Читать книгу The Anatomy of Suicide - Forbes Winslow - Страница 6

Cleanthes, also, the successor of Zeno, 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, by the advice of his physician, for the cure of a trifling indisposition under which he was labouring, he had permission to return to his former diet; but he refused all sustenance, saying, “that as he had advanced so far on his journey towards death, he would not retreat.” He accordingly starved himself to death.

Among the most distinguished orators of antiquity who spoke in favour of suicide stands Cicero. During his banishment he would have actually destroyed himself, if it had not been for his natural timidity and want of resolution. He writes to his brother Quintus, “The tears of my friends have prevented me from flying to death as my refuge.”

Pliny was an advocate of suicide. In a chapter entitled “On God,” he writes thus—“The chief comfort of man in his imperfect state is this, that even the Deity cannot do all things. For instance, he cannot put himself to death when he pleases, which is the greatest indulgence he has given to man amid the severe evils of life.” Pliny belonged to the Epicureans, and his notions are in accordance with the doctrines of that sect.

Pliny the younger appears to have had different notions on the subject. When lamenting the death of a dear friend, Corellius Rufus, who had killed himself, he says, “He is dead—dead by his own hand, which agonizes my grief; for that is the most lamentable kind of death which neither proceeds from nature nor from fate.” The whole epistle from which the above extract is made indicates a noble and feeling heart.

It appears that the Roman laws respecting suicide were of a fiscal nature. They viewed the act not as a crime abstractedly, but considered how far the circumstance affected the state or treasury. In some portion of the Roman empire the magistrate had the power of granting or refusing permission to commit suicide. If the decision was given against the applicant, and he persisted in sacrificing his life, disgrace and ignominy were heaped upon his body, and it was buried in the most humiliating manner. The tenour of the law relating to suicide laid down in “Justinian’s Digests” is to the following effect:—“Those who, being actually accused, or who being caught in any crime, and dreading a prosecution, made way with themselves, were to have their effects confiscated. But this confiscation was no punishment of suicide, as a crime in itself, being then only to take place when the crime committed incurred the confiscation of property, and when the person accused of it would have been found guilty. For which reason the heirs-at-law were permitted (if they thought proper) to try the cause as though the accused person, who had put a period to his life, had been still living; and if his innocence could be proved, they were still entitled to his effects. But if any one killed himself, either through weariness of life, or an impatience under pain or ill health, for a load of private debt, or for any other reason not affecting the state or public treasury, the property of the deceased flowed in its natural channel. In the case of an attempted but incomplete suicide, where a man was under no accusation, a distinction was made as to the causes impelling to it, before the question as to its punishment was to be determined. If it proceeded not from weariness of life, or an impatience under the pressure of some calamity, the attempter was to suffer the same punishment as if he had effected his purpose; and for this reason, because he who without reason spared not his own life, would not be likely to spare another man’s.”12

If a prisoner committed suicide, the jailor authorized to protect him was punished very severely. The Roman law made a distinction between soldiers and civilians. If a soldier attempted to take away his life, and it could not be proved that he was suffering at the time from great grief, misfortune, madness, &c., it was deemed a capital offence, and death was the punishment. And even in cases where it was established that the act was the result of mental perturbation, he was dismissed from the service with ignominy and disgrace.

During the pure ages of the Roman Republic, when religion was reverenced, when the gods were looked up to with respect as the disposers of all events, suicide was but little known. But when the philosophy of Greece was introduced into the Roman Empire, and the manners of the people became corrupted and degenerated, the crime increased to an alarming extent. This indifference to life was also augmented by the spread of stoical and epicurean principles. The stoic was taught to believe his life his own; that he was the sole arbiter of his existence; and that he could live or die as he pleased. The same principles were inculcated by the epicurean philosophy. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that suicide should be of common occurrence, when such degrading principles had taken possession of the minds of the people?

By the law of Thebes, the person who committed suicide was deprived of his funeral rites, and his name and memory were branded with infamy. The Athenian law was equally severe: the hand of the self-murderer was cut off, and buried apart from his body, as having been an enemy and traitor to it. The Greeks considered suicide as a most heinous crime. The bodies of suicides, according to the Grecian custom, were not burned to ashes, but were immediately buried. They considered it a pollution of the holy element of fire to consume in it the carcases of those who had been guilty of self-murder. Suicides were classed “with the public or private enemy; with the traitor, and conspirator against his country; with the tyrant, the sacrilegious wretch, and such grievous offenders whose punishment was impalement alive on a cross.”13

These laws, however, fell into disuse, as appears evident from the circumstance of there being so many cases of suicide which escaped this treatment.

In the island of Ceos the magistrates had the power of deciding whether a person had sufficient reasons for killing himself. A poison was kept for that purpose, which was given to the applicant who made out his case before the magistracy.

The same custom was followed among the Massilians, the ancient inhabitants of Marseilles. A preparation of hemlock was kept in readiness, and the senate, on hearing the merits of the case, had the power to decide whether the applicant had good and substantial reasons for committing suicide. There was, no doubt, much good effected by this regulation, as it clearly acknowledged the principle that the power of a man over his own life rested not in himself, but in the voice of the magistrate, who alone was to determine how his life or death might affect the state.

Libanius, of Antioch, who flourished towards the end of the fourth century, has very happily ridiculed the practice to which we have alluded. In some imaginary pleadings before the senate, he advocates the cause of a man who wishes to swallow the hemlock draught, that he may be freed from the garrulity of a loquacious wife. “Truly,” says he, “if our legislator had not been addicted too much to law making, I should have been under no necessity of proving before you the expediency of my departure, but a rope and the first tree would have given me peace and quiet. But since he, determining we should be slaves, has deprived us even of the liberty of dying when we please, and has enchained us with decrees on this business, I imprecate the author and obey his mandates, in thus laying my complaints and my request before you.” He then, with considerable eloquence and humour, advocates the cause of the “envious man,” who wishes to taste the “suicidal draught” because his neighbour’s wealth had increased beyond his own. “Let the wretch,” he says, “recite his calamities, let the senate bestow the antidote, and let grief be dissolved in death.”

Libanius then pleads in behalf of Timon, the man hater, who begs permission to dispatch himself because he was bound by profession to hate all mankind, but he could not help loving Alcibiades.

It is a singular circumstance connected with the subject of suicide, that authors who have written in its defence should quote the cases referred to in this chapter in justification of their views. They have not taken into consideration the peculiar customs, habits, and religion of the people, which of course must have greatly influenced their actions. How absurd would it be for us to take the authority of antiquity as an infallible rule of conduct. The Massagetes considered those unhappy who died a natural death, and therefore eat their dearest friends when they grew old. The Libarenians broke their necks down a precipice. The Bactrians were thrown alive to the dogs. The Scythians buried the dearest friends of the deceased with them alive, or killed them on the funeral pile. The Roman people, when sunk in vice and licentiousness, considered it a mark of courage and honour to fall by their own hands, and suicide was a common occurrence with them.

“In the beginning of the spring,” says Malt. Brun, “a shocking ceremony takes place at Cola Bhairava, in the mountains between the rivers Taptæ and Nerbuddah. It is the practice of some persons of the lowest tribes in Berar to make vows of suicide, in return for answers which their prayers are believed to have received from their idols. This is the place where such vows are performed in the beginning of spring, when eight or ten victims generally throw themselves from a precipice. The ceremony gives rise to an annual fair, and some trade.”14

No just distinction can be drawn between these customs. The Indian widow, in obedience to the religion of her country, ascends the funeral pile of her husband, and is burnt to death. Thousands annually sacrifice their lives by throwing themselves under the wheels of their idol Juggernaut. Strong feelings of religion impel them to this; they become excluded from society, they lose caste, and are subjected to all kinds of persecution if they do not bow to the customs of the country. What legitimate argument can be deduced from these facts in favour of suicide? And yet these cases are considered to constitute a justification of the stoical dogma, that we have a right when we please to put an end to our own existence. Desperate indeed must be the circumstances of those who are compelled to found their reasoning on so flimsy a basis.