But as within the last century the distinction of ranks has been rapidly breaking up throughout Christendom, and knowledge has been gradually equalized, the Law of Honor, or the modern forensic code of morals, has obtained a more general circulation; and notwithstanding the vast efforts, within the last fifty years, of the supporters of mysticism, forensic notions of morality have constantly continued to gain a wider currency, and acceptance.

11. According to the code of honor, there are certain cases in which it is a duty to accept, and even to send, a challenge; and if homicide ensue, it is held to be justifiable. Duelling, by those who defend it, is put upon the same ground with the infliction of capital punishments. It is alleged that the duellest, like the magistrate, if he inflict an evil upon a single individual, confers, at the same time, a benefit upon society; and a benefit which is the more meritorious, because he risks his life to confer it. Duelling, in fact, originated in the neglect of the laws to provide proper punishments for insults; so that insulted parties were obliged to take the law into their own hands; and the true and only effectual means of suppressing it, is, to supply that deficiency of the laws.*

12. With respect to suicide, which may be defined to be the voluntary aiding and abetting in one's own death, there are four several and distinct causes

* Bentham is the only author who has treated the subject of duelling with any knowledge of human nature, or in a manner at all satisfactory. See "Bentham's Theory of Legislation," Vol. II. Part II. ch. 14. Of Honorary Satisfaction.

from which it may spring; and accordingly as it is produced by one or the other of those causes, it is regarded, in forensic systems of morals, as indifferent, as wrong, as meritorious, as a duty.

Un

First. Suicide is often caused by the disease called melancholy. This is a disorder of the nervous system which destroys all capacity for pleasure, shutting the door even against Hope, a pleasure that often suffices to supply the place of all others. der the torture of this disease, even if it be not attended, as often is the case, by a partial overturn of the intellect, moral obligation loses all its force; and the unhappy sufferer is often driven to seek deliverance by suicide. No enlightened forensic moralist holds men to strict moral responsibility for acts performed under the influence of this disease, to which persons of excessive sensibility, and, therefore, possessing a peculiar delicacy of moral sentiment, are specially liable.*

Second. Suicide may originate in terror, in despondency, in what is usually called weakness of mind, -a want of courage, fortitude, confidence, and resolution to meet and encounter the usual evils of life. In that case, it is regarded as wrong, because he who commits it, is looked upon as shrinking, in a cowardly manner, from the discharge of

* The tragedy of "Hamlet" is a most masterly exhibition of the power of melancholy to disorder the intellect, and to destroy the force of the warmest affections, even of love itself. Filial affection, strengthened by habit, alone remains too powerful for it. Goethe was the first who made this criticism; its obvious justice has caused it to be universally assented to.

those duties which he owes to his friends, and to society. This, and the preceding case, are very apt to be confounded together; and, indeed, they run into each other by insensible degrees.

If, however, the evil from which refuge be sought by a voluntary death bears the character of disgrace and degradation, as in the cases of Lucretia and of Cato, it is considered lawful to escape it by suicide ; and the courage, contempt of life, and acute sensibility to dishonor, of which suicide, under such circumstances, is a proof, secure approbation, admiration, and applause.

Thirdly. A man may sacrifice his life for the sake of rendering a benefit to others, induced thereto by the joint influence of benevolence, and of the desire of superiority. Such a sacrifice of life is placed in the highest rank of merit. Even the mystics admit this.

Fourthly. A man is held bound to sacrifice his life, or at least to risk it, in defence of his family and his country; because the ordinary force of moral sentiment is sufficient to produce that line of conduct.

Even the mystical moralists, with all their horror of suicide, agree that men are bound to sacrifice their lives in the cause of God; though they are very little agreed among themselves, as to what the cause of God is.

13. Mystical morality settles the question of tyrannicide in two opposite ways. Apart from the general guilt of homicide, it is, say the mystics, the duty of men to submit quietly to the tyrant whom God has placed over them. But if that tyrant is also the en

emy of God, that alters the case; and there are not wanting good mystical Christian authorities, both Protestant and Catholic,* for putting such tyrants to death. As the priesthood, however, have fallen more and more into subserviency to the civil power, the former view of this question has more and more prevailed.

Forensic moralists may entertain doubts, whether the secondary evils of tyrannicide are not more than sufficient to counterbalance its immediate advantages; and they may hesitate, therefore, whether to class it anong wrong, permissible, or praiseworthy actions. But the moral character of particular actors depends upon their particular motives; and few doubt as to the moral character, in other words, as to the disinterestedness and good intentions of Brutus, or Charlotte Corday.

14. In all countries in which there is no regular administration of justice, it is deemed a duty to one's murdered relations to avenge their death by the death of the murderer. Where law is established, the relations of the murdered party are held bound to be content with legal punishment.

In defect of law, there is no doubt a certain utility resulting to society from private revenge; but this utility is something too distant, and requires for its discovery too great an effort of the reasoning faculties, to have been very distinctly perceived in many communities, in which private revenge is es

* Namely, Bellarmine, Suarez, Mariana, Buchanan, &c. See Ranke's "History of the Popes," Book VI. § I.

teemed a duty. That idea of duty has reference principally to the murdered party; and rests mainly upon superstitious opinions. It is imagined that the murdered man cannot sleep quietly in his grave, till his murder be avenged.* The same pains of malevolence, of inferiority, and, indeed, of all other kinds, are ascribed to him dead, which he was capable of experiencing while living; and the sentiment of benevolence prompts to the relief of those pains, or at least some of them, by inflicting pains upon the object of his conceived malevolence. Malevolence against the man who has deprived us of a friend, impels in the same direction; and under this double impulse, there arises, in all barbarous states of society, states of society, that is, in which laws have yet no established existence, a tendency towards revenge which laws when they come to be established, often find great difficulty in subduing.

15. In societies somewhat more advanced but still barbarous, and in which the laws, or their administration is so imperfect as to inflict no punishment at all, or no adequate punishment, upon a great variety of private injuries, it is esteemed permissible, and even in some cases a duty, for the injured individual to inflict punishment, and in some cases, even capital punishment, upon the offender. This idea of duty plainly originates in the perception of the utility of punishments to society at large. It i sesteemed both a man's right and his duty, to destroy a dangerous human creature who has assailed his person,

* This idea plays a great part in the tragedy of " Hamlet.”