Category Archives: Principal Concepts

by | May 23, 2015 · 6:28 pm

CALEB FLEMING
(1698-1779)

from A Dissertation Upon the Unnatural Crime of Self-Murder

 

Caleb Fleming was born in Nottingham and brought up in a Calvinist home. Fleming’s early desire was to enter the ministry; as a boy he learned shorthand in order to write down sermons. However, when Presbyterian minister John Hardy opened a nonconformist academy in 1714, Fleming, while a student there, rejected his parents’ religion and decided to pursue a life in business. Fleming married and moved to London in 1727; apparently, he lived by writing but was often in financial straits. Under the entreaties of friends, Fleming entered the dissenting ministry. Through a series of sermons, he eventually secured the post of pastor (though he classed himself as an independent) for the Presbyterian congregation at Bartholomew Close where he ministered for 15 years before the congregation shrank to nonexistence and the meeting-house lease expired. When he died, he left the epigraph of a “dissenting teacher” on his gravestone.

Fleming was a prolific pamphleteer: he died with over a hundred combative theological and political works to his credit, although most were published anonymously. His principal work, “A Survey of the Search After Souls” (1758), contends that the soul possesses a “capacity of immortality” rather than an inherent immortality. His unique, anti-trinitarian confession of faith is seen in “True Deism, the Basis of Christianity” (1749). In one sermon, he classified Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and Seneca among vehicles of divine revelation. Many of his writings and exhortations addressed the topic of moral corruption.

In the lengthy A Dissertation Upon the Unnatural Crime of Self-Murder (1773), excerpted here, Fleming uses a variety of theological and moral arguments to show the “unnaturalness” and “great depravity” of suicide. Among them, he argues that earthly life is a probationary period and so ought not to be interrupted, and that suicide is “so deformed” that the prohibition of it need not be explicitly mentioned in the Bible. There are no exceptions and no excuses, and the fact that a suicide victim was of unbalanced mind carries no weight. Unlike many other Christian apologists (including Augustine [q.v.]), Fleming does not find grounds for excusing the various Biblical suicides, and insists, for example, that Saul, Saul’s armor-bearer, and Ahitophel were all “extremely wicked.”

SOURCE

Caleb Fleming, A Dissertation Upon the Unnatural Crime of Self-Murder. London: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1773, excerpted from pp. 2-21, 24.

from A DISSERTATION UPON THE UNNATURAL CRIME OF SELF-MURDER

. . . I shall . . . presume first to lay down, and afterwards prove, the truth of this proposition, viz. “That not any thing can be more unnatural, and argue a greater depravity of mind, than self-murder.” Yet here I would be understood to except such, who, by the hand of God, are deprived of the use of their reason and understanding. …

To those who do believe there is a God, and that man is accountable, this will be one powerful reason against the act of suicism, viz. that the present mode of man’s existence is, and must be probationary. It should appear to be a self-evident truth, that during the term of human life, wherein man has the use of his intellectual faculties and powers continued to him, he is a probationer, and as such is appointed to conflict with temptation. Now every man is well informed, that the breath which is in his nostrils, is not under his own volition or command; and that what propriety he has in it, is only that of a loan, which affords him no manner of right to give it a dismission at his own pleasure. The life-principle, he knows, is not his own; because it operates wholly under another’s direction. In other words, he has no hand at all in that wonderful principle or power, which animates his bodily machine.

It certainly is a communicated bestowment for all the purposes of man’s present perceptions, pursuits, and also sensitive fruitions. Or, it is that measure of his probationary duration, which is subject only to the decisions of infinite unerring wisdom. It is therefore the unalienable prerogative of the universal Sovereign, and is thus represented by the oracle; I KILL, AND I MAKE ALIVE! I WOUND, AND I HEAL! This character the Almighty claims and appropriates. A truth to which the Son of God bears witness, when he makes this appeal, “Which of you can, by taking thought, add one cubit to his stature, shadow; or age?”

Since, therefore, life is a divine communication, it behoves us to reverence and hold sacred the important gift, nor ever once resign, or consent to sacrifice it, but upon the altar of truth and God. Of so great importance is life, that an incessant care to preserve it from any apprehended peril, is a first law of our make. And although in the book of Job, it was that figurative character, called Satan, who said, “Skin after skin, yea, all that a man hath, will he give for his life:” it is nevertheless an indisputable truth. Witness the many painful and desperate operations, to which great numbers of mankind submit, in order to preserve life. But then, even this principle, though universal, has its boundaries and exceptions: for at the same time, that, in its efficacy, it should extend to all afflictive or painful visitations, with which heaven is pleased to try the patience, submission and resignation of man; it nevertheless should, by no means, ever admit of a man’s hurting his virtue, or the morality of his own mind, in order to preserve his natural life. —I am persuaded, there truly is not one supposable circumstance, which can possibly enter into the compass of human trial, where man could be justified in taking away his own life. There cannot for this very reason, viz. his present mode of existence, is most certainly probationary: and the God, whose gift it is, has reserved to himself the sole right of disposal of human life.

Again, as this mode of man’s existence is probationary, so it is, that he is instructed both by reason and revelation, to conduct himself as becomes a candidate, who has in view a state of recompence. If, therefore, he is found to behave reasonably, or according to the truth, propriety, and fitness of things, he cannot but see it to be requisite, that he leave the matter wholly to the giver and Lord of life, to determine both when and how he shall finish his probation: forasmuch as it would be an expression of the most provoking insolence and arrogance, in any one creature, to assume the sole prerogative of heaven. Thus, at first view, it appears unpardonably criminal in the probationer for a world of recompence, to give himself a discharge from his duty, upon any disgust petulantly taken by him, at the circumstances of his trial. The guilty wretch instantly and impiously plunges himself into remediless misery…why the rankling chagrine in any professing Christian? Why so much fretfulness? Why such a furious agitation of mind, as to offer an open insult to the divinely animating spirit, merely because fallen under some calamities? – But, alas! among the horrible number of self-murderers, scarce any have been so presumptuous and daring, except minds conscious of some perpetrated villanies, that would not bear the canvassing eye of their fellow-men. More usually, they have been such who have brought on their distresses, either from luxury, gaming, or other extravagance, else from debauchery.

As to others of mankind who have fallen under very heavy afflictions, immediately and apparently from the hand of heaven, and are conscious that they have not brought on those their distresses by their own follies and vices; these seeing the visitation to be no other than a fatherly chastisement, are never so presumptuous or daring. In truth, all men who live as probationers, or who act in character, learn to say with Job, whenever evils fall heavily upon them, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? –The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord,” — On the contrary, peevish, fretful minds, full of discontent, are ready to arraign not only the goodness, but even the equity and justice of the adorable sovereign; and are deplorably inattentive to their own appointments; for they will not be persuaded to consider themselves as candidates for a world of recompence. But on the contrary, if heaven does not indulge them with all the present sensitive good they wish, or shall throw into their lot more evil than their pride and vanity can admit, they scruple not presently to spit in his face, and impudently quit the station he had assigned them.

We may further consider suicism, not only as a crime unbecoming a probationary state, and no way pardonable in a candidate for a world of recompence, but also as in itself so very shockingly deformed, as not to have been discriminately noticed in any of the divine prohibitions; just as if it was not supposable, that an intelligent rational creature, accountable to its Creator, could ever once admit the shocking idea, the unnatural, abhorrent image.… And, in fact, there does not appear to have been a record made of any suicides in the sacred history, but those of the most abandoned characters. Saul and his armour-bearer, we may conclude to have been extremely wicked. So was Ahitophel, who first set his house in order, and then hanged himself. A very deliberate self-murderer. So was that miscreant, Judas, the traitor. And may we not say of all such, “better they had never been born.” — For in the very last act they perform, they willfully and impiously withdraw themselves from the animating spirit of God, and leave themselves no space for repentance…But though it has not more effectually done this, yet the extreme deformity and malignity of suicism, is what should be inferred, from its not having had any distinct, discriminating idea given of it, in any of the written laws of God. Its diametrical opposition to the most powerful instinctive principles of self-preservation in the breast of every man, seems to have rendered needless any express prohibition.

Self-murder may be yet further considered, as an act of high-treason, not only against the sovereignty of the universal Lord, but against the laws of human society. It destroys the very foundation of social virtue, and of all moral obligation. For this is one of the two principles or axioms, on which all moral virtue and piety does support, viz. “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”…Now, if we can thus capitally abuse ourselves, as to become persuaded we may take away life at our pleasure, and so quit our appointed stations, then that fundamental principle or axiom is of little meaning, and has in it nothing useful. …

Assuredly, the man who is persuaded he may dismiss his own life, whenever he is out of humour with his circumstances, can furnish us with no good ground of dependance, either on his social virtue, or even on his humanity.

Nay, the argument against suicism has a yet larger scope and extent; since if one man may be justified in taking away his own life, then another may. — Now, do but let the idea once spread and become infectious, a depopulation or waste would anon render our villages, aye our very towns and cities desolate…

Should it now be asked, what are the apologies which have been made for self-murder? They have been such as follow.

There are some who have pleaded in excuse for the suicide, “that the act is in itself a proof of insanity; and that no man ever had the use of his reason when he destroyed himself.”

To such I would reply, that the same apology might be made for every wicked action which men commit; because it had place from reason being dethroned, and from appetite and passion having usurped the reins of government. But who will say, that the highway-robber and murderer, from having taken the qualifying draught of strong liquors which he found necessary for the daring enterprise, did thereby acquire less degree of demerit and guilt? Or, is it a greater apology for the self-murderer, that by a series of extravagance, or some previous act of great wickedness he qualified himself? Or even because he suffered his avarice, pride or ambition, to become outrageous? Suicism, on the contrary, has more aggravations in it, than many capital crimes for which men are cut off by the punishing hand of justice.

There are many instances of the suicide having given full proof that he was in the possession of his reason and understanding, when he perpetrated the unnatural crime, and that it was done with deliberation, and direct purpose to destroy himself: and that he was neither lunatic, nor distracted by distemper or disease. For our law makes this allowance, “ that if a person during the time that he is not compos mentis, gives himself a mortal wound though he dies thereof when he recovers his memory; he is not felo de se, because at the time of the stroke he was not compos mentis.” i.e. As I understand the law, the man himself then knew he was not. — But if man was not capable of perpetrating the suicism, except in a state of insanity, it would be no crime; and the law would be extremely iniquitous, that supposed it criminal.

Should it in the next place be asked. “What is most usually the exciting MOTIVE to an act of suicism?”

It might be answered, that in the female it is more commonly a dread of shame, from having suffered herself to be dishonored; also from the love-passion having been ungovernable; or from the infidelity and ill-usage of a husband. – Whereas in the males, it is ordinarily some cross event, which has deeply affected the man’s worldly circumstances: or, perhaps, he has had a bad run of chances in his gaming: else, by some other criminal indulgences, he has reduced his finances to a very low condition: else he has suffered the chagrin to rise so fatally high, because of very sudden provocation. I own, I am apprehensive, there is some conscious guilt ever attends the loss or disappointment, or whatever the external evil is, that excites to suicism.

But let imagination have full play, and vary, as much as you possibly can, the motives to self-murder, their total amount can have no proportional weight; even though the rack of the stone or gout should have all its excruciating tortures: since the measure is full of guilt and crime; and has nothing in it that can promise to relieve, but must greatly aggravate the wretchedness! — Whereas the language of approved piety and exalted virtue, is recorded to have run thus, in the deepest distress, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” And the supplicatory address, this — “Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.” Even the highest, the most amiable, and perfect of all human characters, said, “NOT MY WILL; BUT THINE BE DONE.”

Far otherwise the exciting motive in the suicide, which is a rankling, unreasonable dissatisfaction with his present situation; proceeding either from a disbelief of a wife, powerful, and good superintending mind, that intuitively and incessantly surveys the whole system of beings! Else from an impious disgust at his own allotments. And it may be safely presumed, that the operating motive is always worldly. The heart had nothing better than an earthly treasure, else it would never have committed the unnatural action of a felo de se.

If the above reasoning be good, there is nothing more clear and convincing than the proposition at first laid down, namely, “That there can be nothing more unnatural and cruel; or that argues a greater depravity of mind than self-murder.”…

There may now be sundry instructive corollaries, or conclusions drawn from the above reasoning upon the suicide; which may well deserve the notice of my fellow-citizens. Such as follow.

Corol. I. The increased number of self- murders about this great city, and in other parts, is an irrefragable proof of the deep depravity of the morals of our country. The insidious and restless enemies of Britain’s welfare, have at last so far succeeded in disseminating skepticism and infidelity; i.e. a disbelief of a providence, of a revelation, and a future state; which is what qualifies men for these enormities. And they have compassed their end in thus depraving the people, by inventing every measure that could lead to dissipation, and dissoluteness of manners. It was never known since the reformation, that Britain wore so detestable a complexion as that she now does, in whatever department you make the survey: for when you put to the account, the great advantages she has had above the former times of palpable darkness, under a popish system of government both in church and state, you must fall under conviction; and be constrained to own, her condition appears to be incurable and desperate. In fact, her impieties, immoralities, and vices, are matchless. — I question whether there be a nation upon the face of this globe, which in its annals could produce so great a run of suicides, since Christianity made its spread in the world. — It has been already observed, that when pagan Rome was in the decline of her glory, having lost all public virtue, suicism then became common: and those of that depraved people were reckoned brave, who had rather chosen to destroy themselves, than become the slaves of tyrants. But our self-murderers pretend to no such specious motive. They have lived viciously, and they will die impiously. The life which God only lent them, they presume to sacrifice to their own pride and passion. And although our laws would set a brand of infamy upon them, yet the horrid impiety is concealed or covered, either through a mistaken tenderness, else by a shameful venality and bribery.

I have said, a mistaken tenderness — Yet would observe, that the inequity of our laws does seem to apologize much for that tenderness; since it appears to be a very severe “forfeiture in felo de se, of all his goods and chattels, real and personal, which he hath in his own right; and all such chattels, real and personal, which he hath jointly with his wife, or in her right, when found upon the oath of twelve men before the coroner, super visum corporis, that he felo de se hath. He forfeits also bonds, or things in action, belonging solely to himself, and all entire chattels in possession; except in the case of merchants, where a moiety only of such joint- chattels, as may be saved, is forfeited.”

This forfeiture has a manifest severity in it; and which makes the heart of humanity to revolt at the punishment falling so heavily upon the criminal’s wife and children, who are innocent; and have already by the act of suicism suffered the loss of an husband and father, and are deprived of all further assistance and comfort from and in him.

To pretend, in justification of this forfeiture, that “God himself is said to visit the iniquity of fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation of them who hate him;” must be impertinent; for in such visitation, man is not of competent ability to copy his unerring measures of inflicting punishment. And if I have not mistaken the divine visitation, it intends only such children as copy their fathers iniquity; such as continue to resemble him in wickedness. And so I am persuaded it must be understood, when I read the 18th chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy.

Other measures should be taken to deter men from the unnatural, shocking crime of self murder, — And I am humbly apprehensive, that a stop might be put to the spread of suicism, by having the naked body exposed in some public place: over which the coroner should deliver an oration on the foul impiety; and then the body, like that of the homicide, be given to the surgeons.

Corol. II. If this be the only probationary state of man, in which he can be a candidate for a world of recompence, then life must be his most inestimable property, as an improveable talent… “As though it were never to have a beginning.”…

The idea of our being probationers for a world of recompence, has had the assent of the most wise and judicious of mankind; that it is manifestly a document of reason and nature; and what will bear the most accurate and critical examination. The reasoning and argument, which has been built upon this foundation, is therefore irrefragable and conclusive. And since this is the truth of the case, suicide is capitally criminal.

Corol. III. Every man who gratifies an appetite or passion, which has a manifest tendency to hurt his health, or shorten his life, is [though by a less sudden assault upon the life-principle] a real self-murderer. I mean, the man who luxuriates at his table, is too free with his bottle, and thereby brings on disease or distemper; or whether his lusts leads him into an illicit and empoisoned bodily commerce. This last species of debauchery is, among us, risen shamefully high, and disgracefully become as epidemical as the plaque….

Corol. IV. The shameful crime of DUELLING is another prevailing vicious practice; which reflects disgrace on the understanding of the man, and proves him deplorably unacquainted with self-government. The duellist is an atrocious violator of the law of his make. He tramples upon and subdues the first instinctive principle, with which his Maker has endowed him, viz. that of self-preservation. The proud, passionate man, will rather risk his own life, in his attempt to take away the life of another, than pass by an affront. And this he most stupidly fancies to be, and is not ashamed to call it, A PATH OF HONOUR! For, contrary to a fundamental law of civil society, he presumes upon being his own avenger. And though the matter of offence may have been nothing more than a breach of politeness, some little sally of the passion, or some mark of contempt; yet the blood-thirsty wretch will not be reconciled till he has fired his pistol, or with his sword lunged at the life of his fellow-man. Not any crime evinces more absurdity and stupidity than dueling does: for whoever he is that hazards his own life with a man who gave him offence, is a fool; and the very challenge he sent, proves that he is…

These several corollaries seem to have a free and unforced derivation from the fundamental proposition, namely, “That not any thing can be more unnatural, and argue a greater depravity of the human mind, than self-murder.”

Comments Off on CALEB FLEMING
(1698-1779)

from A Dissertation Upon the Unnatural Crime of Self-Murder

Filed under Christianity, Europe, Fleming, Caleb, Protestantism, Selections, Sexual Issues, Sin, The Early Modern Period

by | · 6:24 pm

MONTESQUIEU
(1689-1755)

from The Persian Letters
from Consideration of the Causes of the    Greatness of the Romans and Their    Decline
from The Spirit of Laws

 

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Bréde et de la Montesquieu, was a French political and social philosopher, jurist, satirist, and the first of the great French men of letters of the Enlightenment. Born at La Bréde near Bordeaux, Montesquieu was reared until the age of three by a peasant family, like Montaigne [q.v.], in order that he might acquire an understanding of the lower classes. In 1696, his mother died, leaving him the barony of La Bréde at age seven. He left for school in 1700, attending the Collège de Juilly and later the University of Bordeaux, where he studied law to become an advocate in 1708. In 1716, his uncle Jean-Baptiste died, leaving him the barony of Montesquieu and the deputy presidency of the Bordeaux Parliament, a position of some honor. In 1721, he published The Persian Letters, a satire of European (French) customs and society that made him famous.

After 10 years of service, Montesquieu sold his political office and, in 1728, left for a three-year tour of Europe and England that had a great effect on his political and aesthetic sensibilities. By 1734, he finished his Consideration of the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline. In this work, which exhibits his uniquely secular approach to history, Montesquieu argued that Rome’s greatness was due to its adaptable institutions and martial values. In 1748, he published anonymously his best-known work, The Spirit of the Laws, a major and influential work of political theory. This work, among other things, outlined a classification of the different types of government—its notion of a separation of governmental powers, which Montesquieu derived from his observations of English government, influenced the Constitution of the United States—and examined the fundamental relationships that underlie the laws of a civilized society. Montesquieu declared history as the basis for human activity and viewed religion as a social phenomenon rather than an underlying force. In this respect, Montesquieu sought to establish a social science of man comparable to the natural sciences. He was committed to liberty as the key ingredient in a well-functioning civil society.

In The Persian Letters, Montesquieu employs a character drawn from a different society to criticize the usual arguments used against suicide in the Christian European west. In Considerations of the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, he addresses self-love and altruism, in effect lamenting the suicide of Cato; and in the brief passage provided here from The Spirit of the Laws, he differentiates between the “educated” socially conditioned, principled suicides of the Roman Stoics and the “unaccountable” suicides of the English, attributable primarily to mental illness.

SOURCES
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Bréde et de la Montesquieu: The Persian Letters, Letter 76, tr. C. J. Betts. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1973. Considerations of the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, Ch. XII, pp. 113-118, tr. David Lowenthal. New York: Free Press, 1965. Available from the Constitution Society. The Spirit of the Laws, Book XIV, Ch. 12, p. 107, Great Books of the Western World, vol. 38, tr. Thomas Nugent and revised by J. V. Prichard. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Available from the Constitution Society.

from THE PERSIAN LETTERS

Letter 76: Usbek to his friend Ibben, at Smyrna

In Europe the law treats suicides with the utmost ferocity.  They are put to death for a second time, so to speak; their bodies are dragged in disgrace through the streets and branded, to denote infamy, and their goods are confiscated.

It seems to me, Ibben, that these laws are very unjust.  When I am overcome by anguish, poverty, or humiliation, why must I be prevented from putting an end to my troubles, and harshly deprived of the remedy which lies in my power?

Why am I required to work for a society from which I consent to be excluded, and to submit against my will to a convention which was made without my participation?  Society is based on mutual advantage, but when I find it onerous what is to prevent me renouncing it?  Life was given to me as favour, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer; when the cause disappears, the effect should disappear also.

Would the king want me to be subject to him when I derive no advantages from being a subject?  Can my fellow-citizens be so unfair as to drive me to despair for their conveniences?  Is God to be different from every other benefactor, and is it his will that I should be condemned to accept favours which make me wretched?

I am obliged to obey the law so long as I continue to live under its authority, but when I no longer do so does it still apply to me?

But, it will be said, you are disturbing the providential order.  God united your soul to your body, and you are separating them; you are therefore going against his intentions, and resisting him.

What does that imply?  Am I disturbing the order of Providence when I modify the arrangement of matter and turn a sphere into a cube, when it had been given its spherical shape by the first laws of motion, that is to say the laws of creation and conservation?  Of courts not: I am merely exercising a right which I have been given; and in this sense I could disrupt the whole of nature at will, and it would be impossible to say that I am opposing Providence.

When my soul is separated from my body, will the universe be less orderly or less well arranged?  Do you believe that the new synthesis will be less perfect, or less dependent on general laws, or that the world will have lost anything by it?  The works of God will be any the less great, or rather less immense?  When my body has been turned into a grain of wheat, or a worm, or a piece of turf, do you think that these products of nature are less worthy of her?  Or that when my soul has been purged of every terrestrial ingredient it will be less exalted?

All such ideas, my dear Ibben, originate in our pride alone.  We do not realize our littleness, and in spite of everything we want to count for something in the universe, play a part, be a person of importance.  We imagine that the annihilation of a being as perfect as ourselves would detract from nature as a whole, and we cannot conceive that one man more or less in the world, and indeed the whole of mankind a hundred million heads like ours, are only a minute, intangible speck, which God perceives simply because of the immensity of his knowledge.

From Paris, the 15th of the moon of Saphar, 1715

from CONSIDERATION OF THE CAUSES OF THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS AND THEIR DECLINE

. . .Almost all ventures are spoiled by the fact that those who undertake them usually seek—in addition to the main objective—certain small, personal successes which flatter their self-love and give them self-satisfaction.

I believe that if Cato had preserved himself for the republic, he would have given a completely different turn to events. Cicero’s talents admirably suited him for a secondary role, but he was not fit for the main one. His genius was superb, but his soul was often common. With Cicero, virtue was the accessory, with Cato, glory. Cicero always thought of himself first, Cato always forgot about himself. The latter wanted to save the republic for its own sake, the former in order to boast of it. . . .

Brutus and Cassius killed themselves with inexcusable precipitation, and we cannot read this chapter in their lives without pitying the republic which was thus abandoned. Cato had killed himself at the end of the tragedy; these began it, in a sense, by their death.

Several reasons can be given for this practice of committing suicide that was so common among the Romans: the advances of the Stoic sect, which encouraged it; the establishment of triumphs and slavery, which made many great men think they must not survive a defeat; the advantage those accused of some crime gained by bringing death upon themselves, rather than submitting to a judgment whereby their memory would be tarnished and their property confiscated; a kind of point of honor, more reasonable, perhaps, than that which today leads us to slaughter our friend for a gesture or word; finally, a great opportunity for heroism, each man putting an end to the part he played in the world wherever he wished.

We could add to these a great facility in executing the deed. When the soul is completely occupied with the action it is about to perform, with the motive determining it, with the peril it is going to avoid, it does not really see death, for passion makes us feel but never see.

Self-love, the love of our own preservation, is transformed in so many ways, and acts by such contrary principles, that it leads us to sacrifice our being for the love of our being. And such is the value we set on ourselves that we consent to cease living because of a natural and obscure instinct that makes us love ourselves more than our very life.  It is certain that men have become less free, less courageous, less disposed to great enterprises than they were when, by means of this power which one assumed, one could at any moment escape from every other power.

from THE SPIRIT OF LAWS

Of the Laws against Suicides. We do not find in history that the Romans ever killed themselves without a cause; but the English are apt to commit suicide most unaccountably; they destroy themselves even in the bosom of happiness. This action among the Romans was the effect of education, being connected with their principles and customs; among the English it is the consequence of a distemper, being connected with the physical state of the machine, and independent of every other cause.

In all probability it is a defect of the filtration of the nervous juice: the machine, whose motive faculties are often unexerted, is weary of itself; the soul feels no pain, but a certain uneasiness in existing. Pain is a local sensation, which leads us to the desire of seeing an end of it; the burden of life, which prompts us to the desire of ceasing to exist, is an evil confined to no particular part.

It is evident that the civil laws of some countries may have reasons for branding suicide with infamy: but in England it cannot be punished without punishing the effects of madness.

Comments Off on MONTESQUIEU
(1689-1755)

from The Persian Letters
from Consideration of the Causes of the    Greatness of the Romans and Their    Decline
from The Spirit of Laws

Filed under Europe, Montesquieu, Selections, Stoicism, The Early Modern Period

by | · 6:23 pm

ISAAC WATTS
(1674-1748)

from A Defense Against the Temptation to Self-Murder

 

Isaac Watts, regarded as the father of English hymnody, was born in Southampton, England, and studied at the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington, now inside London, until 1694. He then became a family tutor to Sir John Hartopp; Watts’ rise to prominence as a preacher began with his sermons at Hartopp’s family chapel in Freeby, Leicestershire, and cumulated in his appointment as a full pastor at the Mark Lane Independent (i.e., Congregational) Chapel, London, in 1702. Here he wrote many now-famous Protestant hymns, including “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” and “There is a Land of Pure Delight.” His hymns and psalms are published in the collections Horae Lyricae (1706), Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707) and Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). Due to a breakdown in health, in 1712 he went to spend a week in Hertfordshire with Sir Thomas Abney, with whose family he would live for the rest of his life. Toward the end of his life Watts dedicated more time to writing, eventually publishing his influential work Logic, or the Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth (1724).

In A Defense Against the Temptation to Self-Murther (1726), Watts discusses the “folly and danger” of suicide. The piece is a vehement exhortation in the form of a direct address to anyone who might be tempted to suicide, and it attempts to dissuade the suicidal person with both religious and social arguments. It would mean permanent damnation, Watts insists, from which there could be no repentance; it would mean shame, as evidenced by the disgrace of burial at the crossroads; and it would mean shame for one’s family as well. Among the “dissuasions” Watts employs is an appeal to concern for others: “If it be so hard to you to bear a little poverty, shame, sorrow, reproach, etc. that you will die rather than bear it, why will you entail these on your kindred and on those who love you best?”

Source

Isaac Watts, A Defense Against the Temptation to Self-Murther, London: Printed for J. Clark, R. Hett, E. Matthews, and R. Ford, 1726.

from A DEFENSE AGAINST THE TEMPTATION TO SELF-MURTHER

Some General Dissuasions from Self-Murther, by shewing the Folly and Danger of it.

WHEN this bloody practice has been proved to be highly criminal in the sight of God, we can hardly suppose that any other considerations should be more effectual to deter a man who professes Christianity from the guilt of so aggravated a sin: yet it may be possible to set the dangerous and dreadful consequences of this practice in a fuller view, a more diffusive and affecting light: for if you turn it on all sides it has still some new appearances of terror, and furnishes out new dissuasives from the execution of it.

I.  Consider that ‘tis too dangerous an attempt to venture upon it unless you had a full assurance of its lawfulness. Now suppose the power of your own iniquities, the artifices of the Tempter, and the prevailing ill humours of animal nature should join together so fatally as to blind your eyes against the full conviction of its sinfulness, yet you can never prove that self-murther is certainly a lawful thing. The furthest you can go is to suppose that possibly it may be lawful; but on the other hand, if you should be under a mistake, ‘tis a dreadful, ‘tis a fatal, ‘tis an eternal one. You put your self beyond all possibility of rectifying this error through all the long ages of futurity.

Whatsoever vain fancies some of the heathens have indulg’d who knew not God, and had very little and dark apprehensions of a future state, yet in the Christian world the utmost that the most sanguine or most melancholy among this tribe can well pretend is, that perhaps it may be Lawful, or at least that it is a little and a very pardonable crime, (and they have been forced to wink their eyes against the light to arrive at this perhaps). But if it be not pardonable, then nothing remains for the criminal but everlasting punishment. That terrible word eternal, eternal, eternal misery, carries such a long doleful accent with it, and includes such an immense train of agonies without hope, that it is infinitely better to bear the sorrows, the trials and uneasiness of this life for a few short and uncertain years, than rashly to venture upon such a practice, whose pretended and doubtful advantages bear no proportion at all to the infinite and extreme hazard of an endless state of torment.

II.  Suppose you could by any false reasonings persuade your consciences that the act of self-destruction was no sin, yet are you so sure of the present goodness of your state towards God, and that all your other sins are pardoned, that you could plunge your self this moment into eternity?  ‘Tis generally under a fit of impatience that persons are tempted to destroy themselves; now is the present frame and temper of your soul such as is fit to appear in before the great tribunal of heaven?  You well know that as the tree falls so it must lie, to the north or to the south, Eccl. xi. 3.  After death judgment immediately succeeds, Heb. ix. 27.  There is no faith and repentance in the grave, nor pardoning grace to be implored when the state of trial is past, Eccl. ix. 10.  Isa. xxxviii. 18.  They that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth.  Are you now so sure of your creator’s love, and of your perfect conformity to his laws of judgment?  Are you so holy, so innocent, so righteous in your self, or so certain of your interest in the merits of a mediator, that you dare rush this moment before the bar of a great and terrible God, and tell him that you are come to have your state determined for all everlasting? If not, be wise and bethink yourself a little: use and improve the delay and opportunity which his grace and providence offer you in this life, for a more effectual securing a better life hereafter.

But if we go a little farther and suppose the action in it self to be criminal, then remember that you send your self out of this world with the guilt of a wilful criminal action on your conscience; you preclude your own repentance of this sin in this world, and the other world knows no repentance that is available to any good purpose. You shoot your self headlong into an eternal state; and are you sure that you shall never repent of it in the long future ages of your existence? But, alas! all that repentance comes too late to relieve you from the dismal effects of your rashness. All the repentance of that invisible world is but the sting of conscience which will add exquisite pain to your appointed punishment. Surely you should have the most evident and undeniable proofs of the goodness of that action which can never be revers’d, and which puts you for ever beyond the possibility of useful repentance.

Give me leave to add in this place what is the constant doctrine of the Bible and the sense of Christians, (viz.) that a wilful sinner dying impenitent cannot be sav’d.  Now if there be no space given for serious reflection and penitence in the case of a self-murtherer, what room is there for hope hereafter? except only where the persons really distracted, and the Great God our Judge knows how to distinguish exactly how far every action is influenced by bodily distempers.  This is the only hope of surviving friends.

III.  Think yet again, what an odium, what scandal and everlasting shame you bring upon your name and character by such a fact.  ‘Tis a reproach that spreads wide among the kindred of the self-murtherer; it descends to his posterity and follows him thro’ many generations.

It may be observed also that in the Rubrick of the Church of England before the burial service, self-murtherers are ranked with excommunicated persons: The church has no hope of them as true Christians: And as the church denies them Christian burial, so the civil government did heretofore appoint that they should be put into the earth with the utmost contempt; and this was generally done in some publick cross-way, that the shame and infamy might be made known to every passenger; and that this infamy might be lasting, they were ordained to have a stake driven through their dead bodies which was not to be removed. ‘Tis pity this practice has been omitted of late years by the too favourable sentence of their neighbors on the jury, who generally pronounce them distracted: And thus they are excused from this publick mark of abhorrence. Perhaps ‘twere much better if this practice were revived again; for since the laws of men cannot punish their persons, therefore their dead bodies should be expos’d to just and deserved shame, that so this iniquity might be laid under all the odium that human power and law can cast upon it, to testify a just abhorrence of the fact, and to deter survivors from the like practice.

IV.  Can any man of a generous or kind disposition think of all the mischief done to his friends and kindred by the destruction of himself, and yet practice it? Think of the publick scandal and disgrace that it spreads over the whole family; think of the shame and inward anguish of spirit that it necessarily gives to surviving friends and relatives; what sorrow of heart for the loss of a father, or mother or brother, a sister, a daughter, or a son in such a sudden, such a dreadful, and such a shameful manner of death? What terrible perplexity of spirit what inconsolable vexation of mind, what fears of eternal misery for the soul of the deceas’d? This gives them a wound beyond what they are able to bear, and sometimes wears out their life in sorrow, and brings them down to the grave. One would think that the injury done to friends and dear relations would be a sufficient bar against it, to souls who have any sense of justice, or any pretence to goodness and love. If it be so hard for you to bear a little poverty, shame, sorrow, reproach, &c. that you will die rather than bear it, why will you entail these on your kindred and on those who love you best?

In order to work upon persons that have any compassion for their surviving kindred, ‘tis fit they should know also that the English Law calls a Self-Murtherer, felo de se, or a felon to himself, and upon this account the estate and effects of the deceased are forfeited by law and cannot descend to the relatives, unless it appear that the person who laid violent hand upon himself was distracted. Now in this case Bishop Fleetwood finds fault severely with juries who now a days bring in almost all self-murtherers distracted, and he desires them to consider “Whether the constant mitigation of the rigours of the law against self-murtherers mayn’t give some encouragement to that practice and whether the favourable verdict they bring in, be always so righteous and so seasonable as they imagine? And since the wisdom of the law intends that the confiscation of estates, the undoing a family, and the shameful burial shall deter them from these horrible attempts, whether the mercy that defeats all these intentions be not more likely to continue than to repress these cruel violences? Were a person sure that his estate would be forfeited, and his effects carried away from his wife, children and family, were he sure that his dead body should be publickly expos’d, bury’d in the high-way, and with a stake driven through it as a mark of huge infamy, perhaps he would give way to calmer counsels, and be content to bear a little shame, or pain, or loss, till God saw fit to put an end to all his sufferings by natural means: And therefore an instance or two of such severity as is legal, well and wisely chosen, might prove a greater preservative against these violences, than such a constant and expected mercy, as we always find on these occasions: For men have now no fear of laws; and when they have laid aside the fear of God, they go about this business with great readiness, they are sure of favour in this world, and they will venture the other.”

V.  Think in the last place how fatal an influence your example may have to bring death and ruin on others, and that on their immortal souls as well as their mortal life. Remember what an effect the self-murther of Saul had, when his armour bearer followed him, and dy’d also by his own sword. And oftentimes where self-murther is practiced, it fills the heads of other melancholy and uneasy persons with the same bloody thoughts, and teaches them to enter into the same temptation. Think then with yourself, “What if I should not only destroy my own soul forever, but become the dreadful occasion of others destroying their souls, and flinging themselves into the same place of torture? What sharp accents will this add to my anguish of conscience, in hell, that I have led others into the same wretchedness without remedy, without hope, and without end?” Think and enquire whether every self-murtherer who may be influenced hereafter by your example to this impious fact, may not be sent particularly to visit your ghost in those invisible regions, and become a new tormentor. Whether all such future events may not be turn’d by the just judgment of God to encrease your agonies and horrors of soul in that world of despair and misery.

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(1674-1748)

from A Defense Against the Temptation to Self-Murder

Filed under Christianity, Europe, Protestantism, Selections, Sin, The Early Modern Period, Watts, Isaac

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COTTON MATHER
(1663-1728)

from Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions

 

Cotton Mather, son of Increase Mather [q.v.], was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard in 1678, and was ordained in 1685 in the Congregational Church. He assisted and then succeeded his father in the Second Church pastorate, Boston. Although he countenanced the Salem witchcraft trials and executions (1692-93), he did not directly participate in them; he did however have a hand in choosing some of the Salem judges and wrote to them during the trial, urging the rejection of spectral evidence (testimony of attacks by the specters of people otherwise known to the victim) and the merciful treatment of those who confessed (his counsel in each case was rejected). Then, having tried to be a moderating influence on the trials, he damaged his own reputation by writing Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), condemning the excesses of the trials but defending several of the trials’ resulting convictions. Cotton’s book was published at the same time as Increase’s attack on the use of spectral evidence in the Salem trials, Cases of Conscience. Even though Increase was different in his assessment of the witch trials, Increase is said to have publicly burned Robert Calef’s More Wonders of the Invisible World in Harvard Yard, a book attacking Cotton’s book.

Cotton Mather’s discussion of suicide is distinctive in its quasi-medical character. He is particularly concerned with the etiology of suicidal acts; once suicidal ideation begins, it is intensified and taken advantage of by the intervention of devils (hence the title, “A Discourse on the Power and Malice of the Devils”). Nevertheless, it is possible to take steps to avoid this. In what may seem to modern readers to anticipate the role of psychiatric intervention, Mather emphasizes the importance for the potential victim of suicide of not keeping silent and of speaking with friends, physicians, and neighbors about feelings of guilt, sin, and what would now be identified as depression.

SOURCE

Cotton Mather, Memorable providences, relating to witchcrafts and possessions. : A faithful account of many wonderful and surprising things, that have befallen several bewitched and possessed persons in New-England. Particularly, a narrative of the marvellous trouble and releef experienced by a pious family in Boston, very lately and sadly molested with evil spirits. : Whereunto is added, a discourse delivered unto a congregation in Boston, on the occasion of that illustrious providence. : As also a discourse delivered unto the same congregation; on the occasion of an horrible self-murder committed in that town. : With an appendix, in vindication of a chapter in a late book of remarkable providences, from the calumnies of a Quaker at Pen-silvania. Boston: Richard Pierce, 1689. Material in introductory passage from Stephen Latham.

Facsimile available online from the Yale University Library.

from MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES RELATING TO WITCHCRAFTS AND POSSESSIONS

Temptations to Self-Murder, may likewise be fierce upon some unhappy people here. Tis almost unaccountable, that at some times in some places here, melancholy distempered Ragings toward Self-Murder, have been in a manner Epidemical. And it would make ones hair stand, to see or hear what manifest Assistence the Devils have given to these unnatural Self-executions when once they have been begun. Tis too evident, that persons are commonly bewitch’t or possess’t into these unreasonable Phrensies. But What shall these hurried people do?

My Advice is,

Don’t Conceal, much less Obey the motions of your Adversary. Failing in this, made a poor man, after a faithful Sermon in a Neighbouring Town, presently to drown himself in a pit that had not two foot of Water in it.  If you will not Keep, that is the way not to Take the Devil’s Counsel. Let not him Tie your Tongues, and it is likely he will not gain your Souls. Complain to a good God of the Dangers in which you find your selves; cry to Him, Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me. Complain also to a wise Friend. Let some prudent and faithful Neighbour understand your Circumstances: Tis possible you may thereby escape the Snares with which the cruel Fowlers of Hell hope to trapan you into their dismal Clutches for evermore. Your Neighbours may do much for you; and may prove your Keepers if God shall please. It may be the unkindness of some Friend, may have thrown you into your present Madness. Now the Kindness of some Friend may prove the Antidote. Many times, a Natural Distemper, is that by which the Devil takes advantage to get the souls of Self-Destroyers into his bloody hands. In this case, for the tempted persons to disclose their Griefs, will be the way to obtain their cures. Their Neighbours ought now to consult a skilful Physician for them; and oblige, yea, constrain them to follow his Directions. When the Humours on and by which the Devil works, are taken away, perhaps he may be starved out of doors. Many times, again, The sin of Slothfulness gives the Devil opportunity to procure the Self-Destruction of the sluggard. In this case too, the Tempted person may be succoured by the standers-by becoming sensible of their Circumstances. Their Neighbours may now compel them to follow their business. A Calling, the Business of a Calling, is an Ordinance of God, sanctified by Him to deliver us from the evil spirits that enter into the empty house,

But most times, There may be some old and great Sin unrepented of, where Temptations to Self-Murder have a violence hardly to be withstood,  There was once a man among us, who in the horrours of Despair, uttered many dreadful speeches against himself, and would often particularly say, I am all on a light Fire under the wrath of God!  This man yet never confessed any unusual sin, but this; that having gotten about Forty pounds by his Labour, he had spent it in wicked Company:  But in his Anguish of spirit he hanged himself.  There was once a woman among us, who under Sickness had made vowes of a New Life; but apprehending some defects in her conversation afterward, she fell into the distraction wherein she also hanged herself.  And the Sin of Adultery and Drunkenness has more than once issued in such a destructive Desperation.  In case of this or any such Guilt, Confession with Repentance affords a present Remedy.  To fly from Soul-Terrour by Self-Murder, is to leap out of the Frying-pan into the Fire.  Poor tempted People, I must like Paul in prison, cry with a loud voice unto you, Do your selves no harm; all may be well yet, if you will hearken to the Counsels of the Lord.

Now, Do thou, O God of peace, bruise Satan under our Feet. World without end, Amen.

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(1663-1728)

from Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions

Filed under Americas, Christianity, Devil, Mather, Cotton, Protestantism, Selections, The Early Modern Period

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CHIKAMATSU MONZAEMON
(1653-1725)

from The Love Suicides at Sonezaki

 

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, born Sugimori Nobumori, the second son of a minor samurai family, is recognized as the first modern Japanese dramatist. Often called “the Japanese Shakespeare,” he is widely considered the most important playwright of the Tokugawa age. As a boy, Chikamatsu served as a page to a noble family at a time when the nobility were patrons of the puppet theatre, and his earliest signed dramatic work was the puppet play The Soga Successors. Although of samurai background, he wrote for the chonin, or townspeople. Between 1684 and 1705, Chikamatsu wrote Kabuki plays, many in collaboration with the outstanding actor of the time, Sakata Tojuro. For the last 20 years of his life, Chikamatsu returned to writing for the puppet theatre—dissatisfied, some have claimed, with the liberties that temperamental actors took with his texts, and preferring the more obedient puppets.

Chikamatsu composed over 150 plays, including The Oil Hell, The Punishment of Heaven, The Battles of Coxinga, and the hugely successful puppet play from which the selection is taken, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703). The plays were of two main types: jidaimono, period plays treating the heroes of the distant or recent past, and domestic dramas, sewamono, portraying the ordinary people of his own day.

The Love Suicides at Sonezaki, which determined Chikamatsu’s future career, was his first attempt to use themes from daily life. The play was inspired by a double suicide that occurred at the Sonezaki Shrine in 1703. In the play, a pair of lovers—a clerk in an oil shop, Tokubei, and a courtesan named Ohatsu—kill themselves after they are tricked out of dowry money Tokubei must return after refusing to marry the girl chosen for him by his uncle. The lovers are both in their unlucky years (in the yin-yang system, a man’s 25th, 42nd, and 60th years are dangerous; for a woman, her 19th and 33rd years), and Tokubei is now 25 and Ohatsu is 19. They see their love suicide, shinju, as their only hope of lasting union.

Shinju—meaning “sincerity of heart”—refers to double or multiple suicides, whether pairs of lovers, mothers and children, or entire families. It is sometimes called “companionate” or “companionship” suicide. Like the suicide of loyalty to one’s

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(1653-1725)

from The Love Suicides at Sonezaki

Filed under Asia, Buddhism, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Love, Selections, The Early Modern Period

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INCREASE MATHER
(1639-1723)

A Call to the Tempted: A Sermon on the Horrid Crime of Self-Murder

 

Increase Mather, commonly considered the most gifted member of the prominent Mather family and the first to be born in America, was a religious, educational, and political leader of early Puritan New England. A graduate of Harvard and Trinity College, Dublin, Mather was a skilled writer and orator who delivered sermons to congregations throughout England and New England. He was elected acting president of Harvard in 1685, later rector and president, but was forced to resign by political rivals in 1701 on a technicality. Mather wrote many religious treatises, political pamphlets, and sermons, as well as A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians (1676). A conflicted critic of the Salem witch trials like his son Cotton Mather [q.v.], Increase Mather’s Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1693) and its critique of spectral evidence is credited with stemming the tide of witchcraft executions.

Increase Mather’s sermon, A Call to the Tempted: A Sermon on the Horrid Crime of Self-Murder (1682, published 1723), is a passionate and reasoned attack on suicide, addressed directly to those who might be tempted—as Mather believed, by the devil—to commit it. The text was put into pamphlet form from his notes 40 years after its oral delivery, and its cover advertises the sermon’s objective: “for a Charitable Stop to Suicides.”

Although Mather had often thought of preaching on the subject, the final motivation for the sermon came as he walked alone in his garden: “This day my former thought about preaching on the evil of self-murder, returning upon me again. I looked up to GOD, and as I was lifting up my heart to Him . . . I was strangely moved and melted. Tears gushed from my eyes. And it seemed as if it were said unto me, ‘Preach on that subject, and thou shalt save bodies and souls from death.’ ” The following Sunday, Mather preached a sermon based on Acts 16:27–28 in which he outlined the reasons why such an act is unacceptable.

For Mather, suicide is often the act of trying to escape suffering through sin. The sin lies in hating one’s own flesh—the flesh that was created in God’s image—and in forfeiting the grace of life, as well as in murdering the one person to whom we are closest, that is, ourselves (murder perpetrated on one’s mother or brother, for Mather, is worse than one committed on a stranger). Mather’s view presupposes the doctrine of election, but even though a person might be tempted to suicide by despair over the belief that he or she is already damned—the sermon is particularly addressed to those who see themselves as sinners—Mather holds out some hope: “Thou are not sure that thou shalt not be saved.” Even though Mather hints that God is merciful and will not necessarily condemn all who commit suicide, on a practical level, one should never pardon any self-murderer, since a charitable view of suicide will only serve to encourage the practice: “Lest by being over-charitable to the dead, we become cruel to the living.”

SOURCE
Increase Mather, A Call to the Tempted: A Sermon on the Horrid Crime of Self-Murder [dated Boston, May 23, 1682], printed by B. Green, sold by Samuel Gerrish, 1723–24 (spelling and grammar modernized).

from A CALL TO THE TEMPTED: A SERMON ON THE HORRID CRIME OF SELF-MURDER

The Occasion of the Publication

Among the remarkables in the life of the memorable Dr. Increase Mather, there is this passage. “The doctor felt once upon his mind a strong impression to preach a sermon about the crime of self-murder, but he resisted, he declined, he laid it aside. He then wrote in his diary: This day my former thoughts about preaching on the evil of self-murder, returning upon me again; I looked up to God, and as I was lifting up my heart to Him, then walking in my garden, I was most strangely moved and melted. I could not speak a word for some time. Tears gushed from my eyes. And it seemed as if it were said unto me, Preach on that subject, and thou shalt save bodies and souls from death. The lion is among thy flock, refute him with the Sword of the Spirit, and the sheep committed unto thy charge shall be rescued out of his bloody hands! What the meaning of this is I know not; but wonder at it. There may be something of Heaven in it, more than I am aware of. The next Lords-day, he preached the sermon [on Acts 16: 27, 28.] And behold, soon after it, there came such to him, as informed him, that at that very time, the temptations to self-murder were impelling of them with an horrible violence, but God had blessed that happy sermon for their deliverance! They afterwards joined to his church.

A religious and honorable person, upon the reading of this passage, hoping that the sermon might be again blessed [more than forty years after the first preaching of it,] made enquiry, whether the Notes of the Sermon could be recovered: And here is all that could be recovered. The venerable author, who in the sixty-six years of his ministry did not use his notes in the public, did not so write his notes, as to have all the lively, instructing, affecting amplifications of the pulpit in them. The reader will perceive something of this, in the minutes of the sermon here exhibited. And the transcriber durst not make any unjustifiable interpolations. But his inserting sometimes the words of the texts that are quoted may be allowed him.

The design of the worthy gentleman who demanded this publication, is the same now that has been in many others to which he has generously contributed, that is, to do good. And if any one poor tempted soul, be rescued from the hands of the Destroyer, by what is here offered, I am sure he will count his expenses richly reimbursed. It may also comfort him to have such a token for good, that as Dr. Mather has his friend united with him in the services of the kingdom now, so they will be hereafter united in the glorious enjoyments of it.

Do Thyself No Harm

Acts 16: 27, 28

“He would have killed himself; — but Paul cried with a loud voice, Do thyself no harm.”

In the context, the Evangelist gives an account concerning the imprisonment of Paul and Silas for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and a most remarkable occurrence happening thereupon which proved the conversion of the jailer who had dealt very cruelly with them. We have, here withal, a relation of what proved the occasion of that strange conversion. It was brought to pass by means of a miraculous earthquake which happened at midnight. The jailer being, by this earthquake, frightfully waked out of sleep, was full of distress and consternation. While he was thus distressed in his mind, the devil took advantage to fall upon him with horrid temptations.

Two things are noted in the words before us. First, there is noted the evil which the jailer was tempted unto, to wit, self-murder. He drew his sword, and was just ready to heath it in his own wretched bowels. Secondly, there is noted that which was the happy means of diverting him from the evil; to wit, the apostles speaking to him. He cried with a loud voice, very earnestly. And it was time to be in earnest. It was a matter of life and death!

Indeed, he used the most effectual argument that could be, to dissuade him from persisting in his attempt of self-murder. He convinced him, that the temptation which hurried him on to the barbarous and bloody fact, by him defined, was a mere needless fear. He was afraid, the prisoners were gone, and therefore the magistrates who committed them to prison would put him to death for letting them escape. Therefore Paul says, We are all here. How the Apostle knew that this was his temptation, this is not expressly declared. Probably, the jailer might utter some words to that purpose. However, he was distressed with a causeless fear. And yet this distress did, through the instigation of Satan, prevail so far that he was just upon the point of making himself away. Such is the subtlety of Satan and his great power over the minds of men. When God shall see meet to let him loose, so that he can, from mere imaginary fears, put them upon no less an evil than self-destruction. It was with the jailer so, and the temptation had prevailed, if Paul had not earnestly cautioned him from hearkening to it.

Doctrine

People distressed with temptation had sometimes need to be earnestly cautioned against the sin of self-murder.

There are two things to be now spoken to: First, what the distresses and temptations are that put men upon the sin of self-murder. And then, the reasons why they that are so tempted should be earnestly cautioned against this evil.

Question 1. The distresses and temptations that often put men upon the sin of self-murder: What are they?

I. Sometimes men are tempted unto this evil, so that they may not fall into the hands of those that they think will put them to a miserable death. This was the temptation of the jailer now before us. According to the law among the Romans, if the jailer let his prisoner go he was to suffer the same punishment which the prisoner should have undergone. Hence, Acts 12: 18, 19. When Peter escaped, the soldiers that were set for his keepers, Herod ordered them to be put to death. Sinful creatures think with themselves that if they live a while longer, they shall be put to a more miserable death, and therefore it may be said of them, sin hast thou chose rather than affliction! They will destroy themselves, rather than stay for other men to do it. We have several instances of this in the sacred scriptures. Saul, bloody Saul, was one of them. He will die by his own hands rather than the Philistines. Achitophel was another of them. He might well conclude, when his counsel was not hearkened to, that David would prevail, and then he must needs die for his treasons. What is it that we read of Zimri? I King 16: 18. When he saw the city was taken, and he must fall into the hands of his enemies, he burnt the king’s house over him and he died. Human history gives us many other instances. Among the rest, Hannibal poisoned himself, that he might not fall into the hands of his enemies. Demosthenes did the like. The wicked Jews blasphemously imagined that the Holy Son of God, the blessed Jesus, would have killed himself for fear of falling into their hands. John 8: 22. Then said the Jews, ‘Will he kill himself?’

II. The fear of disgrace in the world puts men upon it. There was this also in the temptation of the jailer. He thought it a disgraceful thing to be put to death in a way of judicial proceeding and with a public execution. And therefore! —– Sometimes a proud Spirit had rather commit the greatest sin against God than undergo a little disgrace from men. This was the temptation of Abimeleck to murder himself, or (which is the same) to desire another to kill him. Judges 9:54. Slay me that men may say not of me, ‘a woman slew him. There have been some that, when they have committed foul and shameful sins, have, through fear of punishment and disgrace among men, destroyed themselves. To a proud spirit there is nothing so bitter as disgrace and infamy. When this temptation overcomes them, they will choose death rather than such a misery. And thus also it is when men, for fear of want, shall desperately destroy themselves. They think it will be a disgraceful thing to be beholden unto others for their subsistence, and it may be, to be brought unto a morsel of bread and live like a beggar! Such a temptation is too hard for them, and therefore they think to be eased of it by a self-destruction.

III. Distress of conscience is that from which the devil does many times, take occasion to tempt men unto the sin of self-murder. Saul was in distress of conscience as well as otherwise distressed, and therein he would have starved himself to death. See I Sam. 28: 15,22,23. ——— Judas is in distress of conscience, and then! —— He flies to the halter that he may let out his wretched soul. The burden of a guilty and a wounded conscience is intolerable. It is said, Prov. 18: 14. Who can bear it? Poor creatures having such a wounded spirit, and being under the strong delusions of Satan, often think to obtain some ease by ruining of themselves. Especially when inward & outward troubles meet together, (as oftentimes they do). Miserable creatures are in danger of becoming guilty of this crime. Satan takes this advantage to tempt them unto it. It seems as if Job were thus tempted, though he had the grace to resist and conquer the temptation. He was in affliction upon temporal accounts. At the same time he thought God was his enemy. He felt the terrors of God in his soul. God suffered Satan to terrify him with frightful dreams. He was tempted hereupon to choose the most ignominious death, rather than be in such misery. He says, John 7: 15 My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life. But the mercy of God preserved him from laying violent hands upon himself! —-

Question 2. For what reasons are they that are so tempted, earnestly cautioned against complying with the temptation?

I. Temptations to self-murder, Satan is in them! Such temptations are not from the holy and blessed God. Let no man say, when he is thus tempted, I am tempted of God! —- Job’s wife tempted him to commit such a sin as would bring a quick death upon himself. Curse God and die! She was an instrument of Satan. It was the devil that put her upon giving that cursed and bloody counsel to her husband. The devil would persuade men to think of getting out of affliction by sin. Yea, and to die sinning, that the last act which they do before they go out of the world should be to commit some great sin against the glorious God. He knows this will render them unfit to die! Thus the devil says, murder and die!— Stab thyself,— shoot thyself,— choke thyself— and die! The devil is therefore said to be–John 8: 44. A murderer. Yea, Satan has a most peculiar hand in the perpetration of this crime. As is evident from the strange manner how sometimes it is accomplished:— by drowning, in a small puddle of water, — hanging upon a small twig, not enough to bear the weight of a man, —or with knees resting on the ground. Satan must needs have a great hand — the invisible world is most sensibly at work in such things as these!

II. Self-murder is a very great sin. Murder is the greatest sin against the second table of the Law. Tis a great provocation in the sight of God. Hence is that expression in the scripture, concerning a most abominable thing.—Isa. 66: 3. It is as if he killed a man. Tis a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance! –See Acts 28: 4.— But self-murder is the worst kind of murder. — Tis the most unnatural! — For a man to murder a near relative tis worse than for him to murder another. And the nearer the relation is, the greater the sin.— Therefore, ——- tis a most complicated sin?

The self-murderer sins against the glorious God in defacing of his image, and in dishonoring of His name. —Especially, if he be a person that has made any pretences to religion. ———

He sins against himself, — against his own body, as if hating his own flesh. — And it may be said unto him, Thou hast sinned against thy own soul. His reputation also, is forever destroyed.

He sins against his relatives to whom he causes the greatest grief, and the greatest dishonor, that can be. ——

III. A willful and impenitent self-murderer cannot be saved! We are taught, 1 John 3: 15. Ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Then, most certainly, no self-murderer — without repentance — which, in many cases, how can it be supposed!

Its true, the elect of God may be grievously tempted unto this sin. The jailer was one of those. — Yea, many of the elect have been so, in the pangs of the new-birth, at their first conversion unto God, and some have been so after their conversion. The best of saints upon earth may be so. Of Job I have told you. I may tell you of Luther, and of many more, when the devil has no hope of prevailing, yet he will tempt unto this crime. He will do it only to vex and molest the faithful servants of God! He therefore tempted our blessed Jesus Himself unto it. See Matt. 4: 6. —

But, except it be in case of destraction, it is a rare thing for Satan thus to prevail over any that belong unto God. If he do, yet the execution cannot be so dispatched as to leave no space of repentance. Therefore, it is very observable that though we read of some of the elect of God in the scripture that have been tempted unto this crime, yet none were left actually to commit it. But such as we have cause to look upon as reprobates; were a Saul, an Achitophel, a Zimri, & a Judas, any other?

As for secret things and extraordinary cases, we must leave them to God. Nevertheless, it is a clear scriptural principle, that an impenitent murderer cannot be saved. There are some sins, that an elect person shall be preserved from. Such particularly is the unpardonable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And such is final impenitency. Therefore, it concerns them that have the use of reason and know what they do, to beware of this sin as they bear any respect unto the salvation of their precious and immortal souls.

IV. Life is a great mercy. Men should be cautioned against despising and willfully casting away the mercies of God. Life in this world, is an invaluable mercy: because whilst there is life there is hope: Eccl 9: 4. To him who is joined unto all the living there is hope. As long as persons are alive, there is an hopeful possibility that they may repent and turn and live unto God: — that they may obtain an assurance of an interest in Jesus Christ, — that the pardon of their sins may be secured. But when life is at an end, there is no hope of repentance or of getting a part of Christ, or of getting sin to be forgiven. We are told, Heb. 9: 27. After death the judgment. If those things are not made sure of before the soul of a man is out of his body, and his probation-time is over, it will be too late forever. So we read, Isa. 38: 18. —They that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Use I. We may here take notice of the folly & unreasonableness of those temptations, whereby sinful creatures are sometimes put upon self-destruction. — As particularly, — that fear of disgrace in the world. — For any man to do himself harm for fear of that, is marvelous folly! A man cannot more disgrace himself than by committing such a sin. He leaves an everlasting blot upon his name, as long as he shall be spoken of in the world. And there is besides, an everlasting contempt which such persons, dying impenitently, must at the last day be exposed unto. When besides all their other sins, there shall be this alleged against them, that they were guilty of the most unnatural wickedness in the world. Is it not folly for men to bring upon themselves an eternal shame and confusion world without end, that they may escape a temporal!

Thus, when men shall do harm unto themselves for the fear of want, it is unspeakable folly and madness in the children of men to do so, because they do that act,[without repentance] throw themselves into that place where they shall want every good thing; and, Psal. 49: 19. They shall never see light. In hell there is the want of everything. No spiritual blessings are there, no Sabbaths, nor any means of Grace are there. No, nor any earthly comforts neither. Not so much as a drop of water, to relieve a tongue in torments there!

There is another poor creature thus tempted of the devil. I am a reprobate, and I am sure I shall not be saved and therefore, if I destroy myself, I shall have less punishment in Hell than if I lived longer in the world. I answer; thou canst not know thy reprobation. It is not God, but Satan, who tells thee, that thou art a reprobate. Thou art not sure that thou shalt not be saved. The Lord says no such thing unto thee, but says, Isa. 45: 22. Look unto me, all the ends of the earth and be ye saved. Be it how it will with thee, do thyself no harm: Thoumay for ought any one can say, yet be saved forever. Nor is this true, that thy damnation will be the less if thou destroy thyself. For damnation and punishment in hell will be the greater and the deeper according to the aggravations of the sins which have brought the sinner thither. Now self-murder is a sin so heinous and aggravated, that if thou die impenitently under the guilt of it, thy damnation will doubtless be the greater for it.

It may be said, I will repent and pray for the pardon of my sin before I do it. I answer, what a delusion of Satan! I have read indeed of a philosopher who called upon his Gods, and so threw himself into the fire to his own destruction. But canst thou think, that God will hear such prayers’? No, — Psal. 66: 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. If thou comest before God, with bloody resolutions in thy heart, God will not accept of thy prayers. He says, Isa. 1: 15. When you make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. Nor can this be called repentance: For a man to confess a sin and be resolved still upon the commission of it! No, tis he who confesseth and forsaketh that shall find mercy.

Use 2. Hence it is an evil thing to speak favorably either of self-murder or of self-murderers. There have been those who have undertaken to justify self-murder in some cases. [See Voet. fol. 4, Desp. de lesione Jui-ipsius.] Pagan Philosophers taught, that it was lawful for persons to murder themselves, that they might save their reputation or prevent falling into the hands of their enemies — Famous the Story of Lucretia.——-

In what we call, the Second Book of the Maccabees, we find celebrated, an action of one Rasis, for which the Jews cry him up as a martyr, but Austin censures him for a criminal self-murderer with reasons that cannot be answered.

Yea, some Christians have cried up those, who to save their chastity, and so themselves, from disgrace, have destroyed their own lives. And the crying up of such a fact has given occasion unto many others to become guilty of that horrible thing, that unnatural sin. But must Saul’s self-murder be lawful too?

To extol the persons of self-murderers to Heaven is an evil and a dangerous practice. We should rather leave secret things unto God, and unto the discoveries of the Great Day! Indeed, if a mans life and conversation were as becomes the gospel, we are not positively and absolutely to say, that he is damned, though he killed himself. Because we know not but that he might be at that time under some distraction and it is not impossible but that God may suffer Satan to possess, and torment, and kill the bodies of some whose souls may yet be saved in the Day of the Lord. Yet on the other hand, if there were no sign of distraction appearing before they went to destroy themselves, nor any evidence of repentance after such attempts, we should not say such persons are gone to Heaven. Left by being over-charitable to the dead, we become cruel to the living. The saying, such persons are saved, may occasion and encourage others to do the like, and the everlasting destruction of bodies and souls follow upon it.

Use 3. Beware of this iniquity.

One would think there should be no great need of such an exhortation; To call upon men, to do themselves no harm! Since there is in every man, a principle of self–preservation. Yet there is too much occasion for it. One self-murder makes way for another. Saul did for that of his amour bearer. ———–

It is a lamentable thing that in a place of so much light and profession as this, it should be said unto a self-murdering devil; —Thou shalt persuade and prevail also! —- That in such a place, there should be any need of insisting on such a subject! — Yet there has been so and there is! Above four years ago, I saw occasion to insist on a subject of this importance because within the space of but five weeks, there had been five self-murders! The Lord knows how many others may be tempted at this time, unto the like. I am not without apprehensions, that the bloody lion, who goes about seeking whom he may devour, may be let loose among the flock. And, therefore I thought it my duty to withstand him with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Not knowing, but that I may, by such means, rescue poor creatures out of his hands!

My Advice on the Occasion is this:

First, be humbled in the sight of god. Be humbled for all thy sins. — And be humbled under temptations to this sin. — Be humbled as long as thou hast a day to live. Because they have not been humbled, Satan has been let loose upon some with greater violence. When a sin has been repented of, there will not now be so much danger of that sin as there was before.

Secondly, Beware of such sins as may provoke the holy and righteous God, to leave thee unto this most horrid evil.

Beware of pride. When men will rather not be at all, than be what God would have them to be. What cursed pride is that!

This produces murmuring at the providence of God; and causes people to say, 2 kings 6: 33. What should I wait for the Lord any longer?

Beware of self–confidence. Be sensible of thy weakness, let him that stands take heed lest he fall. Be not confident of thy own strength to encounter the adversary. If God should let Satan loose upon thee, he’ll be too hard for thee.

Beware of an heart glued unto the world. When the world is a mans idol he will rather part with his very life, [with his own hands give it away!] than part with the world.

Beware of unbelief.— Distrust not the fatherly care of the heavenly Father.

Beware of despair. I Thes. 5: 8. Putting on for an helmet, the hope of salvation. Say not, The day of grace is over with me. — Say not, I have sinned unpardonably! — Vain Imaginations!

Beware of the more heinous crimes; which are in a special manner God-provoking evils. The sins against nature are so. Some that have been guilty of such sins, in secret, and have not repented of them. God has for such things left them to this, which is a sin against nature too! [Se Voetii Disp.. ubi supra.]

There are other atrocious crimes; Whereof this has been the consequence—Judas and Pilate, are two fearful examples of it! ——

Finally, beware of backsliding from God, and from good beginnings in religion. Remember that word, Hos. 8: 3. He hath cast off the thing that is good, the enemy shall pursue him. Some have left off prayer in their families; Left off their attendance on lectures; left off Godly exercises which they have been used unto. Therefore the enemy of their souls is let loose upon them and he pursues them even to self-destruction.

Thirdly, resist the tempter. Tis the counsel, Jam. 4: 7. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

—How, resist him? Do it by crying to God. —- If the avenger pursue thee, fly to a Christ, as the City of Refuge. Resist the devil! —- The next words are: Draw nigh to God.

But then, employ the word of God for the resisting of the temptation — It was Luthers method. — Yea, our Jesus has given us a pattern of it, — It is written!

Do one thing more, discover the temptations of the devil. Make a discovery, not unadvisedly unto all the world; but unto some faithful minister, or unto some other able Christian. One that cut his own throat a while ago, said before his expiration; O! That I had told, how I was tempted! If I had, I believe I should never have come to this!

Fourthly, above all a true faith is to be labored for. By faith embrace an offered Savior; this will keep thee from the destroyer. Being by faith, safe in the hands of thy Savior. The devil shall not pluck thee out of those hands. Tis directed, Eph. 6: 16. Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. As by faith we obtain a victory over the world; [1 John 5: 4.] So we obtain a victory over Satan too. He has not such power over a true believer, as he has over others.

Act faith on the victory of thy Savior over Satan; Hoping and looking for a share in that!

And by faith, look up unto thy Savior, as unto one who knows how to succor the tempted. ——–

Boston, 23 May 1682

Fini

 

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(1639-1723)

A Call to the Tempted: A Sermon on the Horrid Crime of Self-Murder

Filed under Americas, Christianity, Devil, Honor and Disgrace, Mather, Increase, Selections, Sin, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:24 pm

HUANG LIUHONG
(1633-c. 1710)

from A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence

 

Huang Liuhong (Huang Liu-hung) was a district magistrate during the early Qing (Ch’ing) or Manchu dynasty (1644–1912), when Manchu values and behavior were being imposed on Han China. He was born in Xinchang (Hsin-ch’ang) at a time of civil conflict and great disorder. When he was 19 years old, Huang passed a civil service exam and earned the juren (chü-jen) degree. He was then able to travel throughout China, educating himself on the history of the provinces he visited. At the time, the ruling Manchu, after decades of violence and political strife, sought the cooperation of educated citizens in an attempt to assuage nationalist opposition. It was in these circumstances that, in 1670, Huang was made magistrate of the Tancheng (T’an-ch’eng) district. He also served as magistrate in other districts and learned enough from his experiences to write a book of guidelines for the office of magistrate. This book, A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence, became a manual for local governors in the Qing dynasty for several centuries.

In this manual, Huang describes types of suicide that were common at the time and distinguishes among the different sorts of intentions under which a person might commit suicide. Suicides committed because of suffering or abuse are to be pitied, he asserts, while those committed for other reasons, like a trivial grudge or to injure an enemy, cannot be condoned. Huang then explains methods he used in his district to lower the number of suicides being committed. This window into the practice of suicide, as well as attitudes about self-killing in 17th century China, gives some evidence of the Chinese assumption that others may play a causal role in suicides and provides a look at one official’s efforts—apparently effective—at suicide prevention.

Source

Huang Liu-Hung, A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence: A Manual for Local Magistrates in Seventeenth-Century China, ed. and tr. Djang Chu. Topic 7, Administration of Justice: Chüan 14, Homicide (Part I); Chüan 15, Homicide (Part II). Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1984, pp. 319-320, 355-358.

 

from A COMPLETE BOOK CONCERNING HAPPINESS AND BENEVOLENCE

Homicide

Homicide cases are of two kinds: genuine and counterfeit.  Among the genuine homicide cases there are seven different categories: killing in a robbery (chieh-sha), killing by premeditation (mou-sha), killing by intent (ku-sha), killing in an affray (tou-sha), killing by error (wu-sha), killing in play (his-sha), and killing be accident (kuo-shih-sha).  Counterfeit homicide cases involve people who hang themselves, drown themselves, or cut their own throats—those who are mistakenly considered as homicide victims but in reality are suicides.

Among the seven categories of homicide cases—aside from killing in a robbery—only the criminals who are convicted of killing by premeditation, killing by intent, or killing in an affray are subject to the death penalty.  In each of these cases, however, the victim’s corpse must be examined to ascertain that there are death-causing wounds and the murder weapon inspected to see if the weapon tallies with the wounds.  A murderer forfeits his life only when genuine homicide is proved.  In the absence of an examination of the corpse and an inspection of the weapon, even if it is a genuine homicide case, the suspect’s life cannot be taken away arbitrarily without proof of guilt.  This provision of the law is designed to prevent false accusations and to protect the life of the innocent.

Suicides who hang themselves or kill themselves by other means are generally prompted by temporary emotional outbursts or by the intention of harming their enemies. In such cases the victims take their own lives without serious consideration, and their deaths cannot be attributed to the intentions of their enemies.  However, there are instances in which the victim commits suicide as a result of oppression and browbeating by his enemy.  Such cases must be investigated thoroughly.  On the other hand, there are also cases in which a person dies after a long illness and his relatives bring the corpse to the door of his enemy to make a false accusation of homicide with the intention of blackmailing him.  This kind of false accusation must be severely punished to suppress the evil tendency of making false charges.

The ways to differentiate the seven categories of homicide and the essentials of conducting examinations of corpses are explained below for the reference of magistrates who wish to be cautious in making decisions in order to prevent injustice and to protect the lives of innocent people.

Suicide

Suicide happens to both men and women.  Among women who commit suicide, some kill themselves because of ill treatment at the hands of their parents-in-law, while others do so because of their husband’s cruelties.  These unfortunate women deserve our sympathy.  However, there are cases in which a woman, having a quarrel with her mother-in-law, having an occasional argument with her husband, or having exchanges of heated words with a sister-in-law or even a stranger, kills herself in a paroxysm of distress.  This kind of self-destruction does not constitute a case for condolence.  Often a girl commits suicide because of maltreatment by her stepmother or shame brought on her by an illicit liaison.

As to men who commit suicide, some suicides are due to dire poverty or suffering from extreme cold and hunger; others are the victims of private or official debts without means to repay.  These people are entitled to our compassionate consideration.  But there are those who sacrifice their lives because of insignificant grudges and choose to die in the homes of their enemies, their main purpose being to vent their spleen and let their relatives seize the enemies’ property on trumped-up charges.  Such acts of depravity cannot be condoned.

When a suicide case is reported, the magistrate should go to the place where it happened and examine the corpse immediately.  When real grievances of the deceased can be ascertained, the person who has caused his death should be punished with heavy blows and levied a fine to pay for the burial expenses and to pacify the spirit of the deceased.  On the other hand, if the suicide is committed without provocation or valid reason, the magistrate should order the relatives to have the corpse buried and no innocent people should be implicated in the case.  Thus the evil trend of false accusation can be suppressed and the people will know how important it is to value their own lives.

When I was the magistrate of T’an-ch’eng and later Tungkuang, there were many suicide cases, especially in T’an-ch’eng.  As the land was unproductive, the people lived in abject poverty, with few pleasures in life.  Furthermore, the social trend was toward militancy and ruthlessness; the inhabitants habitually enjoyed fighting one another and paid little attention to the maxims of etiquette and courtesy.  Not infrequently father and son living in the same household turned into enemies on the spur of the moment, and relatives and neighbors in the same village got into fist fights while entertaining and feasting.  Suicides by hanging were daily occurrences and self-destruction by cutting one’s own throat or drowning in the river were common events.

I became alarmed at the situation and said to myself, “The lack of education on the part of youthful delinquents is the fault of their parents.  Not heeding the instruction of their parents is the mistake of the youth themselves.  If I teach them first and punish them later in accordance with the provisions of the law, they cannot complain about the severity of judgments.”  Accordingly, I issued a proclamation that was written in the form of popular doggerel rhymes and ordered copies posted in all villages and city wards.  In doing so I hoped the ignorant females would understand the importance of practicing filial piety and kindness as well as the shame of being vixens and shrews; and that people in all walks of life—merchants, peasants and artisans—would be proud to be law-abiding citizens and would recognize it as disgraceful to be belligerent and quarrelsome.  The main purpose, however, was to eliminate the causes for committing suicide as well as to admonish potential suicides of the legal consequences of taking such futile action.

I said in essence, “Those males who hang themselves from rafters or drown themselves in water will become wandering ghosts, hovering under the roofs or drifting with the waves.  If the officials fail to bury their bodies, they will be infested with and consumed by flies and maggots.  Who is there to have pity on them?  Those females who hang themselves with rope or sashes will become specters haunting narrow alleys and dark rooms.  When an inquest is ordered their naked bodies will be exposed to prying eyes.  Did they not possess a sense of shame when they were living?  The human body is not only a bequest of one’s parents but also a result of countless cycles of reincarnation. That anyone can be degraded enough to destroy it with his own hands and regard it no more important than that of a pig or a dog is something I detest most vigorously.  Why should I value the body bequeathed to someone by his parents if he does not value it himself?  Why should I refrain from treating it as if it were that of a pig or a dog if he himself treats it that way?  From now on, anyone who uses a case of suicides to falsely accuse another of a crime shall be subject to the punishment the alleged crime would have merited.  Anyone who gathers a mob to rob others on the pretext of avenging a suicide shall be punished according to the law on robbery in broad daylight.  Would not this make the one who commits suicide with such a vile scheme in mind sacrifice his life in vain?  This magistrate always back up his words with deeds!  Ye multitudes, reflect on this and realize what is at stake!”

During my tenures of magistracy I strictly ordered all village headmen and local elders to report suicide cases with accurate descriptions and to designate them as such. Whenever a case was reported, I would ride to the locale immediately to examine the corpse.  If it was a genuine suicide case without any suspicious implications, I would investigate the cause of the suicide; those who were involved were punished with blows or fined for burial expenses.  If the suicide was committed without adequate reason and did not deserve sympathy, the relatives of the deceased were ordered to bury the corpse and to sign a statement acknowledging that it was a suicide.

On such occasions I would not issue warrants for arrests and would not bring a large number of runners to the examination.  No matter how far away the place was, I would bring my own ration and would not oblige the family of the deceased to furnish even a cup of tea.  I would order the clerk of the criminal section to record the appearance of the corpse and take down the testimonies of relatives.  No mat shed would be installed for this purpose.  All I needed was a stool and a mat to sit on.  Not a single cash would be spent by the family of the deceased, and they would not be required to appear at the yamen.  The case would be concluded in a day, not even postponed overnight.

If there were unruly people gathering a group of followers, armed with cudgels and weapons, to create disturbances, they would immediately be arrested and punished. The ringleaders would be brought back to the yamen and put in the cangue, then led back to the locality, under the supervision of the village elders, for public exposure.

After I had implemented this policy for half a year, the inhabitants of the district began to get my message and the number of suicide cases decreased dramatically.  After one year no more cases were reported.  Many unnecessary deaths were avoided and I was spared many unpleasant trips.  Who can say that public education and law enforcement do not produce the desired effect in an isolated district?

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(1633-c. 1710)

from A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence

Filed under Asia, Huang Liuhong, Poverty, Selections, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:22 pm

JOHN LOCKE
(1632–1704)

from The Second Treatise of Government
     Of the State of Nature
     Of Slavery

 

John Locke was born in Wrington, Somersetshire, in 1632 and was raised by his father, an attorney in Pensford. Because of frail health, his early education was completed at home, but he later attended Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1658, he was elected to teach philosophy and Greek, but he found the subjects uninteresting and soon switched his focus to medicine. Locke was made a fellow of the Royal Society after his work in natural and experimental science with scientists such as Robert Boyle. Locke became the physician to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, whose friendship influenced him to enter politics. When Shaftesbury fell from the king’s favor in 1675, Locke moved to France for four years, where he met philosophers who helped to shape his epistemological theories. Shaftesbury fled to Holland after James II became king, where he died; a few months later, Locke also fled to Holland, suspected of complicity in the Rye House Plot. Locke remained in the Netherlands until 1688; during this time, he produced many of his most important writings. He returned to England after the revolution of 1688, when William of Orange became king, and served for 11 years as commissioner of trade and plantations. Locke’s last years were spent with friends at the Masham estate in Essex, where he was the intellectual leader of the Whigs and instituted many governmental reforms; he died there in 1704. Locke’s intellectual influence was far-reaching: he laid the epistemological foundations for modern science, influenced the Declaration of Independence and other foundational documents for the new United States, and contributed to the start of the empiricist tradition and the Age of Enlightenment and Reason in England and France.

During a discussion with friends about ethics and religion, Locke proposed to try to determine what questions human understanding could and could not address. The first drafts of his attempts date as early as 1671; the result—some 17 years later—was called the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), a general theory of knowledge and language. Knowledge, Locke argues, is formed out of the accumulation of everyday sensations—this is a central tenet of empiricism; “innate” knowledge is inconceivable.

In the Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke outlines the principles of politics. He rejects the idea of the divine right of kings and introduces the concept of a social contract: it is the consent of the people that is the basis of the right to rule. While for Locke, claims to self-ownership ground property rights in the labor of one’s body, self-ownership is nevertheless limited. As is clear in the passage presented here, God is the ultimate owner of one’s body: 

For men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and
infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one Sovereign Master,
sent into the world by his order, and about his business;
they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last
during his, not one another’s pleasure.

This central argument is supplemented by another descended from Plato [q.v], that one ought “not to quit his station willfully,” that is, one ought not desert the post to which God has appointed him. On both grounds, one is not free to end one’s own life, and one is not free to place oneself in a position where another may take it.

Although in the section “On Slavery” Locke reiterates his view that a man does not have “the power of his own life,” that is, the moral authority to take his own life, he does note that a man convicted of a capital crime—who by his act has forfeited his own life, and whose sentence is delayed by being forced into penal servitude—is able to hasten his death sentence after all by refusing to obey his master. The slave can thus “draw on himself the death he desires,” that is, bring about the ending of his life by provoking others into executing him. Is this a moral argument, perhaps one that, in asserting the claim that in exploiting a convict for slave labor the master “does him no injury,” also implies that because the condemned man’s life is already forfeit, he (unlike other persons) is therefore no longer under an obligation to preserve it? Or is it simply an observation about the practical possibilities for a slave to avoid a life of intolerable hardship? The question of whether this passage is neutral as to the morality of hastening one’s own death sentence remains open to discussion.

Source

John Locke, “The Second Treatise of Government,” Ch. 2, sections 4, 6; Ch. 4, sections 22-23, from Two Treatises of Government, second edition, ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 287-289, 301-302 [original text only; apparatus not used; spelling and punctuation modernized]. Available from Project Gutenberg Release #7370.

 

from THE SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT

Of the State of Nature

To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another: there being nothing more evident, than that the creatures of the same species and rank promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all, should by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty…

But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. For men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure And being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

Of Slavery

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws; but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. For a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it:. For, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, ‘tis in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires.

Comments Off on JOHN LOCKE
(1632–1704)

from The Second Treatise of Government
     Of the State of Nature
     Of Slavery

Filed under Europe, Locke, John, Selections, Slavery, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:21 pm

SAMUEL VON PUFENDORF
(1632-1694)

from Of the Law of Nature and Nations

 

Samuel von Pufendorf was born into a long line of Lutheran clergy in Saxony. He studied at the universities of Leipzig and Jena, shifting from early studies in theology to philosophy, philology, history, and law. While he was working as a tutor for the Swedish ambassador in Copenhagen, Denmark, war broke out between the two countries; Pufendorf was subsequently arrested and spent eight months in prison. During this time, he began his first book on the principles of law.

Seven years later, at the request of the king of Sweden, Pufendorf took up a full professorship at the University of Lund. It was here that Pufendorf published his major work, Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1672). By examining national and international law, Pufendorf argued that every individual, by virtue of his or her innate human dignity, had a right to freedom and equality. In believing that self-interest is the source of action in society, he viewed slavery as unnatural and unreasonable. Pufendorf was influenced by Thomas Hobbes, who also placed emphasis on “nature” as a basis for ethical relationships. Unlike Hobbes, however, Pufendorf assumed that the state of nature is peaceful, not hostile. Pufendorf held the secular view that natural law and ethical principles stem from human reason, and that law and ethics should concern man in his social context.

In the section entitled “On the Duties of Man Towards Himself in the Cultivation of His Mind as Well as in the Care of His Body and of His Life,” Pufendorf addresses the specific matters of “whether there be any obligation to preserve one’s life” and “whether suicide be lawful” by analyzing the works of previous philosophers, many of whose views he rejects. In this discussion, which provides evidence of his voluminous scholarship, he appears to answer secular arguments with religious ones, arguing that suicide is an injury to God and to the human race, and insists that the law of nature requires self-preservation. He considers situations in which one person takes risks to save the life of another, or where a disgraceful death may be avoided, or where a person lets himself be killed by another, but denies “the absolute power of a man over his own life.”

In 1677, Pufendorf abandoned his writings on law and went to Stockholm where he became the royal historiographer, writing a 33-volume history of Sweden. In 1688, he moved to Berlin where he continued to write histories. Pufendorf’s works were standards for students of history and law, but fell into obscurity after the 18th century.

Source

Samuel von Pufendorf [Puffendorf], Of the Law of Nature and Nations, tr. Basil Kennett, 3rd ed. Printed for R. Sare, R. Bonwicke, T. Goodwyn, J. Walthoe, M. Wotton, S. Manschip, R. Wilkin, B. Tooke, R. Smith, T. Ward, and W. Churchill, London 1717. Book II, Ch. 4, sections 16-19: “The Duties of Man with Regard to Himself,” pp. 177-182. Spelling modernized; internal citations, footnotes and Greek passages deleted.

 

from OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS

On the Duties of Man Towards Himself in the Cultivation of his Mind as well as in the Care of his Body and of his Life

How passionately every man loves his own life, and how heartily he studies the security and preservation of it, is evident beyond dispute. But it will admit of a debate whether the bare natural instinct which he enjoys in common with beasts, inclines him to these desires; or whether he is not engaged in them by some superior command of the law of nature. For, in as much as no one can, in a legal sense, stand obliged to himself, such a law seems to be of no force or significance which is terminated in my self, which I can dispense with when I please, and by the breach of which I do no one an injury. Besides, it looks like a needless thing to establish a law about this point, since the anxious tenderness of self-love would beforehand drive us so forcibly on the care of our own safety, as to render it almost impossible for us to act otherwise. If then a man were born only for himself, we confess it would be convenient that he should be left entirely to his own disposal, and be allowed to do whatever he pleased with himself. But since by the universal consent of all wise men it is acknowledged, that the Almighty Creator made man to serve him, and to set forth his glory in a more illustrious manner, by improving the good things committed to his trust; and since Society, for which a man is sent into the world, cannot be well exercised and maintained, unless every one, as much as in him lies, takes care of his own preservation; (the safety of the whole society of mankind, being a thing unintelligible, if the safety of each particular member were an indifferent point), it manifestly appears, that a man by throwing aside all care of his own life, though he cannot properly be said to injure himself, yet is highly injurious both to Almighty God, and to the general body of mankind.

It was not rightly inferred in the argument that we just now mentioned, that the law of nature did not concern itself with this matter, because instinct did before drive us on the like good resolution. We should rather imagine, that the force of instinct was superadded (as an able second) to the dictate of reason; as if this help alone could scarce make a tie strong enough to keep mankind together. For indeed, if we reflect on the troubles and miseries that constantly wait on human life, and do so far outweigh that little and mean portion of pleasure, which through a perpetual repetition, grows every day more flat and languid, so that we must needs loath it in every enjoyment; and if we consider farther, how many men have their days prolonged only to make them capable of more misfortunes and evils; who is there, almost, who would not rid himself of the burden of life, as soon as possible, if instinct did not render it so light and so sweet; or unless so much bitterness or so much terror were joined to our notion of death? And yet who is there almost who would not break through the bare opposition of instinct, had not the command of our Creator secured us with a much stronger bar and restraint? ‘Nature,’ says Quintillian, ‘hath invented this chief device for the preservation of mankind, to make us die unwillingly, thus enabling us to bear so vast a load of misfortunes as falls to our share, with some patience and quiet.’ And Socrates in Xenophon declares it to be … the artifice of a wise workman, or builder, ‘to have implanted in men a Desire of producing offspring; in women a desire of nursing and bringing them up; and in all, when brought up, a vast desire of living, and as a great a fear of death.’ And this last motive is the main security of every man from the violence of others. For how easy were it to kill, were it not so hard to die? Hence he presently becomes master of other men’s lives, who hath once arrived at the contempt of his own. And the regard that others have to their own safety, is the best defence of mine.

‘Tis a question of more difficulty, whether at all, or how far a man hath power over his own life, either to expose it to extreme danger, or to consume it by slow means and degrees or lastly, to end it in sudden and violent manner. Many of the Ancients allowed a man an absolute right in these points, and thought he might either voluntarily offer his life as a pledge for another’s, or devote it freely, without any such design of preserving the life of his friend; or whenever he grew weary of living, might prevent the tardiness of nature and fate. Pliny calls the ability to kill one’s self, the most excellent convenience, in the midst of so many torments of life. Whom we can by no means excuse from flat impiety, for daring to think so abjectly of the greatest gift of Heaven. It is our business to examine what seems most agreeable in this case, to the law of nature. And here we may take it first of all to be true beyond dispute, that since men both can and ought to apply their pains to the help and service of another; and since some certain kinds of labour, and an overstraining earnestness in any, may so affect the strength and vigour of a man, as to make old age and death come on much sooner, than if he had passed his days in softness, and in easy pursuits; any one may, without fault, voluntarily contract his life in some degree, upon account of obliging mankind more signally, by some extraordinary services and benefits. For since we do not only live to our selves, but to God, and to human society; if either the glory of our Creator, or the safety and good of the general community require the spending of our lives, we ought willingly to lay them out on such excellent uses. Pompey the Great, in a time of famine at Rome, when the officer who had the care of transporting the corn, as well as all his other friends, entreated him not to venture to sea in so stormy a season, nobly answered them, That I should go ‘tis necessary, but not that I should live. And Achilles in Homer, when his fate was put to his choice, preferred a hasty death in the glorious adventures of war, to the longest period of age, to be passed idly and ingloriously at home.

Farther, in as much as it frequently happens, that the lives of many men cannot be preserved, unless others expose themselves, on their behalf, to a probable danger of losing their own; this makes it evident, that the lawful governour may lay an injunction on any man in such cases, not to decline the danger upon pain of the severest punishment. And on this principle is founded the obligation of soldiers, which we shall enlarge upon in its proper place. ‘Tis a noble saying of Socrates in Plato’s Apology, In whatever station a man is fixed, either by his own choice, as judging it the best, or by the command of his superior; in that he ought resolutely to continue, and to undergo any danger that may assault him there; reckoning neither death nor any other evil so grievous, as cowardice and infamy.

Nor doth it seem at all repugnant either to natural reason, or to the Holy Scriptures, (which command us to lay down our lives for our brethren) that, without any such rigid injunction of a superior, a man should voluntarily expose himself to a probability of losing his life for others; provided he hath good hopes of thus procuring their safety, and that they are worthy of so dear a ransom: For it would be silly and senseless, that a man should venture his own life for another whom ‘tis impossible to preserve; and that a person of worth and excellence should sacrifice himself for the security of an insignificant paltry fellow. We conceive it then to be lawful, that a man may either give himself as a surety for another, especially for an innocent and worthy person, or as a hostage for the safety of many, in the case of treaties; upon pain of suffering death, if either the accused person does not appear, or the treaty be not observed. Though the other party to whom he stands bound on either of these accounts, cannot fairly put him to death upon such failure; as we shall elsewhere make out. But that those vain customs of men’s devoting themselves out of foolhardiness and ostentation (such as we observed to be in use amongst the Japanese), are contrary to the law of nature, we do not in the least doubt. For there can be no virtue in an action where there’s no reason. Nor do we pretend to maintain, that the law of nature obliges a man to prefer the lives of others to his own; especially supposing the cases and circumstances to be equal. For besides that the common inclination of mankind is an argument to the contrary, we might allege the testimony of witnesses beyond all exception, allowing a man to be always dearest to himself, and charity still to begin at home.


It remains that we examine, whether or no a man, at his own free pleasure, either when he grows weary of life, or on the account of avoiding some terrible impending evil, or some ignominious and certain death, may hasten his own fate, as a remedy to his present or to his future misfortunes. On this point we have a famous saying of Plato, in Phaedo, frequently mentioned with honour and commendation by Christian writers: … We are placed, as it were, upon the guard, in life; and a man must not rid himself of this charge or basely desert his post. Which Lactantius hath expressed more fully in his Divine Institutions; As, says he, we did not come into the world upon our own pleasure or choice, so neither must we quit our station otherwise than by the command of him who gave it us; who put us into this tenement of the body, with orders to dwell here, ‘til he should please to remove us. It is worth while to hear how Plato describes the self-murderer, whom he hath condemned to a disgraceful burial. He that kills himself, preventing by violence the stroke of fate, being forced to his end neither by the sentence of the judges, nor by any inevitable chance, nor on the account of defending his modesty in extreme danger; but thus unjustly condemning and executing himself, out of cowardice and unmanliness of spirit. Aristotle hath well seconded his master. To die, says he, either to get rid of poverty or of love or of any other trouble or hardship, is so far from being an act of courage, that it rather argues the meanest degree of fear. For ‘tis weakness to fly and to avoid those things which are hard and painful to be undergone. Grotius hath observed, that persons guilty of self-murder were excluded from decent honours of burial, both amongst the Gentiles and the Jews. But amongst the latter, one case is commonly excepted, and allowed as a just reason for killing one’s self; and that is when a man finds he shall otherwise be made a reproach to God, and to religion. For acknowledging the power over our lives not to be in our own hands, but in God’s, they took it for granted, that nothing but the will of God either manifest or presumptive, could excuse the design of anticipating our fate. As instances of this excepted case, they allege the examples of Sampson, who chose to die by his own strength, when he found the True Religion exposed to scorn in his person and misfortunes: and of Saul, who fell on his own sword, lest he should have been derided and insulted over by God’s and his enemies; and lest, if he should have yielded himself prisoner, the slavery of his country and kingdom should inevitably follow. For the Jews are of opinion, that Saul recovered his wisdom and honour, as to the last act of his life; in as much as after the ghost of Samuel had foretold his death in the battle, yet he refused not to engage for his country and for the law of his God; whence he merited eternal praise, even by the testimony ofDavid; who likewise commended so highly the piety of those men, who honoured their prince’s relics with a decent burial.

Some extend this exception and allowance to many other cases which bear a resemblance to the former. And the foundation they build upon is this, that as no man can be properly bound or obliged to himself, so no man can do an injury to himself, when he takes away his own life. As for a man’s being engaged by the Law of Nature to preserve himself, they say the reason of this is, because he is constituted and appointed by God for the maintenance of human society, which he must not by any means forsake, like an idle soldier, who runs away from the post assigned him in battle: And that therefore my obligation to save my own life, is not a debt to myself, but to God, and to the community of mankind. So that if that respect to God and to mankind be taken off and be removed, the care of my life is recommended to me only by sensitive instinct, which not rising to the force of a law, an action repugnant to it cannot be accounted sinful. On these considerations, they think the case of those persons deserves a favourable judgment, and at least a kind pity, rather than a rigorous censure, who lay violent hands upon themselves, when they see that they shall otherwise infallibly suffer a death of torture and ignominy from their enemies; since it cannot be for the interest of the public, that they must needs die in so infamous a manner: Or else, when they see such an injury likely to be offered to them, as if they undergo, they shall be ever after scorned and derided by the rest of mankind. Of the former sort are those who seeing themselves condemned to death, either by cruel enemies abroad, or bloody tyrants at home, have willfully prevented the stroke; either to avoid the tortures and the shame of a public execution, or to procure some benefit to their friends or families by this expedient. Thus Tacitus, giving an account of some of the accused persons under Tiberius, who made themselves away, observe, that the fear of the executioner rendered these acts very frequent. And that whereas such as suffered death in public, were denied the privilege of burial, and had their goods confiscated; those who died by their own hands were decently interred, and their last wills stood good with full effect; these indulgences serving as a reward for their haste. And here, by the way, we may remark, that Martial’s censure doth not always hold good,

‘Tis mad to die for fear of death;

For, as Aeschines hath well distinguished, To die is not so terrible, as to bear the infamy that attends some kinds of deaths.

The other sort of persons whose death we observed to be so favourably interpreted by some Casuists are those women and beautiful boys, who have killed themselves to avoid the violation of their chastity. And in their behalf, they urge this plausible excuse, that being assaulted with such a danger as they could not otherwise, unless by a miracle, escape, they might well conclude, that their Almighty Sovereign and General now gave them a dismission, and that they might well presume on the consent and leave of mankind, to whom they were already lost: it being no one’s interest that they should not anticipate their death for so little a time, to avoid the feeling of such tortures and abuses as might, perhaps, tempt them to yield to a more grievous sin: and in as much as it seemed unreasonable to condemn generous souls to such a necessity, as that they must wait for the sword of villains, who would enhance the bitterness of death, by their foul and ignominious usage.

But to leave this particular point without venturing at a determination; thus much we take to be evident, that those who voluntarily put an end to their own lives, either as tired out with the many troubles which commonly attend our mortal condition; or from an abhorrence of indignities and evils, which yet would not render them disgraceful members of human society; or through fear of such pains and torments as by resolutely enduring, they might have become useful examples to others; cannot be well cleared of the charge of sinning against the law of nature. Sir Thomas Moreseems to be of another opinion in his Utopia, but his reasons do not prevail with us to alter our judgment.

But those are, on all accounts, to be exempted from the crime of self-murder, who lay violent hands on themselves, under any disease robbing them of the use of reason. Many persons likewise who have run into voluntary destruction, upon an exceeding fright and consternation, have on that account been excused by moderate and candid judges.

It ought to be observed farther on this head, that it makes no difference whether a man kill himself, or force others to dispatch him. For he who at such a time, or on such occasion, ought not to die, is by no means excused, if he makes use of another man’s hands to procure his death; since what a man doth by another, he is supposed in law to have done himself, and must therefore bear the guilt or imputation of the fact. David was guilty of the death of Uriah, though he got it effected by the hands of the Ammonites. So were Pilate and Pharisees guilty of that of our Saviour, though they did not themselves fasten him to the cross, but ordered the soldiers to do it. Although the person who lends his hands to such a service, may likewise bring himself in for a share in the fault. For this reason we don’t admire the reflection which Florus makes on the deaths of Brutus and Cassius; Who, says he, doth not wonder, that these wise and great persons did not employ their own hands in their concluding strokes? Perhaps it was part of their persuasion, that they ought not to defile themselves by such attempts, but that in delivering their most holy and most pious souls from the confinement of their bodies, they should make use of their own judgment, in the intention, and of other men’s wickedness in execution. For if it were unlawful for them at that time to end their lives, it was indifferent whether they fell by their own, or by others’ violence. But if it were lawful, how can any wickedness or guilt be imputed to the servants who afflicted them? Though the historian might, in some measure, be excused, if the same custom were practised in his country, which Aeschines mentions amongst the Grecians, that if a person murdered himself, the hand that performed the deed was buried apart from the rest of the body.

To conclude, since we deny that a man hath absolute power over his own life, it is plain that we cannot approve of those laws, which in some countries either command or permit people to make themselves away. Such a law Diodorus Siculus reports to have been in force amongst the inhabitants of the island Ceylon, ordaining, “That the people should live only to such a number of years, which being run out, they eat a certain herb that put them into their long sleep, and dispatched them without the least sense of pain.” And thus too amongst the C[r]eans, all persons above sixty years old, were obliged by the laws to poison themselves, to supply food for the rest. Though Aelian gives this better reason for the practice; “that having arrived at such an age they were conscious to themselves, that they were no longer able to promote their country’s interest by their service; growing now towards stupidity and dotage.” Procopius relates a custom of the Heruli, by which those who were weakened and disabled, either by disease or age, voluntarily sent themselves out of the world: the wives hanging themselves at the tombs of their husbands, if they lost them in this manner…

Comments Off on SAMUEL VON PUFENDORF
(1632-1694)

from Of the Law of Nature and Nations

Filed under Europe, Pufendorf, Samuel von, Selections, Sin, The Early Modern Period

by | · 5:19 pm

THOMAS HOBBES
(1588-1679)

from Leviathan
from A Dialogue of the Common Laws of England

 

The British empiricist Thomas Hobbes was born in Westport, Wiltshire, and, after being abandoned by his father, was raised by an affluent uncle. A precocious child, by the age of 14 he was translating a Greek tragedy into Latin verse. He attended Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and graduated in 1608. He tutored the future earls of Devonshire; this life-long contact with the family offered him exposure to influential people and the opportunity to travel. In 1628, Hobbes published his translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars, partly as a call to his countrymen to see the dangers of democracy. He was influenced by Euclid’s geometry while writing his first philosophical work, A Short Tract on First Principles, in which he employed the deductive method, in contrast to the popular inductive method of Francis Bacon and other experimental scientists. Knowledge of contemporary scientific thought and analysis pushed him away from the apparent vagaries of Aristotelianism and toward a new materialistic philosophy. Hobbes used geometry and the developing Galilean science of motion to describe man in society and his senses and imagination.

In 1640, because of his controversial views on the need for undivided sovereignty as expressed in his Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, Hobbes was forced for safety’s sake into exile in Paris, where he met Réné Descartes. Among his many activities there was service as a tutor to the Prince of Wales. Hobbes wrote on a great many topics, contributing to the fields of metaphysics and logic and laying the incipient foundations for Utilitarianism. In 1651, Hobbes published his masterpiece, Leviathan; or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. In 1666, the House of Commons investigated Leviathan for atheism and blasphemy, with the only result that Hobbes, having the king’s favor, was restricted in what he could publish in England. His materialistic philosophy and the concept of a social contract as the basis of society made him one of the most controversial English philosophers of his day. Hobbes lived to be 91; his later years were characterized by intellectual vigor and continuing controversy.

In Leviathan, Hobbes develops an egoistic psychology of man, describing the natural human condition as “a war of every man against every man.” Because men are by nature aggressive and violent, reason shows that it is prudent for them to enter into a social contract, giving absolute power to a sovereign who can guarantee to protect them from each other. This enables man to transcend the pre-societal condition of life that Hobbes famously describes as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” and thus gives rise to a peaceful societal life in which social institutions and joint undertakings are possible. In the selection from Leviathan presented here, Hobbes outlines the tension between self-preservation and self-destruction. Although he does not explicitly mention suicide, he explains how the social contract involves the exchange of one’s rights over one’s own (and others’) life for the right of security.

In a brief passage in A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England, Hobbes exposes a conundrum in the legal treatment of the person who is felo de se. In this dialogue, probably written between 1662 and the middle to late 1670s but not published until 1681, two years after the author’s death, Hobbes is exploring the tension between his own views that the “state of nature” (though the phrase does not occur in the Dialogue) is one of self-interested mutual hostility, tempered in the civil condition by the investment of sovereignty in the monarch, and the views of Sir Edward Coke, a noted defender of the authority of common law lawyers. Hobbes’s role in this dialogue—he speaks as the Philosopher—is to point out conceptual difficulties in the common law. Both under common law and under English statute, he points out, suicide is treated as a serious crime, but one of which it must be assumed, he argues on the basis of his egoistic psychology, that the perpetrator is not guilty by reason of insanity.

Sources

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan,  J. C. A. Gaskin, ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), part I, ch. XIV: Of the First and Second Natural Laws, and of Contracts, pp. 86-89;  Thomas Hobbes, A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England, Joseph Cropsey, ed., (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1971), “Of Crimes Capital,”  pp. 116-117.

 

from LEVIATHAN

OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS

The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.

By liberty, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments: which impediments, may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his judgment, and reason shall dictate to him.

A law of nature, (lex naturalis,) is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound jus, and lex, right and law; yet they ought to be distinguished; because right, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear: whereas law, determineth, and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right, differ as much, as obligation, and liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.

And because the condition of man, (as hath been declared in the precedent chapter) is a condition of war of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemies; it follweth, that in such a condition, every man has a right to every thing; even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, (how strong or wise so ever he be,) of living out the time, which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule, containeth the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is,  to seek peace, and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.

From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavour peace, is derived this second law; that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for peace, and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself. For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing any thing he liketh; so long are all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their right, as well as he; then there is no reason for any one, to divest himself of his: for that were to expose himself to peace. This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. And that law of all men, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.

To lay down a man’s right to any thing, is to  divest  himself of the  liberty, of hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the same. For he that renounceth, or passeth away his right, giveth not to any other man a right which he had not before; because there is nothing to which every man had not right by nature: but only standeth out of his way, that he may enjoy his own original right, without hindrance from him; not without hindrance from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one man, by another man’s defect of right, is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of his own right original.

Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it; or by transferring it to another. By simply renouncing; when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By transfering; when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person, or persons. And when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his right; then he is said to be obliged, or bound, not to hinder those, to whom such right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he ought, and it is his duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his own: and that such hindrance is injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being before renounced, or transferred. So that injury, or injustice, in the controversies of the world, is somewhat like to that, which in the disputations of scholars is called absurdity. For as it is there called an absurdity, to contradict what one maintained in the beginning: so in the world, it is called injustice, and injury, voluntarily done. The way by which a man either simply renounceth, or transferreth his right, is a declaration, or signification, by some voluntary and sufficient sign, or signs, that he doth so renounce, or transfer; or hath so renounced, or transferred the same, to him that accepteth it. And these signs are either words only, or actions only; or (as it happeneth most often) both words and actions. And the same are the bonds, by which men are bound, and obliged: bonds, that have their strength, not from their own nature, (for nothing is more easily broken than a man’s word,) but from fear of some evil consequence upon the rupture.

Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself; or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. And therefore there be some rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signs, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any good to himself. The same may be said of wounds, and chains, and imprisonment; both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded, or imprisoned: as also because a man cannot tell, when he seeth me proceed against him by violence, whether they intend his death or not. And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring of right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a man’s person, in his life, and in the means of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or other signs, seem to despoil himself of the end, for which those signs were intended; he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will; but that he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted.

 

from A DIALOGUE OF THE COMMONS LAWS OF ENGLAND

A Dialogue between Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England:

Of Crimes Capital

Lawyer. He is a Felon also that killeth himself voluntarily, and is called, not only by Common Lawyers, but also in divers Statute-Laws, Felo de se.

Philosopher.  And ‘tis well so: For names imposed by Statutes are equivalent to Definitions; but I conceive not how any Man can bear Animum felleum, or so much Malice towards himself, as to hurt himself voluntarily, much less to kill himself; for naturally, and necessarily the Intention of every Man aimeth at somewhat, which is good to himself, and tendeth to his preservation: And therefore, methinks, if he kill himself, it is to be presumed that he is not compos mentis, but by some inward Torment or Apprehension of somewhat worse than Death, Distracted.

La.  Nay, unless he be compos mentis he is not Felo de se (as Sir Edw. Coke saith, and therefore he cannot be Judged a Felo de se, unless it be first proved he was compos mentis.

Ph.  How can that be proved of a Man dead; especially if it cannot be proved by any Witness, that a little before his death he spake as other Men used to do. This is a hard place; and before you take it for Common-Law it had need to be clear’d.

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(1588-1679)

from Leviathan
from A Dialogue of the Common Laws of England

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