It is a remarkable proof of the inaccuracy with which most men read--that
Donne's _Biathanatos_ has been supposed to countenance Suicide; and
those who reverence his name have thought themselves obliged to apologize
for it by urging, that it was written before he entered the church. But
Donne's purpose in this treatise was a pious one: many authors had charged
the martyrs of the Christian church with Suicide--on the principle that if
I put myself in the way of a mad bull, knowing that he will kill me--I am
as much chargeable with an act of self-destruction as if I fling myself
into a river. Several casuists had extended this principle even to the
case of Jesus Christ: one instance of which, in a modern author, the
reader may see noticed and condemned by Kant, in his _Religion innerhalb
die gronzen der blossen Vernunft_; and another of much earlier date (as
far back as the 13th century, I think), in a commoner book--Voltaire's
notes on the little treatise of Beccaria, _Dei delitti e delle pene_.
These statements tended to one of two results: either they unsanctified
the characters of those who founded and nursed the Christian church; or
they sanctified suicide. By way of meeting them, Donne wrote his book: and
as the whole argument of his opponents turned upon a false definition of
suicide (not explicitly stated, but assumed), he endeavored to
reconstitute the notion of what is essential to create an act of suicide.
Simply to kill a man is not murder: _prima facie_, therefore, there
is some sort of presumption that simply for a man to kill himself--may not
always be so: there is such a thing as simple homicide distinct from
murder: there may, therefore, possibly be such a thing as self-homicide
distinct from self-murder. There _may_ be a ground for such a distinction,
_ex analogia_. But, secondly, on examination, _is_ there any ground for
such a distinction? Donne affirms that there is; and, reviewing several
eminent cases of spontaneous martyrdom, he endeavors to show that acts so
motived and so circumstantiated will not come within the notion of suicide
properly defined. Meantime, may not this tend to the encouragement of
suicide in general, and without discrimination of its species? No: Donne's
arguments have no prospective reference or application; they are purely
retrospective. The circumstances necessary to create an act of mere self-
homicide can rarely concur, except in a state of disordered society, and
during the _cardinal_ revolutions of human history: where, however, they
_do_ concur, there it will not be suicide. In fact, this is the natural
and practical judgment of us all. We do not all agree on the particular
cases which will justify self-destruction: but we all feel and
involuntarily acknowledge (_implicitly_ acknowledge in our admiration,
though not explicitly in our words or in our principles), that there _are_
such cases. There is no man, who in his heart would not reverence a woman
that chose to die rather than to be dishonored: and, if we do not say,
that it is her duty to do so, _that_ is because the moralist must
condescend to the weakness and infirmities of human nature: mean and
ignoble natures must not be taxed up to the level of noble ones. Again,
with regard to the other sex, corporal punishment is its peculiar and
_sexual_ degradation; and if ever the distinction of Donne can be applied
safely to any case, it will be to the case of him who chooses to die
rather than to submit to that ignominy. _At present_, however, there is
but a dim and very confined sense, even amongst enlightened men (as we may
see by the debates of Parliament), of the injury which is done to human
nature by giving legal sanction to such brutalizing acts; and therefore
most men, in seeking to escape it, would be merely shrinking from a
_personal_ dishonor. Corporal punishment is usually argued with a single
reference to the case of him who suffers it; and _so_ argued, God knows
that it is worthy of all abhorrence: but the weightiest argument against
it--is the foul indignity which is offered to our common nature lodged in
the person of him on whom it is inflicted. _His_ nature is _our_ nature:
and, supposing it possible that _he_ were so far degraded as to be
unsusceptible of any influences but those which address him through the
brutal part of his nature, yet for the sake of ourselves--No! not merely
for ourselves, or for the human race now existing, but for the sake of
human nature, which trancends all existing participators of that nature--
we should remember that the evil of corporal punishment is not to be
measured by the poor transitory criminal, whose memory and offence are
soon to perish: these, in the sum of things, are as nothing: the injury
which can be done him, and the injury which he can do, have so momentary
an existence that they may be safely neglected: but the abiding injury is
to the most august interest which for the mind of man can have any
existence,--viz. to his own nature: to raise and dignify which, I am
persuaded, is the first--last--and holiest command [1] which the
conscience imposes on the philosophic moralist. In countries, where the
traveller has the pain of seeing human creatures performing the labors of
brutes, [2]--surely the sorrow which the spectacle moves, if a wise
sorrow, will not be chiefly directed to the poor degraded individual--too
deeply degraded, probably, to be sensible of his own degradation, but to
the reflection that man's nature is thus exhibited in a state of miserable
abasement; and, what is worst of all, abasement proceeding from man
himself. Now, whenever this view of corporal punishment becomes general
(as inevitably it will, under the influence of advancing civilization), I
say, that Donne's principle will then become applicable to this case, and
it will be the duty of a man to die rather than to suffer his own nature
to be dishonored in that way. But so long as a man is not fully sensible
of the dishonor, to him the dishonor, except as a personal one, does not
wholly exist. In general, whenever a paramount interest of human nature is
at stake, a suicide which maintains that interest is self-homicide: but,
for a personal interest, it becomes self-murder. And into this principle
Donne's may be resolved.
* * * * *
A doubt has been raised--whether brute animals ever commit suicide: to me
it is obvious that they do not, and cannot. Some years ago, however, there
was a case reported in all the newspapers of an old ram who committed
suicide (as it was alleged) in the presence of many witnesses. Not having
any pistols or razors, he ran for a short distance, in order to aid the
impetus of his descent, and leaped over a precipice, at the foot of which
he was dashed to pieces. His motive to the 'rash act,' as the papers
called it, was supposed to be mere taedium vitae. But, for my part, I
doubted the accuracy of the report. Not long after a case occurred in
Westmoreland which strengthened my doubts. A fine young blood horse, who
could have no possible reason for making away with himself, unless it were
the high price of oats at that time, was found one morning dead in his
field. The case was certainly a suspicious one: for he was lying by the
side of a stone-wall, the upper part of which wall his skull had
fractured, and which had returned the compliment by fracturing his skull.
It was argued, therefore, that in default of ponds, &c. he had
deliberately hammered with his head against the wall; this, at first,
seemed the only solution; and he was generally pronounced _felo de
se_. However, a day or two brought the truth to light. The field lay
upon the side of a hill: and, from a mountain which rose above it, a
shepherd had witnessed the whole catastrophe, and gave evidence which
vindicated the character of the horse. The day had been very windy; and
the young creature being in high spirits, and, caring evidently as little
for the corn question as for the bullion question, had raced about in all
directions; and at length, descending too steep a part of the field, had
been unable to check himself, and was projected by the impetus of his own
descent like a battering ram against the wall.
Of human suicides, the most affecting I have ever seen recorded is one
which I met with in a German book: the most calm and deliberate is the
following, which is _said_ to have occurred at Keswick, in Cumberland: but
I must acknowledge, that I never had an opportunity, whilst staying at
Keswick, of verifying the statement. A young man of studious turn, who is
said to have resided near Penrith, was anxious to qualify himself for
entering the church, or for any other mode of life which might secure to
him a reasonable portion of literary leisure. His family, however, thought
that under the circumstances of his situation he would have a better
chance for success in life as a tradesman; and they took the necessary
steps for placing him as an apprentice at some shopkeeper's in Penrith.
This he looked upon as an indignity, to which he was determined in no case
to submit. And accordingly, when he had ascertained that all opposition to
the choice of his friends was useless, he walked over to the mountainous
district of Keswick (about sixteen miles distant)--looked about him in
order to select his ground--cooly walked up Lattrig (a dependency of
Skiddaw)--made a pillow of sods--laid himself down with his face looking
up to the sky--and in that posture was found dead, with the appearance of
having died tranquilly.