***
CATO.
ON SUICIDE, AND THE ABBE DE ST. CYRAN'S BOOK LEGITIMATING SUICIDE.
"The ingenious La Motte says of Cato, in one of his philosophical rather than poetical odes—
Stern Cato, with more equal soul,
Had bowed to Caesar's wide control—
With Rome had to the conqueror bowed—
But that his spirit, rough and proud,
Had not the courage to await
A pardoned foe's too humbling fate.
It was, I believe, because Cato's soul was always equal, and retained to the last its love for his country and her laws, that he chose rather to perish with her than to crouch to the tyrant. He died as he had lived...
It seems rather absurd to say that Cato slew himself through weakness. None but a strong mind can thus surmount the most powerful instinct of nature. This strength is sometimes that of frenzy; but a frantic man is riot weak.
Suicide is forbidden amongst us by the canon law. But the decretals, which form the jurisprudence of a part of Europe, were unknown to Cato, to Brutus, to Cassius, to the sublime Arria, to the emperor Otho, to Mark Antony, and the rest of the heroes of true Rome, who preferred a voluntary death to a life which they believed to be ignominious.
We, too, kill ourselves; but it is when we have lost our money, or in the very rare excess of a foolish passion for an unworthy object. I have known women kill themselves for the most stupid men imaginable. And sometimes we kill ourselves when we are in bad health, which action is a real weakness.
Disgust with our own existence, weariness of ourselves, is a malady which is likewise a cause of suicide. The remedy is, a little exercise, music, hunting, the play, or an agreeable woman. The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself to-day, would have wished to live, had he waited a week...
The Englishman quits this life proudly and disdainfully, when the whim takes him: but the Roman must have an indulgentia in articulo mortis; he can neither live nor die.
Sir William Temple says, that a man should depart when he has no longer any pleasure in remaining. So died Atticus.
Young women, who hang and drown themselves for love, should then listen to the voice of hope; for changes are as frequent in love as in other affairs.
An almost infallible means of saving yourself from the desire of self-destruction is, always to have something to do. Creech, the commentator on Lucretius, marked upon his manuscript —" N. B. Must hang myself when I have finished." He kept his word with himself, that he might have the pleasure of ending like his author. If he had undertaken a commentary upon Ovid, he would have lived longer.
Why have we fewer suicides in the country than in the towns? Because in the fields only the body suffers; in the town, it is the mind. The labourer has not time to be melancholy; none kill themselves but the idle—they who, in the eyes of the multitude, are so happy...
Philip Mordaunt was a young man of twenty-seven, handsome, well made, rich, of noble blood, with the highest pretensions, and, which was more than all, adored by his mistress : yet Mordaunt was seized with a disgust for life. He payed his debts, wrote to his friends, and even made some verses on the occasion. He dispatched himself with a pistol, without having given any other reason than that his soul was tired of his body, and that when we are dissatisfied with our abode, we ought to quit it. It seems that he wished to die, because he was disgusted with his good fortune.
In 1726, Richard Smith exhibited a strange spectacle to the world, from a very different cause. Richard Smith was disgusted with real misfortune. He had been rich, and he was poor; he had been in health, and he was infirm; he had a wife, with whom he had nought but his misery to share; their only remaining property was a child in the cradle. Richard Smith and Bridget Smith, with common consent, having embraced each other tenderly, and given their infant the last kiss, began with killing the poor child, after which they hung themselves to the posts of their bed.
I do not know any other act of cold-blooded horror so striking as this. But the letter which these unfortunate persons wrote to their cousin, Mr. Brindley, before their death, is as singular as their death itself. " We believe," say they, " that God will forgive us.... We quit this life because we are miserable, without resource; and we have done our only son the service of killing him, lest he should become as unfortunate as ourselves..." It must be observed, that these people, after killing their son through parental tenderness, wrote to recommend their dog and cat to the care of a friend. It seems they thought it easier to make a cat and dog happy in this life than a child, and they would not be a burden to their friends.
Lord Scarborough quitted this life in 1727... He afterwards found himself in a perplexing dilemma between a mistress whom he loved, but to whom he had promised nothing, and a woman whom he esteemed, and to whom he had promised marriage. He killed himself, to escape from his embarrassment...
All I can venture to say with assurance is, that there is no reason to apprehend that this rage for self-murder will ever become an epidemical disorder. Against this nature has too well provided. Hope and fear are the powerful agents which she very often employs to stay the hand of the unhappy individual about to strike at his own breast.
Cardinal Dubois was once heard to say to himself— " Kill thyself! Coward, thou darest not!"...
Why were these men, whom christianity restrained when they would have put themselves to death, restrained by nothing when they chose to poison, assassinate, and bring their conquered enemies to the scaffold? Does not the Christian religion forbid these murders much more than self-murder, of which the New Testament makes no mention?...
The famous Duverger de Haurane, abbot of St. Cyran, regarded as the founder of Port Royal, wrote, about the year 1608, a treatise on suicide, which has become one of the scarcest books in Europe.
" The Decalogue," says he, " forbids us to kill. In this precept, self-murder seems no less to be comprised than murder of our neighbour. But if there are cases in which it is allowable to kill our neighbour, there likewise are cases in which it is allowable to kill ourselves."...
We even confiscate the property of the deceased; which is robbing the living of the patrimony which of right belongs to them. This custom is derived from our canon law, which deprives of Christian burial such as die a voluntary death. Hence it is concluded, that we cannot inherit from a man who is judged to have no inheritance in heaven. The canon law, under the head " De Pcenitentia," assures us, that Judas committed a greater crime in strangling himself than in selling our Lord Jesus Christ."
--- A philosophical dictionary (Volume 2) / Voltaire
