and noble. God did not
give him life that he should supinely {83} remain in a state of
constant inactivity. But he gave him freedom to act, conscience to
will, and reason to choose what is good. He has constituted him sole
judge of all his actions. He has engraved this precept in his heart,
Do whatever you conceive to be for your own good, provided you
thereby do no injury to others. If my sensations tell me that death
is eligible, I resist his orders by an obstinate resolution to live;
for, by making death desirable, he directs me to put an end to my
being.
My lord, I appeal to your wisdom and candour; what more
infallible maxims can reason deduce from religion, with respect to
suicide? If Christians have adopted contrary tenets, they are
neither drawn from the principles of religion, nor from the only
sure guide, the Scriptures, but borrowed from the Pagan
philosophers. Lactantius and Augustine, the first who propagated
this new doctrine, of which Jesus Christ and his apostles take no
notice, ground their arguments entirely on the reasoning of Phaedo,
which I have already {84} controverted; so that the believers, who,
in this respect, think they are supported by the authority of the
Gospel, are in fact only countenanced by the authority of Plato. In
truth, where do we find, throughout the whole bible any law against
suicide, or so much as a bare disapprobation of it; and is it not
very unaccountable, that among the instances produced of persons who
devoted themselves to death, we do not find the least word of
improbation against examples of this kind? nay, what is more, the
instance of Samson's voluntary death is authorized by a miracle, by
which he revenges himself of his enemies. Would this miracle have
been displayed to justify a crime; and would this man, who lost his
strength by suffering himself to be seduced by the allurements of a
woman, have recovered it to commit an authorised crime, as if God
himself would practice deceit on men?
Thou shalt do no murder, says the decalogue; what are we to
infer from this? if this commandment is to be taken literally, we
{85} must not destroy malefactors, nor our enemies: and Moses, who
put so many people to death, was a bad interpreter of his own
precept. If there are any exceptions, certainly the first must be in
favour of suicide, because it is exempt from any degree of violence
and injustice, the two only circumstances which can make homicide
criminal; and because nature, moreover, has, in this respect, thrown
sufficient obstacles in the way.
But still they tell us, we must patiently endure the evils
which God inflicts, and make a merit of our sufferings. This
application however of the maxims of Christianity, is very ill
calculated to satisfy our judgment. Man is subject to a thousand
troubles, his life is a complication of evils, and he seems to have
been born only to suffer. Reason directs him to shun as many of
these evils as he can avoid; and religion, which is never in
contradiction to reason, approves of his endeavours. But how
inconsiderable is the account of these evils, in comparison with
those he is obliged to endure against his will? It is with {86}
respect to these, that a merciful God allows man to claim the merit
of resistance; he receives the tribute he has been pleased to
impose, as a voluntary homage, and he places our resignation in this
life to our profit in the next. True repentance is derived from
nature; if man endures whatever he is obliged to suffer, he does, in
this respect, all that God requires of him; and if any one is so
inflated with pride, as to attempt more, he is a madman, who ought
to be confined, or an impostor, who ought to be punished. Let us,
therefore, without scruple, fly from all the evils we can avoid;
there will still be too many left for us to endure. Let us, without
remorse, quit life itself when it becomes a torment to us, since it
is in our own power to do it, and that in so doing we neither offend
God nor man. If we would offer a sacrifice to the supreme Being, is
it nothing to undergo death? let us devote to God that which he
demands by the voice of reason, and into his hands let us peaceably
surrender our souls.
Such are the liberal precepts which good {87} sense dictates to
every man, and which religion authorises.[9] Let us apply these
precepts to ourselves. You have condescended to disclose your mind
to me; I am acquainted with your uneasiness; you do not endure less
than myself; and your troubles, like mine, are incurable; and they
are the more remediless, {88} as the laws of honour are more
immutable than those of fortune. You bear them, I must confess, with
fortitude. Virtue supports you; advance but one step farther, and
she disengages you. You intreat me to suffer; my lord, I dare
importune you to put an end to your sufferings; and I leave you to
judge which of us is most dear to the other.
Why should we delay doing that which we must do at last? shall
we wait till old age and decrepid baseness attach us to life, after
they have robbed it of its charms, and till we are doomed to drag an
infirm and decrepid body with labour, and ignominy, and pain? We are
at an age when the soul has vigour to disengage itself with ease
from its shackles, and when a man knows how to die as he ought; when
farther advanced in years, he suffers himself to be torn from life,
which he quits with reluctance. Let us take advantage of this time,
when the tedium of life makes death desirable; and let us tremble
for fear it should come in all its horrors, at the moment when we
could wish to avoid it. I remember {89} the time, when I prayed to
heaven only for a single hour of life, and when I should have died
in despair if it had not been granted. Ah! what a pain it is to
burst asunder the ties which attach our hearts to this world, and
how advisable it is to quit life the moment the connection is
broken! I am sensible, my lord, that we are both worthy of a purer
mansion; virtue points it out, and destiny invites us to seek it.
May the friendship which invites us preserve our union to the latest
hour! O what a pleasure for two sincere friends voluntary to end
their days in each others arms, to intermingle their latest breath,
and at the same instant to give up the soul which they shared in
common! What pain, what regret can infect their last moments? What
do they quit by taking leave of the world? They go together; they
quit nothing. {90}
LETTER CXV.
ANSWER.
T/HOU\ art distracted, my friend, by a fatal passion; be more
discreet; do not give counsel, whilst thou standest so much in need
of advice. I have known greater evils than yours. I am armed with
fortitude of mind; I am an Englishman, and not afraid to die; but I
know how to live and suffer as becomes a man. I have seen death near
at hand, and have viewed it with too much indifference to go in
search of it.
It is true, I thought you might be of use to me; my affection
stood in need of yours: your endeavours might have been serviceable
to me; your understanding might have enlightened me in the most
important concern of my life; if I do not avail myself of it, who
are you to impute it to? Where is it? What {91} is become of it?
What are you capable of? Of what use can you be in your present
condition? What service can I expect from you? A senseless grief
renders you stupid and unconcerned. Thou art no man; thou art
nothing; and if I did not consider what thou mightest be, I cannot
conceive any thing more abject.
There is need of no other proof than your letter itself.
Formerly I could discover in you good sense and truth. Your
sentiments were just, your reflections proper, and I liked you not
only from judgment but choice; for I considered your influence as an
additional motive to excite me to the study of wisdom. But what do I
perceive now in the arguments of your letter, with which you appear
to be so highly satisfied? A wretched and perpetual sophistry, which
in the erroneous deviations of your reason shews the disorder of
your mind, and which I would not stoop to refute, if I did not
commiserate your delirium. {92}
To subvert all your reasoning with one word, I would only ask
you a single question. You who believe in the existence of a God, in
the immortality of the soul, and in the freewill of man, you surely
cannot suppose that an intelligent being is embodied, and stationed
on the earth by accident only, to exist, to suffer, and to die. It
is certainly most probable that the life of man is not without some
design, some end, some moral object. I intreat you to give me a
direct answer to this point; after which we will deliberately
examine your letter, and you will blush to have written it.
But let us wave all general maxims, about which we often hold
violent disputes, without adopting any of them in practice; for in
their applications we always find some particular circumstances
which makes such an alteration in the state of things, that every
one thinks himself dispensed from submitting to the rules which he
prescribes to others; and it is well known, that every man who
establishes {93} general principles deems them obligatory on all the
world, himself excepted. Once more let us speak to you in
particular.
You believe that you have a right to put an end to your being.
Your proof is of a very singular nature; "because I am disposed to
die, say you, I have a right to destroy myself." This is certainly a
very convenient argument for villains of all kinds: they ought to be
very thankful to you for the arms with which you have furnished
them; there can be no crimes, which, according to your arguments,
may not be justified by the temptation to perpetrate them; and as
soon as the impetuosity of passion shall prevail over the horror of
guilt, their disposition to do evil will be considered as a right to
commit it.
Is it lawful for you therefore to quit life? I should be glad
to know whether you have yet begun to live? what! was you placed
here on earth to do nothing in this world? did not heaven when it
gave you existence give you some task or employment? If you have
{94} accomplished your day's work before evening, rest yourself for
the remainder of the day; you have a right to do it; but let us see
your work. What answer are you prepared to make the supreme Judge,
when he demands an account of your time? Tell me, what can you say
to him? -- I have seduced a virtuous girl: I have forsaken a friend
in distress. Thou unhappy wretch! point out to me that just man who
can boast that he has lived long enough; let me learn from him in
what manner I ought to have spent my days to be at liberty to quit
life.
You enumerate the evils of human nature. You are not ashamed to
exhaust common-place topics, which have been hackneyed over a
hundred times; and you conclude that life is an evil. But search,
examine into the order of things, and see whether you can find any
good which is not intermingled with evil. Does it therefore follow
that there is no good in the universe, and can you confound what is
in its own nature evil, with that which is only an evil
accidentally? You have {95} confessed yourself, that the transitory
and passive life of man is of no consequence, and only bears respect
to matter from which he will soon be disencumbered; but his active
and moral life, which ought to have most influence over his nature,
consists in the exercise of free-will. Life is an evil to a wicked
man in prosperity, and a blessing to an honest man in distress: for
it is not its casual modification, but its relation to some final
object which makes it either good or bad. After all, what are these
cruel torments which force you to abandon life? do you imagine, that
under your affected impartiality in the enumeration of the evils of
this life, I did not discover that you was ashamed to speak of your
own? Trust me, and do not at once abandon every virtue. Preserve at
least your wonted sincerity, and speak thus openly to your friend;
"I have lost all hope of seducing a modest woman, I am oliged
therefore to be a man of virtue; I had much rather die."
You are weary of living; and you tell me, that life is an evil.
Sooner or later you will {96} receive consolation, and then you will
say life is a blessing. You will speak with more truth, though not
with better reason; for nothing will have altered but yourself.
Begin the alteration then from this day; and, since all the evil you
lament is in the disposition of your mind, correct your irregular
appetites, and do not set your house on fire to avoid the trouble of
putting it in order.
I endure misery, say you: Is it in my power to avoid suffering?
But this is changing the state of the question: for the subject of
enquiry is, not whether you suffer, but whether your life is an
evil? Let us proceed. You are wretched, you naturally endeavour to
extricate yourself from misery. Let us see whether, for that
purpose, it is necessary to die.
Let us for a moment examine the natural tendency of the
afflictions of the mind, as in direct opposition to the evils of the
body, the two substances being of contrary nature. The latter become
worse and more inveterate the {97} longer they continue, and at
length utterly destroy this mortal machine. The former, on the
contrary, being only external and transitory modifications of an
immortal and uncompounded essence, are insensibly effaced, and leave
the mind in its original form, which is not susceptible of
alteration. Grief, disquietude, regret, and despair, are evils of
short duration, which never take root in the mind; and experience
always falsifies that bitter reflection, which makes us imagine our
misery will have no end. I will go farther; I cannot imagine that
the vices which contaminate us, are more inherent in our nature than
the troubles we endure; I not only believe that they perish with the
body which gives them birth, but I think, beyond all doubt, that a
longer life would be sufficient to reform mankind, and that many
ages of youth would teach us that nothing is preferable to virtue.
However this may be, as the greatest part of our physical evils
are incessantly encreasing, the acute pains of the body, when they
are incurable, may justify a man's destroying himself; {98} for all
his faculties being distracted with pain, and the evil being without
remedy, he has no longer any use either of his will or of his
reason; he ceases to be a man before he is dead, and does nothing
more in taking away his life, than quit a body which incumbers him,
and in which his soul is no longer resident.
But it is otherwise with the afflictions of the mind, which,
let them be ever so acute, always carry their remedy with them. In
fact, what is it that makes any evil intolerable? Nothing but its
duration. The operations of surgery are generally much more painful
than the disorders they cure; but the pain occasioned by the latter
is lasting, that of the operation is momentary, and therefore
preferable. What occasion is there therefore for any operation to
remove troubles which die of course by their duration, the only
circumstance which could render them insupportable? Is it reasonable
to apply such desperate remedies to evils which expire of
themselves? To a man who values himself on his fortitude, {99} and
who estimates years at their real value, of two ways by which he may
extricate himself from the same troubles, which will appear
preferable, death or time? Have patience, and you will be cured.
What would you desire more?
Oh! you will say, it doubles my afflictions to reflect that
they will cease at last! This is the vain sophistry of grief! an
apophthegm void of reason, of propriety, and perhaps of sincerity.
What an absurd motive of despair is the hope of terminating
misery![10] Even allowing this fantastical reflection, who would not
chuse to encrease the present pain for a moment, under the assurance
of putting an end to it, as we scarify a wound in order to heal it?
and admitting any charm in grief, to make us in love with suffering,
{100} when we release ourselves from it by putting an end to our
being, do we not at that instant incur all that we apprehend
hereafter?
Reflect thoroughly, young man; what are ten, twenty, thirty
years, in competition with immortality? Pain and pleasure pass like
a shadow; life slides away in an instant; it is nothing of itself;
its value depends on the use we make of it. The good that we have
done is all that remains, and it is that alone which marks its
importance.
Therefore do not say any more that your existence is an evil,
since it depends upon yourself to make it a blessing; and if it be
an evil to have lived, this is an additional reason for prolonging
life. Do not pretend neither to say any more that you are at liberty
to die; for it is as much as to say that you have power to alter
your nature, that you have a right to revolt against the author of
your being, and to frustrate the end of your existence. But when you
add, that your death does injury to {101} no one, do you recollect
that you make this declaration to your friend?
Your death does injury to no one? I understand you! You think
the loss I shall sustain by your death of no importance; you deem my
affliction of no consequence. I will urge to you no more the rights
of friendship, which you despise; but are there not obligations
still more dear,[11] which ought to induce you to preserve your
life? If there be a person in the world who loved you to that degree
as to be unwilling to survive you, and whose happiness depends on
yours, do you think that you have no obligations to her? Will not
the execution of your wicked design disturb the peace of a mind,
which has been with such difficulty restored to its former
innocence? Are not you afraid to add fresh torments to a heart of
such sensibility? Are not you apprehensive left your death should be
attended {102} with a loss more fatal, which would deprive the world
and virtue itself of its brightest ornament? And if she should
survive you, are not you afraid to rouse up remorse in her bosom,
which is more grievous to support than life itself? Thou ungrateful
friend! thou indelicate lover! wilt thou always be taken up wholly
with thyself? Wilt thou always think on thy own troubles alone? Hast
thou no regard for the happiness of one who was so dear to thee? and
cannot thou resolve to live for her who was willing to die with
thee?
You talk of the duties of a magistrate, and of a father of a
family: and because you are not under those circumstances, you think
yourself absolutely free. And are you then under no obligations to
society, to whom you are indebted for your preservation, your
talents, your understanding? do you owe nothing to your native
country, and to those unhappy people who may need your existence! O
what an accurate calculation you make! among the obligations you
have enumerated, {103} you have only omitted those of a man and of a
citizen. Where is the virtuous patriot, who refused to enlist under
a foreign prince, because his blood ought not to be split but in the
service of his country; and who now, in a fit of despair, is ready
to shed it against the express prohibition of the laws? The laws,
the laws, young man! did any wise man ever despise them? Socrates,
though innocent, out of regard to them refused to quit his prison.
You do not scruple to violate them by quitting life unjustly; and
you ask, what injury do I?
You endeavour to justify yourself by example. You presume to
mention the Romans: you talk of the Romans! it becomes you indeed to
cite those illustrious names. Tell me, did Brutus die a lover in
despair, and did Cato plunge the dagger in his breast for his
mistress? Thou weak and abject man! what resemblance is there
between Cato and thee? Shew me the common standard between that
sublime soul and thine. Ah vain wretch! hold thy peace: I am afraid
to profane {104} his name by a vindication of his conduct. At that
august and sacred name every friend to virtue should bow to the
ground, and honour the memory of the greatest hero in silence.
How ill you have selected your examples, and how meanly you
judge of the Romans, if you imagine that they thought themselves at
liberty to quit life so soon as it became a burden to them. Recur to
the excellent days of that republic, and seen whether you will find
a single citizen of virtue, who thus freed himself from the
discharge of his duty even after the most cruel misfortunes. When
Regulus was on his return to Carthage, did he prevent the torments
which he knew were preparing for him by destroying himself? What
would not Posthumus have given, when obliged to pass under the yoke
at Caudium, had this resource been justifiable? How much did even
the senate admire that effort of courage, which enabled the consul
Varro to survive his defeat? For what reason did so many generals
voluntary surrender themselves to their enemies, they to whom
ignominy was so dreadful, {105} and who were so little afraid of
dying? It was because they considered their blood, their life, and
their latest breath, as devoted to their country; and neither shame
nor misfortune could dissuade them from this sacred duty. But when
the laws were subverted, and the state became a prey to tyranny, the
citizens resumed their natural liberty, and the right they had over
their own lives. When Rome was no more, it was lawful for the Romans
to give up their lives; they had discharged their duties on earth,
they had no longer any country to defend, they were therefore at
liberty to dispose of their lives, and to obtain that freedom for
themselves which they could not recover for their country. After
having spent their days in the service of expiring Rome, and in
fighting for the defence of its laws, they died great virtuous as
they had lived, and their death was an additional tribute to the
glory of the Roman name, since none of them beheld a fight above all
others most dishonourable, that of a true citizen stooping to an
usurper. {106}
But thou, what art thou? what hast thou done? dost thou think
to excuse thyself on account of thy obscurity? does thy weakness
exempt thee from thy duty, and because thou hast neither rank nor
distinction in thy country, art thou less subject to the laws? It
becomes you vastly to presume to talk of dying while you owe the
service of your life to your equals. Know, that a death, such as you
meditate, is shameful and surreptitious. It is a theft committed on
mankind in general. Before you quit life, return the benefits you
have received from every individual. But, say you, I have no
attachments; I am useless in the world. O thou young philosopher!
art thou ignorant that thou canst not more a single step without
finding some duty to fulfil; and that every man is useful to
society, even by means of his existence alone?
Hear me, thou rash young man! thou art dear to me. I
commiserate thy errors. If the least sense of virtue still remains
in thy breast, attend, and let me teach thee to be reconciled {107}
to life. Whenever thou art tempted to quit, say to thyself -- "Let
me do at least one good action before I die." Then go in search for
one in a state of indigence, whom thou mayest relieve; for one under
misfortunes, whom thou mayest comfort; for one under oppression,
whom thou mayest defend. Introduce to me those unhappy wretches whom
my rank keeps at a distance. Do not be afraid of misusing my purse,
or my credit: make free with them; distribute my fortune; make me
rich. If this consideration restrains you to-day, it will restrain
you to-morrow; if no to morrow, it will restrain you all your life.
If it has no power to restrain you, die! you are below my care.
FINIS.
[1][COPYRIGHT: (c) 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu), all
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file. When quoting from this text, please use the following
citation: <The Writings of David Hume>, ed. James Fieser (Internet
Release, 1995).
EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS: letters between slashes (e.g., H/UME\)
designate small capitalization. Letters within angled brackets
(e.g., <Hume>) designate italics. Note references are contained
within square brackets (e.g., [1]). Original pagination is contained
within curly brackets (e.g., {1}). Spelling and punctuation have not
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Bracketed comments within the end notes are the editor's. This is a
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(jfieser@utm.edu).]
[2]De Divin. lib. ii.
[3]Agamus Die Gratias, quad nemo in vita teneri potest. S/EN\.
Epist. 12.
[4]T/ACIT\. Ann. lib i.
[5]I/T\ would be easy to prove that suicide is as lawful under
the Christian dispensation as it was to the Heathens. There is not a
single text of scripture which prohibits it. That great and
infallible rule of faith and practice which must controul all
philosophy and human reasoning, has left us in this particular to
our natural liberty. Resignation to Providence is indeed recommended
in scripture; but that implies only submission to ills that are
unavoidable, not to such as may be remedied by prudence or courage.
<Thou shalt not kill>, is evidently meant to exclude only the
killing of others, over whose life we have no authority. That this
precept, like most of the scripture precepts, must be modified by
reason and common sense, is plain from the practice of magistrates,
who punish criminals capitally, notwithstanding the letter of the
law. But were this commandment ever so express against suicide, it
would now have no authority, for all the law of <Moses> is
abolished, except so far as it is established by the law of nature.
And we have already endeavoured to prove that suicide is not
prohibited by that law. In all cases Christians and Heathens are
precisely upon the same footing; <Cato> and <Brutus>, <Arrea> and
<Portia> acted heroically; those who now imitate their example ought
to receive the same praises from posterity. The power of committing
suicide is regarded by <Pliny> as an advantage which men possess
even above the Deity himself. "Deus non sibi potest mortem
consciscere si velit quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae
paenis." Lib. II. Cap. 7. ([editor's note] 5)
[6]Quint. Curtius lib. VI. cap. 5.
[7]Suet. Augus. cap. 3.
[8]Lib. 7. cap. 55.
[9]A strange letter this for the discussion of such a subject!
Do men argue so cooly on a question of this nature, when they
examine it on their own accounts? Is the letter a forgery, or does
the author reason only with an intent to be refuted? What makes our
opinion in this particular dubious, is the example of Robeck, which
he cites, and which seems to warrant his own. Robeck deliberated so
gravely that he had patience to write a book, a large, voluminous,
weighty, and dispassionate book; and when he had concluded,
according to his principles, that it was lawful to put an end to our
being, he destroyed himself with the same composure that he wrote.
Let us beware of the prejudices of the times, and of particular
countries. When suicide is out of fashion we conclude that none but
madmen destroy themselves; and all the efforts of courage appear
chimerical to dastardly minds; every one judges of others by
himself. Nevertheless, how many instances are there, well attested,
of men, in every other respect perfectly discreet, who, without
remorse, rage, or despair, have quitted life for no other reason
than because it was a burden to them, and have died with more
composure than they lived?
[10]No, my lord, we do not put an end to misery by these means,
but rather fill the measure of affliction, by bursting asunder the
last ties which attach us to felicity. When we regret what was dear
to us, grief itself still attaches us to the object we lament, which
is a state less deplorable than to be attached to nothing.
[11]Obligations more dear than those of friendship! Is it a
philosopher who talks thus? But this affected sophist was of an
amorous disposition.
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