of the Deity is only implied, when we cannot help dying by our own hands, or acting in difobedience to fome other great rule of our duty. An instance and illustration of this doctrine is clearly exhibited in the death of Socrates himself. He was commanded by the laws of his country "to drink poifon;" by doing which he became in fome measure his own executioner. He might have refused to do it voluntarily, and might have compelled his judges to have put him to death in fome way or other "without his own interference." But here he difcovers the permiffion of the Deity to adminifter to his own death rather than to give up his innocency, or to fhow himself disobedient to the laws of his country. But as the Socratic philosophy began to be crumbled into fects, these fuppofed commands or intimations of the Deity concerning felf-destruction became of more extenfive interpretation. Aristotle indeed writes pointedly against felf-murder, as deferving the highest censure and ignominy: but he confiders it folely as an offence against the state, not as either impugning the authority of God, or as being injurious to the interests of felf. Plato much enlarges the leave; and Zeno extends it to a great length. Suicide was a favourite doctrine of the Stoics, though not without a difference of interpretation among themselves. Still however among them there was always to be a permiffion or order from the Deity before they could innocently destroy themselves. Their own murder was not to be perpetrated on every flight pretence, or fled to as a juftifiable conclufion of an ill-spent life. There was to be a previous dignity of character in the felf-murderer, as well as a fitness in the moment of execution, which alone could justify an end, which the Stoics ever regarded under fuch circumstances, as peculiarly honourable. The followers of Socrates feem to have been of opinion, that they were ftrictly to adhere themselves to the paths of virtue and focial utility, and to preferve their lives, as long as ever they could with innocence, in order to prolong their opportunities of doing good; and that they were patiently to submit to every kind of perfecution and even to the imposition of death itself on themselves (as an external circumstance they could not avoid) rather than defert their juft opinions and honourable practices. The followers of Zeno alfo allowed, that they were to purfue every thing that was great, difinterested and noble; but if ftopped in their career of utility to their fellowcitizens by any externals they could not avoid, they were to give over the pursuit and voluntarily to retire from life. Thus the Socratic adhered with

modesty

modesty and firmness to whatever was good; and if oppofed and perfecuted ftill perfifted in his courfe, hoping for better times and patiently enduring for the truth's fake. While the Stoic on the contrary, if not able to maintain his ufual dignity in the purfuit of virtue, was indignant at oppofition, and by facrificing his life, not only fled from his own existence here, but from all future protection of the caufe of virtue in his own perfon. Had the generality of mankind been philofophers [u] like themselves, the behaviour of the Stoics in this point would have been more justifiable; or rather in fuch a cafe they would have met with few occafions of roufing their indignation against life. But in the mixed state of mankind, where folly triumphs fo much and fo often over wisdom, the perfeverance of the Socratics, even beyond the ftoical point of dying, was much more for the benefit and advantage of fociety.

As the Epicureans difcarded their Deities from every concern or attention to human affairs, they could pretend to no leave from above about the matter. With them a man was to live as long as he could in tranquillity and indolence; and when that condition of life failed him without hope of recovery, he was to depart hence and to fink into annihilation, as foon as he pleased. The followers of Carneades reafoned for or against fuicide, as it beft fuited the argument they were upon; and practised it or otherwife on the principles of that fect, to which they rather inclined. Thus Stoical-Academics (if such an expreffion be warrantable) would plead a difiniffion, whenever their dignity was affronted or their glory diminished; whilft Epicurean-Academics would care nothing about fuch matters, as long as their perfonal indolence and tranquillity was not fuperfeded." One philofopher [x] there was of extraordinary fcepticism, who maintaining, "that to live or die was the fame thing," was asked, wherefore then do you "not kill yourself?" Precifely (anfwered he) for this very reafon, because. there is no difference between life and death.”

Though upon the whole then the opinions of the ancient philofophers (a few excepted, but thofe evidently of the better fort) must be adjudged to be favourable to suicide in many cafes, yet let not the modern felf-murderer offer to hold

[u] The great error of Stoicifm was the being fo much wrapped up in the dignity of self. [x] This was Pyrrho of Elis in Peloponnefus;—the author of Pyrrhonism and Atheifin.

up his head on the notion of his being acquitted by fuch refpectable authority. For in the first place its most strenuous advocates the Stoics allowed not its perpetration, as a refuge from crimes and vices; and therefore they would have excluded the bulk of modern felf-murderers from all connexion with their fect: so that at best the present race of suicides could only have ranked with the grofs herd of Epicurus. Again; it must ever be remembered, that the ancients were furrounded with difficulties and uncertainties relative to a future ftate; and that therefore their reafonings on thefe points were proportionably vague, contradictory [y] and erroneous. They reasoned however as well as the dim glimmerings of natural light enabled them to do; and would the moderns but make as good ufe of their fuperior advantages, they could not but draw more firm and stable conclufions than many of the fages of antiquity did, concerning the nature of God, of the foul, and of futurity; and confequently of the basis of focial union, moral obligation and religious duty :-all which evidently tend not only to discountenance, but to reprobate the practice of felf-murder.

[Y] Multi ex iis philofophis, quia æternas effe animas fufpicabantur, tanquam in cœlum migraturi effent fibi ipfis manus contulerunt: ut Cleanthes, ut Chryfippus, ut Zeno, ut Empedocles. Homicidæ igitur illi omnes philofophi, & ipfe Romanæ fapientiæ Cato, qui antiquam fe occideret, perlegiffe Platonis librum dicitur, qui eft fcriptus de æternitate animarum ; & ad fummum nefas philofophi autoritate compulfus eft; & hic tamen aliquam moriendi causam videtur habuiffe-odium fervitutis. Quid Ambraciotes ille Cleombrotus, cum eundem librum perlegiffet, præcipitem fe dedit nullam aliam ob caufam, nifi quod Platoni crediderit? Execrabilis prorfus ac fugienda doctrina, fi abigit homines e vitâ. Quod fi fciffet Plato atque docuiffet, a quo & quomodo, & quibus, & quæ ob facta & quo tempore immortalitas tribuatur, nec Cleombrotum impegiffet in mortem voluntariam nec Catonem; fed eos ad vitam & juftitiam potiùs erudiffet.-LACTANTIUS Div. Inft. L. III. fect. 18. De falfà Sapientiâ.

Lactantius in this paffage infers, that even the philofophy, which formerly led to think the foul immortal, was a pernicious fort of wisdom, because it frequently led its abettors to commit the foul crime of fuicide, in order to enjoy immortality fo much the fooner.

CHAP.

.

Theban law against suicide.—Athenian law.—The bodies of unjustifiable suicides in Greece were buried in some pit, not burned with the usual folemnities.—The refusal of the ufual funeral rites to the body of a fuicide, a great mark of abhorrence of the practice; as is also the company with which the fuicide is joined in this prohibition.-Cean cuftom of asking leave of the magiftrate to deftroy onefelf-Maffilian the fame The idea herein, that man's life belongs not to himself, but to the flate.— Declamations of Quintilian and Libanius grounded on the idea of asking leave of the fenate.-Demonassa of Cyprus, her law against fuicide, as given by Dion Chryfoftom in his fixty-fourth oration.-Punishment of fuicide at Miletus in Iqnia.

A

N attention has hitherto been paid only to the " opinions" of fome fages of antiquity concerning fuicide; but it will be neceffary to make a further inquiry into what laws or customs were actually established in ancient states on this head. By the laws of Thebes fuicides were to have no honours paid to their [z] memory; but they were to be branded with infamy and their bodies to be deprived of the accustomed funeral folemnities. The Athenian law on this head is pointed; "Let the hand which committed the fuicide [A] be cut "off and buried apart from the rest of the body:"-as having been fuch an enemy and traitor to it. But the only burial allowed to the fuicide was ignominious and difgraceful, being neither to be performed with the usual folemnities nor in the accustomed places. The bodies of unjuftifiable fuicides were not burned to ashes according to the Grecian custom, but were privately buried under ground; it being deemed a pollution of the holy element of fire to con

[z] Hinc factum eft, ut lege Thebanorum, Autoxerpes notarentur infamiâ refert ex Ariftotele Zenobius, Cent. VI. Prov. 17. φασι δε, ότι εν Θήβαις δι έαυτως αναιρεντες εδεμιας τιμης μετείχαν, και Αρισοτέλης δε φησε περὶ Θεβαίων το αυτό τέτο, ότι της αυτοχειρας ἑαυτῶν γενομένας εκ ετίμων.. PETITI Commentarius in Leges Atticas, p. 523.

[Α] Εαν τις αυτου διαχρήσεται την χειρα τετο πράξασαν αποκόπτειν και χωρίς τω σώματος θάπτειν. Commentarius in Leges Atticas.

-PETITI

Hh 2

fume

fume those carcaffes in it, which had thus bafely deserted the interests [B] and service of themselves and their country. When it is recollected, what a pious and earnest zeal was fhown by the Greeks in refpect of funeral [c] rites ;—that it was esteemed by them worse than death, not to have their afhes buried in the tombs of their ancestors, and that the confequence of a failure in the usual modes of interment were fo much to be dreaded,-it appears, that the guilt of fuicide must be very grievous in their fight, who could affign it so severe a punishment. Indeed fome further judgment may be formed concerning the idea entertained of the heinoufnefs of this crime, by the company with which the self-murderer is joined in the refufal of the accustomed funeral folemnities; viz. "with the public or private enemy, with the traitor and confpirator against "his country, with the tyrant, the facrilegious wretch, and fuch grievous "offenders, whofe punishment was impalement alive on a crofs." (See Potter's Antiq.) Thefe laws however, it may be fuppofed, were either grown obfolete or not rigidly executed in later times, as there were fo many excepted cafes, even by Plato himself, in which fuicide was deemed no crime and in consequence liable to no punishment. Indeed the principal cafe on which its guilt was establifhed (a cowardly faint-heartedness) was very hard to be proved after a man's decease, or to be feparated from a fear of that shame and ignominy, which was one allowed caufe of its commiflion..

However it is plain, that the Ariftotelian idea of fuicide, as being an offence against the ftate, prevailed among the inhabitants of the island of Ceos. For there was a law in that ifland, that every one should ask leave of the magiftrates, and at the fame time give in his reafons for wishing to destroy himself; which

[Β] Έθαψαν δι αυτόν (fcil. Ajacem) καταθέμενον ες την γην το σώμα, εξηγέμενο Καλχαντος, ὡς ἐκ όσων πυρὶ θαπτεσθαι. di laury, AboXTENAYTES. Sepeliverunt autem Ajacem humi corpus deponentes, Calchante interpretante impium effe, ut ii igne fepeliantur, qui fibi manum confcivere.--PHILOSTRATI Heroica, p. 695.

[c] The greateft imprecation among the Greeks was, "May you die and be deftitute of burial!" which was in confequence of an opinion, that unburied ghofts were never admitted into Elyfium.-. See POTTER'S Greek Antiq. B. IV. c. i..

εκ ην αρα τοις κακοις εδε το αποθανειν κέρδος,

Alian fays (Var. Hift. L. IV. c. vii.) επει μηδέ τοτε αναπαύονται,. αλλ' η παντελώς αμοιρεσι ταφής, η και εαν φθάσωσι ταφέντες, όμως και εκ της τελευταίας τιμης και το κοινο πανίων σωμάτων όρμα και εκείθεν εκπίπτεσι, Hoc eft. Ne in morte quidem fcelerofis hominibus aliquid lucri propofitum. eft, quoniam neque tunc poffunt quiefcere. Sed aut prorfus deftituuntur fepulturâ, aut quamvis fepelian-. tur, tamen fupremum honorem & communem omnium corporum portum amittunt.