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CHA P.. IV.

Encomiums on the Stoical Philofophy; yet inferior to the Socratic.-Suicide a fa-· vourite doctrine of the Stoics.-Zeno and Cleanthes both killed themselves.—The Stoical wife man; fuicide to be his deliverance from all embarrassment.—Contradiction of this practice with their notion of externals.—To be accomplished at fome moment that would exalt the perfonal dignity of character.-Much written in favour of fuicide by the Stoics; but they deal more in affertion than argument.-In the act of self-murder they never looked beyond themselves.-Some of the most admired names of antiquity professed the ftoical philofophy; fuch as Cato, Seneca, Epictetus, Antoninus.-Stoical doctrine of fuicide as advanced by Cato, and exemplified in his practice.—Strictures on Cato's death; his exalted character; confiftency of his death with his previous life.—Comparison between Cato and Socrates in the circumftances of their deaths.—Seneca the most copious writer of antiquity in favour of fuicide. He makes a Stoic's indifference to living or dying the ground-work of fuicide: makes not a proper distinction between an unreasonable fear of death and an utter contempt of life: lays much stress on the " facility" with which we may accomplish our deaths, as an argument of permission to do it.-Seneca's opinion of fuicide in old age and under infirmities.—Inftances of Seneca's yielding practically to domeftic arguments against fuicide.—Reflections on the fame.—Some general arguments of Seneca in favour of the practice.—Answers.-Reasons of thus entering at large on the trifling arguments of Seneca.-Seneca a great imitator of Socrates in the circumftances of his accelerated death.-Epictetus.-His allowance of fuicide much more contracted than that of Seneca: his maxim feems to be, "either be contented or depart; but do not live in a state of murmuring."-Paffages felected from his writings, and obfervations upon them.-Some excellent lessons of refignation, &c. very repugnant to the Spirit of fuicide in general; but especially for the fake of mere perfonal dignity.-Epictetus, though by profeffion a Stoic, was a fearcher after truth in every fect of philofophy.-He approved of fuicide in very few cafes, being of opinion that we ought to wait the order of the Deity for our departure; which

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order it was not easy to discover.-Comparison of Seneca and Epictetus.-The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; the laft of the Stoics: his exalted character: Speaks very sparingly in favour of fuicide, and with no hearty concurrence.— Paffages produced and reflections upon them.—Antoninus's (as well as Epictetus's) real fentiments feem to require a submission to the heaviest afflictions without recourse to fuicide.-Summary of the Stoical doctrine of fuicide, as collected from the fentiments of the above great men ; who all however differed with regard to their fignals of difmifion, fome making them easy to be difcerned and others scarce at all.—Modern fuicides can build nothing on Stoical errors till they first imitate Stoical virtues.

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HE rational and practical philofophy of Socrates, which taught a submiffion to the will of the fupreme Deity, a belief in Providence and in the immortality of the foul; and which confequently always confidered a voluntary suicide as an infringement of the divine authority;-this excellent system of speculation and morals was gradually crumbled into a variety of discordant fects, among whom the Stoics or followers of Zeno held a distinguished rank. It is not our business here to enlarge on the general maxims of this famous fect, of which the celebrated author of the " Spirit of Laws" thus writes: "If I could ceafe but for a moment to think that I am a Chriftian, I could not help "reckoning the deftruction of the fect of Zeno, among the misfortunes, which "have befallen mankind. They carried nothing to excess, but what served to " ́elevate the mind of man, by teaching him to defpife both pain and pleasure. "The Stoics alone knew how to form good citizens or great men." (B. XXIV.) But this illuftrious writer feems to have fuffered his ufual judgment to have been abforbed in the vortex of ftoical enthufiafm. That the Stoics" alone" knew how to form good citizens feems to be forgetting, that a Socrates ever lived and taught. Let us hear our own excellent and learned countrywoman [G] on this point. "Stoicifm is indeed in many points inferior to the doctrine of "Socrates; which latter did "not" teach, that all externals were indifferent; "which"did" teach a future ftate of recompence, and agreeably to that "forbad" fuicide [H]."

[G] See the Introduction to Mrs. Carter's Epictetus.

[H] Seneca fays (Ep. civ.) Alter (Socrates) te docebit mori, fi neceffe erit, alter (Zeno) antequàm neceffe erit.

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The tenets [1] of the Stoics, when rigorously interpreted, contained a wonderful mixture of wisdom and abfurdity, of found fenfe and contradiction of principles. The practice of fuicide (it is well known) was a favourite one and held in high esteem among them; to increase the reputation of which Zeno himself and his immediate fucceffor Cleanthes contributed not a little by their own voluntary deaths [K]. But this approbation of felf-murder by the Stoics, was a confequence of the worst part of their philofophy, as it arose from their encouragement of perfonal pride and apathy. It manifeftly contradicted one of their chief doctrines or principles, that of living "agreeably to nature;" whofe first injunction or infinuation is (as the Stoics themselves [L] allow) "the preferving oneself." But they allotted to their "wife man" a character to support through life, which was utterly incompatible with the common infirmities and frailties of human nature. He was never to err in judgment, and therefore never to change his opinion. He was to confider pain as no evil, all externals, (as being without the mind) as matters of perfect indifference, and crimes as all equal; being the least of them deviations from right reafon or the perfection of the foul. Whenever therefore a Stoic met with any fore preffure of mind or body, which, notwithstanding all his boafted firmness and constancy, “would”. force itself into notice; whenever he could no longer fupport [M] the fame rank

[1] Rational Stoicifm is thus briefly and comprehenfively described by Tacitus (Hift. IV.) speaking of Helvidius Prifcus. "Doctores fapientiæ fecutus eft, qui fola bona, quæ honefta, mala tantum, quæ turpia: potentiam, nobilitatem, cæteraque extra animum neque bonis neque malis adnumerant." Such notions as these are worthy of all praise.

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[K] The cause of Zeno's fuicide is recorded to have been as follows. As he was going out of his school one day at the age of ninety-eight, he fell down, put a finger out of joint, went home and hanged himself. Cleanthes alfo, the fucceffor of Zeno in the Stoical school, followed the example of his master in philosophy, by shortening the period of his life in the following manner. After having used abstinence for two days on the advice of his phyfician, to get the better of an indifpofition; though the disorder was hereby removed, and leave given him to resume his former diet, he refused all fuftenance, faying," that as he was now got fo far on his journey towards death, he would not retreat ;" and he accordingly ftarved himself entirely. (See DIOG. LAERTIUS.)

[L] Zeno in his Book "Of the Nature of Man" firft faid, " that the end of man was to live "agree"ably to nature." Again; Zeno and Cleanthes fay, "that this is the first appetite or inftinct of "nature in every animal-" to preferve itself;" nature from the beginning reconciling us to ourselves."-See DIOG. LAERT. in Life of Zeno.

[M] Ubi non fis qui fueris, non eft cur velis vivere, (fays Cicero, Ep. ad Fam. VII. 3.) on Stoical grounds,

"Dignitas fine vitâ quàm vita fine dignitate," was the true maxim of the Stoics.

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and confequence in life, which he had hitherto maintained; afhamed to be overcome, or to acknowledge a weakness, he preached up fuicide, as a refuge, or honourable deliverance from all embarraffment. "A wife man (fays Diog. Laertius in his life of Zeno, where he is delivering Stoical doctrines) will quit "life, when oppreffedwith very fevere pain, or when deprived of any of his fenfes, " or when labouring under defperate diseases.”—But the abfurdity is glaring, that those very philofophers, who maintained that pain and the fufferings of the body were no evils, fhould yet allow it to be both innocent and commendable, to fly from those sufferings by a deprivation of life itself. They pretended indeed, "that pain was a signal from God to abandon life." But if it were a matter of indifference or no evil, how could it be deemed a fignal for quitting life ?—or if allowed by them to be an evil when in the extremity fufficient to countenance and render fuicide lawful - how will they avoid yielding their affent to a proportionable share of evil in its smaller degrees? Their principles therefore and their practice were in this inftance totally contradictory. [N]

But having once established this principle of felf-murder, as an useful expedient in certain fituations, the Stoics refined on its practice in a manner peculiar to themselves. They determined life or death to be mere Externals, and in confequence, to be matters of perfect indifference to their wife man, when stripped of concomitant circumstances. From whence they concluded, that it was not only lawful, but many times a duty incumbent on him, not to wait for death. like common men, but to anticipate its natural approach, by feizing fome favourable or seasonable moment of a voluntary departure, which might reflect fresh luftre on the dignity of the ftoical character. When fuch a period feemed to be arrived, it was regarded, not only as a leave, but an order from the Deity, to retire; and no confiderations whatever from without, not even his own prof

[N]" It is remarkable, that no fect of philosophers ever fo dogmatically prescribed or fo frequently committed fuicide, as thofe very Stoics, who taught, that the pains and fufferings, which they strove to end by this act of rebellion against the decrees of Providence, were no evils. How abfolutely this horrid practice contradicted all their noble precepts of refignation and fubmiffion to the divine will, is too evident to need any enlargement. They profeffed indeed in fuicide to follow the divine will, but this was a lamentably weak pretence. Even fuppofing fufferings to be evils, they are no proof of a fignal from God to abandon life, but to show an exemplary patience which he will reward: but fuppofing them, as the Stoics did, not to be evils, they afford not fo much as the fhadow of a proof." See Mrs. CARTER'S Introduction to Epictetus, where is more to the fame purpose.

perity and happiness at the moment, were to obftru&t the deadly blow. Thus as his own perfonal dignity influenced all the actions of a Stoic through life, so did it equally prevail over his last moments to the accomplishment of his own death. "It is not without reafon afferted (fays Diog. Laertius in his life of Zeno), that "the ftoical wife man is ever ready to die for his country or his friends :". but in fo doing he is fure to exalt his own dignity of character. More has been written in favour of fuicide by the Stoics than by any other fect of ancient philofophers, and yet there is little or no argument to be found among them. Their general affertion is, "that a wife man will never look upon death as an evil;- that he “will despise it and be ready to undergo it at any time." But this is no defence or apology for fuicide. It is only confounding matters of a very different nature, which the more judicious Socrates well defined and diftinguifhed from each other, when he remarked, "that though a philofopher might often wish to die, yet "there were substantial reasons, why he fhould not haften his own end." Again; when a Stoic was attacked upon his affertion, "that his wife man was always happy;" the usual reply was, "if any one think himself otherwife, the door is open, he may depart when he pleases; but if he chooses to stay, he can have no right to complain." Thus did they cut through this Gordian knot, which it would have given other philofophers an infinite deal of pains to have untied. If wife, children or focial connexions of any kind were hinted at as just obstacles to fuicide, the ftoical reply was, "all these things are externals, about which "no wife man ought to concern himself:"-in the act of fuicide therefore they confidered "Themfelves" alone.

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But as fome of the most admired characters of antiquity were profeffors and patrons of this celebrated fect — characters diftinguished in their generation, not more for their wisdom and learning than for the strictness of their morals, what they have advanced in their writings in favour of suicide must not be passed over without notice. The opinions of a Cato, a Seneca, an Epictetus, an Antoninus, must be treated with refpect, though difcuffed with freedom. In the third and fourth books of Tully, "On the ends of good and evil," that philofopher holds a conference with Cato, in which the latter unfolds at large the principal doctrines of Zeno and the Stoics. What especially appertains to our subject is to the following purport, though the paffage in fome parts is veiled in obfcurity and ftoical paradox. That there are fome offices or duties, which as they concern

"Externals

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