utmoft, laying them under no further reftraint than is neceffary to my own "convenience; and whenever fources of pleasure fail, or my reputation, my health, my life are endangered, I will fly from the feelings of bodily pain, "and fpurn the threatenings of human laws:-I will inftantly leave that world "I can no longer enjoy." Thus the whole circle of immorality and vice, of public injustice and private injury, may be purfued with a temporary fuccefs under the delufion of fo falfe and dangerous a principle. Befides, what trust or confidence can be placed in any man with regard to the ties and duties of his focial intercourfe, who pays fo little attention to himfelf and to his own life, as to be ready at any time to become his [P] own executioner? How is another man's life fafe in the hands of one who defpifes his own? However, there is not equal danger of the general prevalence of its principle, as there is experience of its frequent practice. For though fome may publicly avow and feek to defend it in principle, yet there is ftill a general abhorrence of the crime when committed, notwithstanding its fo frequent perpetration. It may find a few advocates in theory amid those who term themfelves cool and impartial reafoners, but still fewer will be led to its actual perpetration through a truft and confidence in the juftnefs of fuch a theory; except where it meets with the demon of dejection and melancholy, whofe fuggeftions will be ftrengthened by a mode of reafoning fo confonant to its own fickly feelings. The bulk of fuicides owe their felf-deftruction firft and laft to the rage and fury of ungoverned paffions (not to any dedu&ions of pretended argument on the fubject);—to thofe paffions which lead them captive at will, and fuffer them to act on "no principle" at all. However, it cannot be amifs cautioufly to guard the mind against the poffible admiffion of fuch a deftructive notion, as the lawfulness and innocence of fuicide;-a notion, which, it must be confeffed, feems gaining ground and spreading its baneful influence under the dark and poisonous fhades of fcepticism and infidelity. What enemies, therefore, to mankind in general, and to their fellow-citizens in particular, muft thofe alluring and fpecious fophifts be deemed, who in a Christian country seek to justify this deed of horror!

[P] "Qui fibi nequam-cui bonus ?" fays Auguftine.--Ep. ad Dulcitium.

"Quifquis vitam fuam contempfit (fays Seneca, Ep. iv.) tuæ dominus eft."-" Whoever defpifes "his own life, is mafter of your's:"-than which he could not have advanced a ftronger argument in difcredit of the Principle of Suicide on focial accounts, though fuch was not his intention.

But as its principle tends to fubvert the good order of fociety, fo its general practice would put an end to its very being. For if the wealth and prosperity of a nation depend (as they are generally thought to do) on its degree of population, what fpecies of offence, if much yielded to, would more effectually revolt against this fource of its riches, or make greater havock among the lives of its citizens? But every individual who commits fuicide, does all in his fingle power to promote the deftructive practice; confequently he is a traitor, not only to the general interefts and welfare, but even to the very existence, of the community; fince with what propriety can he deny that liberty of felf-murder to all others, which he affumes to himfelf?-He is equally guilty, therefore, as if every one followed his example. Yet allowing the existence of the community to be fufficiently guarded, as it certainly is, by the influence of felf-prefervation on the minds of the multitude, the general interefts of fociety are materially injured, and its fundamental maxims grofly infulted, by the practice of suicide. Obvious and well-known as are the first principles of fociety, and repeatedly as they have been mentioned by every writer, yet it is neceffary (which alone can apologize for their introduction) to have recourfe to them here, in order to show the glaring behaviour of the felf-murderer, who flies in the face of fuch plain and fimple maxims.

Such, then, (as is well known) is the conftitution of civil government, that every one, who wishes to be a partaker of its benefits, must be content to give up a certain portion of his own natural independence. Thus he no longer lives for himself alone, but to fill up a certain ftation in that community to which he belongs; which having thus a mixt property in his life together with himself, he is no more at liberty voluntarily to defert its fervice by putting an end to his life, than "a foldier on guard is to quit his poft [Q] without leave.” But here an objection is ftarted by fome:-" I am at liberty to leave my own. country whenever I please, and to refide altogether in another kingdom.. "What difference, then, is there in respect to my country's interefts, whether "I retire from my station in this manner, or by fuicide? or why am I more "cenfurable for doing it in one fhape than in the other? Am I not equally loft or "dead to my country, and all the fervices I owe it, either way?" But this liberty

[Q] This allufion has been constantly used by all writers on this subject from the days of Pythagoras. to our own, and deferves ever to be mentioned as an apt illustration.

of

of migration at pleasure is not fo abfolutely in every citizen's choice, or its innocence in all cafes fo clearly and generally [R] eftablished, as may at first fight be imagined; confequently it may many times prove an unwarrantable defertion of the poft, as well as fuicide. Particular bodies of men have a power of restraining their members from quitting their fociety without previous permiflion; and the laws of the land iffue their inhibitions against migration, on many occafions, both to individuals and bodies of men; and if a few indifferent perfons do fo far feclude themselves from the protection of their own country and its laws, by a conftant refidence in another kingdon, as to be entirely loft or dead to their own, their liberty of fo doing is not fo clear, as it is that the ftate thinks it a matter of no confequence to claim their future fervices. will be faid," the state claims them not, becaufe it has no power over fuch." True; it has no means, perhaps, of bringing them back to punishment in cafe of refufal; but defying punishment, or flying out of its reach, is no proof of innocence, or not deferving it.

It

Another obvious principle of all government is that of transferring the power of punishment out of the hands of individuals into thofe of public magiftrates; by which means the individual refigns all right of felf-defence against others, (except in cafes of extreme neceffity) and of felf-punishment in any shape that may affect the interefts of fociety. But the first attention of every good government is towards preferving the lives of all, who live under the protection of its laws. It frequently happens, indeed, that in confequence of this general protection individuals must be put to death for the good of the whole. But as no individual has a right to affume this power of life and death over another on his own private motion, (which would be downright murder) fo he has as little authority to exercife it over himfelf, it being with refpect to the ftate equally murder. For whether it be this or that private citizen who has fuffered a violent death, and whether by his own or another's hand, is immaterial to the interests of the community at large: there is a violation of law, an infringement on the rights of public punishment, and the lofs of a fubject and his fervices to the ftate, whenever any citizen fuffers a violent death otherwife than by the voice of public justice.

[R] See more of Migration in Part VI. c. ii. Hume, and c. iii. Beccaria.

Here the veil must be drawn afide from thofe cafes, which otherwise might appear to admit of fome palliation. For it is evident from the firft principles of government, that though this unfocial act be perpetrated under the most favourable interpretation, and in confequence of no direct tranfgreffion of any human law, but in weakness of judgment, in forlornnefs of hope, and in a perfonal matter only, yet he who commits fuicide even under fuch circumstances, is no better than a betrayer of the first maxims of civil union, a traitor to the cause of society in general, and a deferter of that particular station in it, which he was bound to occupy for the good of the whole: how then can he be innocent, especially as the nature of the action itself excludes all poffibility of future fatisfaction to the injured rights of the community? But when the felfaffaffin has morcover violated many a good and wholesome regulation of fociety; when he has corrupted the moral ftate of the community, as far as he was able, by the degeneracy of his manners; when he has fquandered his own patrimony in riotous living, and revelled on the ruin of honest industry; when he has heaped injuries and troubles on the heads of his innocent neighbour, of his private connexions, and family; when he has been oppreffive, fraudulent, and vicious in his whole life and converfation, and now begins to tremble at the sword of justice hanging over his head; when under thefe circumstances, in a paroxyfm of guilty fear and defpondency, he puts an end to his life, he accumulates the offence of his felf-murder by flying from the ftroke of public justice, because he thus refuses to make the only atonement in his power to the injured rights of fociety. The vicious fuicide, then, not only renders no actual fervice of a good citizen to his country by his mode of life, but fills it with the contagious impreffion of his evil example; not only fpurns its wholesome regulations while living, but defies its cenfure and mocks its authority by the manner and in the moment of his death. The general principles of focial union being thus grofly violated and infulted by every felf-murderer, the community is juftified in inflicting all the fubfequent cenfure and reprobation in its. power, to repair the injuries which its rights have fuftained, in order to deter others from imitating the dreadful practice.

But an objection occurs again :—" You fay I must not punish myself with "death, because I have given up that right to the laws and the magistrate. "But I could not give up to another a power I never poffeffed in myself: either, therefore,

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"therefore, the magiftrate has no power to punish with death, or every indi"vidual poffeffed originally a right over his own life." It would be entering on a wide field to determine all the powers of government, or to distinguish precifely the modes of their acquifition; but thus much it may fuffice to obferve in answer to the prefent objection. When an individual fuffers any attack fo fudden as to prevent his application for legal protection, fo violent as to put his life or valuable property in danger, he must have immediate recourfe to his own natural strength and powers for affiftance; and if in defending himself, he neceffarily puts his affailant to death, the action is innocent and justifiable in the eye of law. Now it is this natural defence of himself, which the individual transfers to the magistrate, at fuch times as it is "not neceffary” for himfelf to use it; that is, when the attack made on his life and property is of a nature capable of his feizing the offender, and bringing him to public juftice. It is not, therefore, any power over his own life, that the individual transfers. into the hand of the magiftrate, but that power over another man's life forfeited into his hands by fome violent proceeding of the delinquent. The right of every man to defend himfelf against the violence of another cannot be denied; the power of alienating this right to the collective body of citizens, acting through their laws and magiftracy, muft be approved, as tending to the more equal and difinterested diftribution of juftice: all which may establish the right of the magiftrate to inflict capital punishment, but has nothing to do with the cafe of suicide, or with establishing the original power of a man over his own life. But as we claim the protection of fociety for ourselves, fo having in return agreed to affign over every delinquent to the decifion and fentence of law, we cannot refume that delegated power at pleasure in order to punish others, or even ourselves, but must be governed in all things by the awards of those laws under whofe protection we live. This, therefore, leaves no room, as fome have imagined, for relieving ourselves by previous felf-murder from any fentence of infamy which our conduct may have deferved. If it be faid further, "that the only aim of the ftate is to get rid of a pernicious citizen, "and that, therefore, it may as well be done on the eve. of, or after, condemnation, by our own hands, as by thofe of another perfon;" it may be anfwered, that the example of fuffering is alfo one great part of the defign of punishment; and in proportion as we fly from the exemplarinefs of a patient fubmiffion, we fly from the execution of fuch juftice as is due to our crimes,

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