Geneva.
Suicide is very frequent at Geneva. I am told this has been the case ever
since the oldest people in the republic can remember; and there is reason
to believe, that it happens oftener here, in proportion to the number of
inhabitants, than in England, or any other country of Europe.
The multiplicity of instances which has occurred since I have been here
is astonishing. Two that have happened very lately are remarkable for the
peculiar circumstances which accompanied them.
The first was occasioned by a sudden and unaccountable fit of despair,
which seized the son of one of the wealthiest and most respectable
citizens of the republic. This young gentleman had, in appearance, every
reason to be satisfied with his lot. He was handsome, and in the vigour
of youths married to a woman of an excellent character, who had brought
him a great fortune, and by whom he was the father of a fine child. In
the midst of all these blessings, surrounded by every thing which could
inspire a man with an attachment to life, he felt it insupportable, and
without any obvious cause of chagrin, determined to destroy himself.
Having passed some hours with his mother, a most valuable woman, and
with his wife and child, he left them in apparent good humour, went into
another room, applied the muzzle of a musket to his forehead, thrust back
the trigger with his toe, and blew out his brains, in the hearing of the
unsuspecting company he had just quitted.
The second instance, is that of a blacksmith, who, taking the same fatal
resolution, and not having any convenient instrument at hand, charged an
old gun-barrel with a brace of bullets, and putting one end into the fire
of his forge, tied a string to the handle of the bellows, by pulling of
which he could make them play, while he was at a convenient distance.
Kneeling down, he then placed his head near the mouth of the barrel, and
moving the bellows by means of the string, they blew up the fire, he
keeping his head with astonishing firmness, and horrible deliberation,
in that position, till the farther end of the barrel was so heated as to
kindle the powder, whose explosion instantly drove the bullets through
his brains.
Though I know that this happened literally as I have related, yet
there is something so extraordinary, and almost incredible, in the
circumstances, that perhaps I should not have mentioned it, had it not
been well attested, and known to the inhabitants of Geneva, and all the
English who are at present here.
Why suicide is more frequent in Great Britain and Geneva than elsewhere,
would be a matter of curious investigation. For it appears very
extraordinary, that men should be most inclined to kill themselves in
countries where the blessings of life are best secured. There must be
some strong and peculiar cause for an effect so preposterous.
Before coming here, I was of opinion, that the frequency of suicide in
England was occasioned in a great measure by the stormy and unequal
climate, which, while it clouds the sky, throws also a gloom over the
minds of the natives.—To this cause, foreigners generally add, that of
the use of coal, instead of wood, for fuel.
I rested satisfied with some vague theory, built on these taken
together:—But neither can account for the same effect at Geneva, where
coal is not used, and where the climate is the same with that in
Switzerland, Savoy, and the neighbouring parts of France, where instances
of suicide are certainly much more rare.
Without presuming to decide what are the remote causes of this fatal
propensity, it appears evident to me, that no reasoning can have the
smallest force in preventing it, but what is founded upon the soul’s
immortality and a future state.—What effect can the common arguments have
on a man who does not believe that necessary and important doctrine?—He
may be told, that he did not give himself life, therefore he has no right
to take it away;—that he is a centinel on a post, and ought to remain
till he is relieved;—what is all this to the man who thinks he is never
to be questioned for his violence and desertion?
If you attempt to pique this man’s pride, by asserting, that it is a
greater proof of courage to bear the ills of life, than to flee from
them; he will answer you from the Roman history, and ask, Whether Cato,
Cassius, and Marcus Brutus, were cowards?
The great legislator of the Jews seems to have been convinced, that no
law or argument against suicide could have any influence on the minds of
people who were ignorant of the soul’s immortality; and therefore, as
he did not think it necessary to instruct them in the one (for reasons
which the Bishop of Gloucester has unfolded in his treatise on the Divine
Legation of Moses), he also thought it superfluous to give them any
express law against the other.
Those philosophers, therefore, who have endeavoured to shake this great
and important conviction from the minds of men, have thereby opened a
door to suicide as well as to other crimes.—For, whoever reasons against
that, without founding upon the doctrine of a future state, will soon see
all his arguments overturned.
It must be acknowledged, indeed, that in many cases this question is
decided by men’s feelings, independent of reasonings of any kind.
Nature has not trusted a matter of so great importance entirely to the
fallible reason of man; but has planted in the human breast such a love
of life, and horror of death, as seldom can be overcome even by the
greatest misfortunes.
But there is a disease which sometimes affects the body, and afterwards
communicates its baneful influence to the mind, over which it hangs such
a cloud of horrors as renders life absolutely insupportable. In this
dreadful state, every pleasing idea is banished, and all the sources of
comfort in life are poisoned.—Neither fortune, honours, friends, nor
family, can afford the smallest satisfaction.—Hope, the last pillar of
the wretched, falls to the ground—Despair lays hold of the abandoned
sufferer—Then all reasoning becomes vain—Even arguments of religion have
no weight, and the poor creature embraces death as his only friend,
which, as he thinks, may terminate, but cannot augment, his misery.