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The Discussion of Suicide in the Eighteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Lester G. CrockerSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1952), pp. 47-72Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707725

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THE DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE EIGHTEENTH'CENTURY

BY LESTERG. CROCKERMany age-old questions, that have since early times perplexed in-quiring minds, were reanimated by the men of the Enlightenment,thrashed out from the viewpoint of new conceptions of human natureand destiny, and resolved in the light of current needs and beliefs.The prime direction of thought favored ethical and social issues.

Luxury, happiness, progress, truth and falsehood, stand out among theabstract topics that engaged universal interest. Typical of this proc-ess of re-exploration was the renewed discussion of the ethics of sui-cide. As a problem, it was intrinsically less essential than some to thefashioning of a new pattern; but it was none the less part of thepattern. One eddy in the main stream of ideas, it was as ardentlycontested as any other in the bitter struggle between medievalists andmoderns.'The question of suicide is one of intense human interest, and hasbeen approached by greater minds than any who wrote in the eight-eenth century. Who does not remember the gruesome picture in In-ferno XIII, where Dante meets the suicides, turned into trees onwhose leaves Harpies feed?

Io sentia d'ogniparte guai,e non vedea personache'l facesse;per ch'io tutto smarritom'arrestai. ..Shakespeare has Hamlet ponder the question, and makes Cleopatra afollower of Roman philosophy, as well as of Roman heroes.

1 For bibliographies, very incomplete, see Hans Rost, Bibliographie des Selbst-mords (Augsburg, 1927); E. M. Oettinger: "Bibliographie du suicide," Bibliophilebeige, 13, s6rie 24 (1857), 107-14. The only extensive historical study is by AlbertBayet, Le suicide et la morale (Paris, 1922). Bayet traces in great detail the his-tory of the discussion from ancient times to the present. His work is of great valuefor reference, but is far from definitive for the eighteenth century, and probably forother periods as well. It suffers from repetitious compilation, author by author,with insufficient integration and evaluation. The main current of ideas is neglectedas a point of reference in favor of a special thesis (support of suicide represents themorality of the social and intellectual elite, hatred of it, the ignorant and servile).Anti-Catholic bias is evident, and the opinions of some writers are distorted. Also,Bayet limits his discussion to France, an unacceptable boundary line in theeighteenth-century intellectual atmosphere. H. R. Fedden's study (Suicide, London,1938), is on the other hand both highly readable and rewarding for its literary andsocial allusions. Unfortunately it presents no broad philosophical interpretation orspecial knowledge of the eighteenth century.

47


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48 LESTER G. CROCKER. . Andthen,what'sbrave,what'snoble,Let's do it after the high Romanfashion,Andmakedeathproudo take us.

Milton bringsup suicideboth in SamsonAgonistes (" And let anotherhand, not thine, exact Thy penal forfeit from thyself ") and in thetenth book of ParadiseLost, whereEve proposesthat she and Adamescape sufferingand punishment.Of manywaysto die the shortest hoosing,Destructionwith destructiono destroy.

But she is swayed by Adam'swiser counsel: suicide savors of pride,of resistanceagainst God and the just yoke he has laid on our necks.Greatnames of the eighteenthcentury-in France, Montesquieu,Voltaire,Rousseau;in England,Hume-were deeply involved in thedebateoversuicide. In Prussia,Frederick he Great,under the influ-ence of the philosophiedes lumieres, ook stock on the eve of the bat-tle of Rossbach. Summarizinghis materialisticphilosophy (there isno memoryoutside the senses, thereforeno life after death), he re-solves in case of defeat to be no less magnanimous han Cato andother Romans:Fermementesolude vivre et mourir ibreDe laches pr6jugesosant braverles lois.2

Faced with political disaster,"Vivre devient un crime,et mourirundevoir."To understandwhy these leadingfiguresthought as they did, it isnecessaryto considerthem in the context of their times. We mustview their writings n the light of the wholestream of discussion hatengaged a host of lesser men, forming conjointly one facet of thestruggleof ideas.None of the three great poets quotedis referred o by the embat-tled rationalistsof the eighteenth century. The men of the Enlight-enment took their cues fromthe Greekand Romanphilosophers,andrange themselves,according o their faith, either with Plato or Aris-totle, or with the Epicureanand Stoic writerswho in the matter ofsuicide were bedfellows. The example most commonlybrought upanddebatedwas that of Cato. We shall have occasionto see to whatextent the eighteenthcenturyfollowedthe pattern laid downby theAncients.To the Greco-Romanbackgroundwas joined the contributionofChristianmysticism. On the matter of self-destruction, he Churchfathersdefinitelysplit with the OldTestamentheritage. This fact is

2 Oeuvres(Berlin,1849), XII, 153-59.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 49referred o severaltimes by the eighteenth-centuryapologistsof sui-cide. The position of Hebrewtheologyis substantiallythe same to-day as it was in Biblicaltimes. Suicideis considereda crimeagainstGod, unless prompted by extenuating circumstances. However thefive cases in the Old Testament-all of which are condoned-wouldindicatethat the exemptionsaremany. Honor, goodof country,fear,atonement,prospectof torture are all considered ustifiablemotiva-tion. The essentialaspectof the Jewish attitude is that suicideis notlinkedindissolubly o the idea of the sanctityof life.3The Christianposition was determinedonce and for all by SaintAugustine,an uncompromisingoe of suicide. Early Christianshadadmired hose whogave theirlives for the faith, andindeed,the ques-tion of martyrdomremaineda fine point of dialecticaldisputationinlater theologicalwritings.4 We shall not be concernedwith the tech-nicalitiesof dogma. It is of no interest to us to explorethe fallaciesin Saint-Cyran'sjudgmentthat there are thirty-fourcases in whichself-murder s innocent.5 Nor would it be in any way useful for ourpurposeto follow John Donne'slengthy argumentthat suicideis notan irremissible in.6 What is of very greatconcern o us is the funda-mental attitude underlyingboth family wranglings uch as these andthe almostunited Christian ront that opposedthe apologistsof self-destruction. Sincethis attitude has remainedapproximately onstantto our own day, we can find its most authoritative statement in theCatholicEncyclopedia. "To destroya thing is to disposeof it as anabsolutemasterand to act as one havingfull andindependentdomin-ion over his life, since to be ownerone must be superiorto his prop-erty." We have, then, only the right of use, but the right of owner-ship residesin the Creator.7 Otherargumentsadvancedin condem-

3For a more completediscussion, ee the UniversalJewishEncyclopedia. TheTalmudalso excusessuicidein times of persecution,and under conditionsof greatmentalor physicalstrain. Strangelyenough, here has beenless suicideamongJewsthan amongmost otherpeoples.4 De civitateDei, XV, 4, I, 22. Bayet attributesthe changeto paganinfluencesbrought in by new converts, together with belief in relics and amulets, funeralwreaths,mourning,and the idea of the sanctity of burial (op. cit., 320-33, 366-70).5Bayle: Dictionnairehistoriqueet critique,article"Saint-Cyran," b. B.6Donneassuresus, forexample,that thereis nothingevil that is not sometimesgood,indeedcommandedby God; therefore he evil is not in the natureof the thingbut in God'scommandment. (Biathanatos[London,1700] 36.)7 Exceptionsare admittedunderthe argument hat Godis master to modifyhiswill. This accounts for the virtue of martyrdomand also condonessuicidecom-mitted to preserveone's chastity, and slow suicidethroughlacerationand fastingperformedby saints in order to overcomethe passions of the flesh. "Indirectsuicide" is allowedwhen to save one'slife would involve great expenseor painfuloperations.


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50 LESTER G. CROCKERnation of suicide-the violation of the instinct of self-preservation,the cowardiceof the act itself-must be regardedas addenda n sup-port of this basic position,whichgives to man masteryover what hedoeswith his life, exceptin regard o life itself.As might be expected, the Middle Ages treated suicide severelythroughoutits literature,in its miracleplays and chansons de geste,as well as in didactic writings. Bodies of suicides were draggedthroughthe streetsandburned,their propertyconfiscated, heir fam-ilies shamed. With the Renaissance and the rebirth of the classicalspirit, defense of suicide was again heard, in a very limited way, innovels and the theatre,and in the humanisticwritingsof men such asMontaigneand Charron. Italian juristsinitiated an inquiryinto thereasonablenessof laws dealing with that crime. The seventeenthcenturywitnessed further increaseof comment (the most famousbe-ing Saint-Cyran'sract, Casusregius), and suicide becameaccepted ntragedies dealing with the Greeks and Romans. But seventeenth-century France, in the totality of its attitude, severely condemnedsuicide: Malebranche,Nicole, Arnaud,Descartes,La Mothe le Vayer,and theologiansof everystripe, Jansenist,Jesuit and Protestant,werein agreement. Polemically, the problemwas still of little moment.Then, by an act of the government, he questionwas broughtbeforethe public, and reopened n its very principle. The Ordonnance ri-minelle de 1670 for the first time grouped suicide with the majorcrimesof heresy and lese-majeste. It extended to all who took theirown life the condemnationpreviouslyreservedexclusively to crimi-nals who committedsuicide. This increasedseverityundoubtedly edmany to questionthe justiceof the officialattitude and to re-examinetheir own convictions. In England, at about the same period, thechallengingof the traditionaljudgmentof suicidewas an unavoidableresult of the general extension of skeptical rationalism under theRestoration.

Logicallyenough,the eighteenthcenturybecame the greatestbat-tlegroundsince ancienttimes over the inherentmeaningof the act ofself-destruction. This was, by the nature of things, inevitable, evenhad the Ordonnance f 1670never been promulgated. The reason isevident. In the multiplicity of arguments that flooded from thepresses, one issue unmistakably dominates all others, although attimessubmerged r disguised n the subtletiesof dialectic. It emergesclearlyin a brief commentin Bayle's dictionary. Bayle is careful toavoid a generalstatement,but he praisesthe death of Lucretia: "onne peut la justifierau tribunalde la religion,mais, si on la juge autribunalde la gloirehumaine,elle y remportera a couronne a plus


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 51brillante." 8 It is obvious that in these few words Bayle is raising apurely human ethical standard and offering it as a challenge to themystical limitation on man's freedom of choice, in an act which pro-vides the ultimate test of that freedom. This, then, was the basic di-lemma that Bayle, who in so many ways laid out paths for the newcentury, crystallized in brief words: the bifurcation between whatmay be termed, without any prejudgment, the humanistic, and theauthoritarian views of man's estate. Let us keep his pithy statementin mind as we review the arguments advanced on both sides.Is man's life God's property? Or is his life his own? This is themost direct expression of the point of contention. The answer for theauthoritarians was spoken for all time by Plato. In the Phaedo hestates that we belong to the gods, our masters, and must not rob them." Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away."He makes a significant analogy: would not our animals be robbing usif they indulged in suicide? Plato's claim is restated frequently in theeighteenth century. Among its many proponents was Moses Men-delssohn, who was perhaps less influenced by the Judaic attitude thanby the general struggle of ideas.9 Formey, historiographer of theAcademy of Berlin and object of Voltaire's contempt, specified thatthe wrong stems from the dissolution of body and soul, which isclearly outside our province. God has placed us here by naturalcauses, and wants us to stay until natural causes bring about ourdeath. "Je ne vois aucune circonstance qui puisse vous mettre a laplace de Dieu, et vous autoriser a detruire son ouvrage." 10 It is Hiswork, emphasized Jean Dumas; man cannot take away what he didnot give himself.1l In an obscure but curious piece by John Adams,chaplain to the King of England, the matter is reduced to simplestterms. The principle of life does not belong to man; he does not haveproperty over himself because he does not make himself; obviously,he has only the right of use.12

8 Op. cit., article " Lucrece."9 In his most famous dialogue, which bears the same title as Plato's, he declaresthat we are God's slaves. He alone is arbiter of our fate. (Phedon [Paris, 1787],92-95). Diderot also expounds the conventional view in his article " Suicide " in theEncyclopedie .10 " Dissertation sur le meurtre volontaire de soi-meme," in Melanges philoso-phiques (Leyden, 1754), I, 216-17. Voltaire wrote to Baron Constant de Rebecqueconcerning a chaplain who had killed himself after reading Formey: " je ne suispoint surpris que votre homme se soit ennuye a la lecture du livre de Formey contrele suicide, au point d'etre tente de faire le contraire de ce que ce bavard recom-mande." (Oeuvres, Moland, XLIX, 348, 9 aout 1775).11 Traite du suicide (Amsterdam, 1773), 314.12An Essay concerning self-murther (London, 1700), 5-10. This was echoed

later by Charles Moore, rector of Cuxton, in his lengthy work, A Full Inquiry into


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52 LESTER G. CROCKERA figurefrequentlyused to reinforcethis argumentwas also bor-rowed from the Ancients. Man, said Formey,is "un soldat en fac-tion, dansun poste qu'ilne doit quitter qu'avec a permissionde celui

qui l'y a plac." The figurewas originated, according o Cicero,byPythagoras.l3 Cicero'sown reply was reiteratedby many later writ-ers: whenwe feel that Godhas given us a valid reasonto depart,thenwe do have his permission.14Formey, feeling the weight of the Cice-ronianreasoning,admittedthat the argumentwas weak. For the An-cients,our soul was part of God,and we obeyedhim when we obeyedour own reason. Pythagoras'words were reducibleto this formula:no suicidewithout God'spermission= no suicide without good rea-sons. Hume attackedthe wholeconceptmoreradicallythan any oneelse. He simply denied that there was any such thing as being"placed at a station." The figureis fanciful. "For my part, I findthat I owe my birth to a long chain of causes, of which many de-pended upon voluntary actions of men." If you claim that Provi-denceguidedall these causes,then voluntarydeath is a result of thesame Providence.15The most direct rejection of this entire attitude was the claimmadeby the humanisticgroupthat the right to end one's life is an in-herentpart of the conditionand dignityof being a man. This feelinghad been expressedmost elegantly by the Ancients. "We may se-renely quit life's theatre when the play has ceased to please,"wroteCiceroin explainingthe Epicureanphilosophy.16 The Stoics wentfurther. Even a happy man should sometimesmake his exit if hefeels the time is ripe: these primary things fall under the judgmentand choice of the wise man. Marcus Aurelius declaresproudly,"Ichooseto do what is according o the natureof the rationaland socialanimal." 7 Seneca holds that we must make our lives acceptabletoothers,but our death to ourselvesalone.'8 Lucretius, n Book III ofhis poem,outdoeseven these in the nobleexpressionof his lofty pride.After the longhiatusof the MiddleAges,we againfindsimilarexpres-sions in Montaigne and Charron.19 Montaigne largely paraphrasesthe Subjectof Suicide (London, 1790), II, 188. It is somewhatmoresurprising ofinda similar dea in a pieceby a scientist,Robinet. It is not up to us, he says toprolong our life or to shorten it. (Dictionnaireuniversel des sciencesmorales,economiques,etc. [Londres,1783], art. "Suicide."). Cf. Chaudon (Dictionnaireanti-philosophiqueAvignon,1771], II, 167.) " It is no more ourright to die thanit is our rightnot to be men."13 " Pythagorasbids us stand like faithful sentriesand not quit our post untilGod,our Captain,gives the word." (De senectute).14TusculanDisputations[Heinemann,1927], I, 30.15Essay on suicide,publishedposthumouslyn 1789.16De Finibus,I, 15, 19. 17Meditations,IV, 29. 18 Epistle70.19Charron:De la sagesse,II, ch. 11; Montaigne:"Coustumede l'Isle de Cea,"Essais,II, 3.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 53Seneca. Both he and Charron agree that " la plus volontaire mort estla plus belle." John Donne gave this thought its classic expression:" methinks I have the keys of my prison in mine owne hand, and noremedy presents itself so soone to my heart, as mine owne sword."20In the eighteenth century, this view is implicit in the thinking ofthose who upheld the right to end our own life. It underlies state-ments such as Vauvenargues': " celui qui meurt volontairement et desang-froid meurt pour la gloire." Several proclaimed it explicitly.Hume, for instance, repeats Pliny's words, that the power to quit lifeis an advantage that men possess even above the Deity himself. Theact of suicide, Mme. de Stael declared, proves that a man can begreater than nature; of all beings, he alone is endowed with the powerof rational reflection that enables him to surmount his instincts.21

Among the eighteenth-century writers who championed this belief,Voltaire's voice was perhaps loudest and clearest. He throws his sup-port behind an analogy made by Saint-Cyran: just as the governmentstands for God's authority so does man's reason represent God's rea-son.22 In three plays and one novel he has his hero (or heroine) pro-claim his mastery over his own ultimate destiny. In the Orphelin dela Chine, Idame urges her husband to their self-destruction.Ne saurons-nousmourirque par ordred'un roi?Les taureauxaux autels tombent en sacrifice;Les criminels remblantssont trainesau supplice,Les mortelsgenereuxdisposentde leursort . . .De nos voisins altiers imitons la constance;De la naturehumaine ls soutiennent es droits,Vivent libres chezeux, et meurenta leur choix . . .In Alzire, the heroine regrets having become a Christian:Eh, quelcrimeest-ce done,devantce Dieu jaloux,De hater un momentqu'il nous preparea tous?Quoi du calice amer d'unmalheursi durable

20 Biathanatos(FacsimileText Society,N. Y., 1930), 18.21 De l'influencedes passions . . . (1796), Oeuvres (Paris, 1820), III, 187.Moore denied this, claimingthat suicide is essentiallyan irrationalact. So didSpinoza. Adamsalsomaintained hat suicidepervertsthe end of human ife, whichcannotbe the destroyingof life, but somethingall men are capableof, namely,theproperuse of reasontowardthe attainment of virtue. For a curiousseventeenth-centuryopinionfavoringsuicide,see Cyranode Bergerac:Les Stats et empirede lalune (Paris, 1921), 86.22Oeuvres,XX, 302 (ch. XX).


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54 LESTER G. CROCKERFaut-il boirea longs traits la lie insupportable?Ce corpsvil et mortelest-il donesi sacre,Que l'esprit qui le meutne le quitte a son gre?23

Whenthe Ingenuin Voltaire'sstory asks Gordonwhetheranyoneon earth has the right or the power to prevent him from ending hislife, Gordon s careful not to reply with what Voltairecalls "ces lieuxcommunsfastidieux par lesquels on essaie de prouverqu'il n'est paspermis d'userde sa liberte pour cesser d'etre quand on est terrible-ment mal, qu'ilne faut pas sortirde sa maisonquandon ne peut plusy demeurer,que l'homme est sur la terre comme un soldat a sonposte."

24D'Alembertand Maupertuis, ike Bayle, werecareful to makethedistinction between Christianand "human" judgments. Our reli-gion shows suicide to be always wrong,but human reason,D'Alem-bert tells us twice, excuses it in certaincircumstances; n those cases,the action is one that "humainementparlantsupposeune ame fermeet peu commune." 5 To Maupertuisalso, suicideseems gloriousandjudicious-outside of Christianity.26A parallelline of reasoningwas that life being a gift or favor, wehave the right to give it up whenit becomesonerous. This argumentis not foundbeforethe Christianera.27 Oneof the firstto advanceitin the eighteenth centurywas John Robeck,a much discussedfigurein the controversy. Robeckwas a Swedewho in 1736wrote a treatisejustifyingsuicide28and then, after laying downhis pen, proceeded ocarrypreceptinto example. Formeyreplieddirectlyto Robeck's ar-gument. Sincewe arenot free to accept the favorof life, we are alsonot free to reject; nor can the favorbe separated romthe obligationsthat accompany t.One of the traditionalists'points of attackwas the Stoic'svauntedscornof life. Suchdisdain,they claimed,arises fromournot knowing23V, 3. Also Merope (II, 2) "Quand on a tout perdu, quand on n'a plusd'espoir,La vie est un opprobre, t la mort un devoir."24The figure of leaving one's house is repeatedagain and again by Voltaire.Cf. Oeuvres,XXX, 543, XLIX, 348. He even used it whendiscounting he appealof suicide:"la plupartdes hommesaimentmieuxcoucherdans une vilainemaisonquede dormira la belle etoile" (XVIII, 94). The metaphorcomesfromEpictetus:"The house is smoky, and I quit it." In CandideVoltairealso points out thatsuicideis againstnormal nstinctsand requires he greatestprovocation(ch. xii.).25Elemensde philosophie,OeuvresphilosophiquesParis,1805), II, ch. 11.26Essaide philosophiemorale(Oeuvres,Dresden,1752), 375-93.27As Donne had put it, if we do not have dominium,we do have usum,andit islawfulfor us to lose that whenwe will (op. cit., p. 112).28 Exercitatio philosophica de morte voluntaria . . . (Rintel, 1736).


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 55how to live wisely.29 Its ultimatelogic,according o Mme. deStael-whoin the eighteenthcenturydefendedsuicide,and in the nineteenthrecanted-is to condonemurder.30Even beforeMme. de Stael, De-lisle de Sales and RichardHey (in England) had stated plainly thatmorallythe essenceof the two deeds is identical.31On the otherside,apologistsof suicide deniedthat self-murders necessarilya violationof the sixth commandment. Killing is permittedin many justifiablecases,and that includeskillingof oneself. We kill for honor,for self-protection,and we kill criminals. So arguedDonne, Saint-CyranandHume. In fact, commentsVoltaire,seizingthe opportunityto strikea blow forone of his favoritecauses,we permitkilling in a matterofgreaterfolly and much less justification:we legalizeand praiseexter-minationin that act of wholesalemurderwhich we call " war." 2

Actually,those who justifiedsuicidein the eighteenth centurydidnot proclaima Stoic scorn of life. Stoicismwas not a la mode in aperiod that revalued the passions and pleasuresof civilized living.What they did proclaimis that life does not intrinsicallypossess atranscendent,mystic value, before which all purely human motives,no matter how significant,are nullified. This is the fundamentalpoint of agreementamong them; although some were more liberalthan others in their classification of motives that justified suicide.Helvetius, for example, rejects "light" motives, such as Sappho'ssuicide for love; patriotism,and especially disgustwith life he deemswise provocation. Mme. de Stael, on the other hand, considers oveone of the major justificationsfor suicide, others being disgust forlife (after profoundmeditation), and desire to atone for a crime (asublime resourcethat true criminals do not have).33 Certainlyonemust admit suicide for noble motives, such as for liberty (who doesnot admire Cato?) and for good of country. Such "devouement,"such a sacrificeof our own personality s of the essenceof our moral

29 J. Adams: op. cit., 35.30 Reflexions sur le suicide (1813), Oeuvres (Paris, 1820), III, 339.31 Delisle de Sales: Philosophie de la nature (London, 1789, 5e edition), V, 407;Richard Hey: Three Dissertations on.Gaming, Duelling and on Suicide (Cambridge,England, 1812, written in 1785), 193-96.32Alzire, V, 3. Formey, realizing the weakness of the whole argument, agreesthat linking murder and suicide admits exceptional justifications for both; he pre-fers, therefore, to base his opposition on other grounds.3 Op. cit., 186-87. In the matter of criminals committing suicide, one of thearguments frequently used against self-murder is that in such cases, society is de-frauded of just punishment and rectification made impossible. The Ancients wereparticularly severe in punishing such cases.


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56 LESTER G. CROCKERdignity.34 To Delisle deSales, much of the discussionseemed a futileresult of semantic confusion-the groupingof different motives andvalues under one word. Obviously, here is a differencebetweenCatoand the Englishmanwho ends his life becauseof spleenor "le chaosde la metaphysique," ust as there is between the hangmanand thehighwayman. It is impossibleto assignto the act of suicidean abso-lute value.35The general feeling among the humanists was that suicide is amatterfor pragmaticdecision. That publicconsiderations ometimesrequired t was indisputable. The cruxof the matter lay in pushingit beyondthe criterionof publicinterest,into the realm of individualprerogative. Maupertuishad expressed t clearly: it was not reason-able to go on living in circumstances hat were unbearable. Cer-tainly, when a personhas to die anyhow,or when he is useless,saysDelisle, no offense is involved against any law of man or nature.Beforethe Academyof Berlin,J. M. Meriandeclared hat there wereills so bad, they made life a deliriousdespair;in such cases,the goodwe want is outside the circleof life.36An analogy frequentlyrepeatedwas that we sometimes use oneevil to fight another-cut off a limb to save the body. This compari-son is found in Donne, Montaigneand later writers. The classic an-swer to it was given by St. ThomasAquinas: first, St. Paul has toldus we must not do evil in orderto securea good; second,in the caseof suicide,the argument s absurd,since death is the greatest evil ofthis life.3 But Mme.de Stael laid barethe fallaciousnessof the anal-ogy even more clearly: we cut off a limb to conserve ife, not to de-stroy it.38

34 Donne and Saint-Cyranhad taken care to cite caseswhereit wouldbe hardnot to condonesuicide. Supposea man worshippedby the peoplewere forced bya tyrant to do somethingwrong,so that others would followhim,should he not killhimself? There is a possibleanalogyhere with certain events in Communistcoun-tries of our own day. A few opponents of suicide admitted rare exceptions-Robinet,for example,to save one'scountryagainstan enemy. This, however,wasexceptional,most of the group maintainingan absoluteproscription. In quotingPlato's condemnation f suicide (Phaedo), opponentsof the act werecareful not torefer to Laws IX, where Plato exempts from punishmentthose who have killedthemselves "under the compulsionof some painful and inevitablemisfortune,"orwho have had to "sufferfromirremediable nd intolerable hame."35Op. cit., V, 385-452.36Histoirede l'Academie oyaledes scienceset belles ettres,annee1763 (Berlin,1770), 355-406.37 Quoted n Bayet, op. cit., 426.38 Rflexions sur le suicide (Paris, 1813), 326.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 57D'Holbach proclaimedmore bluntly than any other the eudae-monic basis of life and the consequenthumanrightto leave it. Whena man is unhappy,regardlessof the cause,there is nothingto compelhim to prolonghis misery. D'Holbach'sviewpoint was among themost individualistic n the eighteenth century;it was closeto someofthe Ancients in its detachmentfrom social connections.39The setting-upof happinessas an ethical criterionwasparticularlyresentedby the enemiesof the "philosophic" group. Holland pro-posed carryingd'Holbach'sargument to its logical conclusion,andmakingit a socialduty to kill unhappy (and thereforeuseless) men.4Bergieralso attacks d'Holbachfor saying that man is his own sov-ereignmaster and exists only for his own happiness: such a conceptwould sanction any vicious action. Formeyremindedhis readers ofhappiness in the next life. La Mettrie, materialist though he was,maintains that happiness is a criterionunworthy of the dignity ofmoral beings.4lPressingthe attack still further,opponentsof suicidedecriedtheimplicit stresson the evil in life. Some,like Dupont de Nemours,re-called that often all is not lost, even when it most surelyseems to be.42Bergierand Delisle, more Stoic than their adversaries,declaredthatphysical pain is unimportant,and moral sufferingdependson our-selves; consequently, ife is never worsethan death.43 Chaudongen-eralized:presenteverywhere,"le mal " is everywhereaccidental,andnot essential to life. Life, therefore(?), can alwaysbe goodfor a manof moralrectitudeand will.44 Generalizationwas carried urther still

by Dumas. Relatingsuicideto the generalproblemof evil, he insiststhat since this is the best of all possibleworldsconsonantwith moralfreedom, t is ourduty to submitto it. In orderthat everythingmayworkout to the total good,some individualsmust sufferin the proc-ess, consideringthe complexity of causes and relationships. Since39Systemede la nature (London,1771), I, 327-36.4 Reflexionsphilosophiquesur le "Systeme de la nature" (Paris, 1773), Pt.I, 214.41 Bayet, stoppingshortat La Mettrie'squery ("Lorsquea vie est absolumentsans aucunbien, et qu'aucontraireelle est assiege d'unefoule de mauxterribles,

faut-il attendre une mort ignominieuse? ), classifieshim amongthe apologists, ncontradictionwith his own earlierstatements. The inconsistencywouldhave beendissolved f Bayet had read or chosen to quote the lines following he query,whereLa Mettrie blasts argumentssuch as these. "Sophismes captieux,enthousiasmepoetique,petite grandeurd'ame,tout ce qui a ete dit en faveurdu suicide " (Anti-Seneque,Oeuvres, I, 230-1.)42Philosophiede l'univers(1796), 204.43 Delislede Sales: op. cit., 407. 44Op.cit., II, 166.


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58 LESTER G. CROCKER

perfectionexcludesdependence,t wouldrequire solation. Most evilscomefrommen,from the clash of intereststhat resultsfrom socialliv-ing; the few that comefrom God (physicalevils) are unimportant fwe live right. And suffering hat is really excessivedoes not last: itdiminishes,or kills. Painful, lingeringdiseases-contrary to what thephilosophessaid-are actually useful. They give doctors a chanceto make a living. By falling indiscriminatelyon good men and bad,they are a proof of future life (for where would God's justice be,otherwise?).45This apologyfor "le mal" (with particularreferenceto suicide) was carried o its end by Mme. de Stael in her later work.We must not only accept the inevitability of suffering,she says; wemust welcomeit as beneficial. Without it, there is no happiness,forlack of contrast (a trite idea, at best), and no attainmentof ourhigh-est moralqualities. For all these writers,then, suicidewas a harmfulact resultingfroma misunderstanding f the nature of what we call"evil." 46In concludingthis phase of the debate-the "human" implica-tions of suicide-the last point we must consider s the long discussionas to whether the act is one of cowardiceor courage. Aristotle fur-nished the principal argument to those who condemned suicide.Couragemeansto endurethings. To die in orderto escapefromsuf-fering of any kind "is not the mark of a brave man, but ratherof acoward;for it is softnessto fly from what is troublesome,and such aman endurethdeath not becauseit is noble, but to fly from evil."47So well had the Stagiritestated his case, that the men of the eight-eenth centurywere able to make little improvementon it. Sabatierde Castres,48ean Dumas, CharlesMoore,John Adams,FormeyandJean-JaquesRousseau (whom we shall discusslater), all emphasizedthe motive of despair,which is equivalent to runningaway, in con-trast to genuine courage,which resists and attacks, or at the veryleast, endures.The classical opponents of Aristotle were of course Epictetus,MarcusAureliusand Lucretius. Later,Charronn France and PhilipSydney in Englanddefended suicidefrom the imputationof coward-45Dumas: op. cit., 26-56. The idea of the usefulnessof incurable llnessesisalso found,morebriefly,in Adams'and Mme. de Stael'swritings,as well as in theMiddleAges.46Rflexions sur le suicide,304. Cf. the opinionof SidneyHook,in his interest-ing article,"The Ethics of Suicide" (InternationalJournalof Ethics,37 [1926-27],175): "Any systemof thoughtwhichabsolutelyrefusesto countenance uicide as arationalpossibility s either irresponsibly ptimisticor utterly criminal."47NicomacheanEthics, III, 7.48 Dictionnairedes passions,des vertuset des vices (Paris, 1777), II, 433-34.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 59

ice, by reversing Aristotle's definition.49 Most eighteenth-centuryapologists, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Hume and Voltaire, for example,contented themselves with simply affirming that the act was one ofheroism.50 D'Alembert, however, preferred not to avoid the issue. Inhis piece on suicide,5?0 he defends Cato against the imputation of cow-ardice with an attempt at more subtle analysis of motivation. To saythat Cato showed weakness is to say that it is cowardly not to flee inbattle, because to flee would bring ignominy. This is a confused eval-uation of motives. Naturally, Cato chose what appeared to him thelesser of two evils (death or tyranny); but courage does not consist inchoosing the greater of two evils-that would be unnatural. It con-sists rather in considering as the lesser of two evils " celui que la plu-part des hommes auraient regarde comme le plus grand."51 D'Alem-bert begins with a strong argument, but ends rather weakly: he makescourage equivalent to a paradox, and classifies the generality of menas poltroons.An intermediary position was taken by J. B. Merian and by Mme.de Stael. The former termed the entire matter an empty battle ofwords.52 Who will decide what is true courage? Brave men do com-mit suicide, let us admit it. But on the whole, it is easier to believethat a man has become a coward than vice versa. And, although itdoes take courage to dare to die, it takes still more courage, in suchcircumstances, to dare to live. (This, of course, is a petitio principii.)Mme. de Stael, repenting in her later work, also refuses to brand sui-cide a cowardly act; she cannot deny that it requires great will powerto overcome the instinct to live. But it is a kind of bravoure or em-portement such as soldiers display daily. The courage of fortitude isof a higher rank.Mme. de Stael's remarks carry us over to the second large divisionof ideas that formed the substance of the controversy over suicide. Isthe act natural, or is it a violation of the laws and instincts of nature?

49The discussion in Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia (Cambridge, 1922), II, 108-11,is particularly interesting. It is a virtue, Pyrocles tells Philoclea, to discern twoevils and tranquilly choose the lesser. The man that endures suffering and waits fordeath to end it, is the one who has fear. "For to doe, requires a whole harte; tosuffer falleth easeliest in the broken minds."50 Voltaire: Questions sur l'Encyclopedie (printed in Dictionnaire philoso-

phique), art. "Suicide"; Hume: Dialogues on Natural Religion (London, 1779),181-82 (Part X). Montesquieu: Considerations sur la grandeur et la decadence desRemains, ch. xii. " I1est certain que les hommes sont moins libres, moins courageux,moins port6s aux grandes entreprises, qu'ils n'etaient lorsque, par cette puissancequ'on prenait sur soi, on pouvait a tous les instants echapper a toute autre puis-sance."

50a Op. cit., supra, note 25. 51Op. cit., chapter 11. 52 Op. cit., 394.


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60 LESTER G. CROCKERThe Ancients do not mention the instinct of self-preservation nthis connection. St. Augustineand St. Thomas,on the other hand,both considered t secondin importance, n the evaluation of suicide,

to the relationshipbetween man and God. "Everythingloves itself,"declaredSt. Thomas. Montaignewas one of the first to rejectthe im-plication that suicide was consequently unnatural; in pointing outthat the ability to die was also a gift of nature,he gave an importantlead to the humanistsof the eighteenthcentury. When the Renais-sancereachedEngland,John Donne gave furtherdevelopmentto thisidea. Thingsnatural to the speciesare not always so to the individ-ual, he claims, pointing to celibates and hermits. Between men andnatural instinct stands human reason.53 Donne is leadingback to thebasic issue. For men, law is basedon reason,and circumstancesmayalter the law. Self-preservation Donne seems here to forestallHel-vetius) is only an appetitefor good; when life is no longera good,thelaw no longerobtains.In the eighteenthcentury,the lines were redrawnalongthese gen-eral positions. Basinghimselfon the philosophes'own faith, Formeythunderedthat there was a law against suicide,"La loi naturelle,laplus sacree, a plus inviolablede toutes." 4 So strongis this law, ac-cording o CharlesMoore,that to break t can result only fromweak-ness or corruption-from perversion,wroteDupont. It is as unnatu-ral, declaredJeanDumas,for us to hate ourlives as it is forus to hateourselves. Robinet, a scientist,agreed.On the other side, Mme. de Stael deniedthat suicideis an act ofdepravity. "I1 y a quelque chose de sensible ou de philosophiquedans 'action de se tuer qui est tbut a fait etrangera l'etredeprave."6True it is that self-preservation s man's primary instinct; but inovercoming t, the suicide displayshis humanity and his "puissanced'ame." In her later retraction,Mme. de Stael avoids this phase ofthe subject. Helvetius felt that we must go beyondthe instinct itself,to its motivation, which is nothing else but the fear of pain and thelove of pleasure. Obviously, he same motives can lead us to exactlythe oppositeimpulse. Even La Mettrie, who resolutely opposedsui-cide on moral and social grounds,admitted that in cases of extrememiseryit is "naturalto wish for death,unnaturalto want to keep onliving."56 John Adams,however,attackedthe view that the law of

53"Andhe whoseconsciencewel tempredanddispassion'd, ssureshim that thereasonof self-preservation eases in him,may also presume hat the law ceasestoo,and may doe that than whichotherwisewereagainstthe law." (Op. cit., 47.)84Op. cit., 216-17.65De l'influencedes passions,185-86.6Anti-Seneque,Oeuvres,11, 230-31. In his earlierSysteme d'Epicure,LaMettriehad arguedon Robinet'sside (II, 171-72).


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 61self-preservations nullifiedby the feeling that life is no longer good:we judgeonly by seeming goodand evil; truegoodis living for virtue.A more serious defense of suicide,from the viewpoint of naturallaw,was undertakenby d'Holbach. He startsfrom his generalunder-lying theory of determinism. Since all our actionsare necessary, hesame forcethat obliges a man to self-preservationmay impel him totake his life-he is still accomplishinga decisionof nature. The logicof d'Holbach'sargument s undeniable,providedwe accepthis mech-anistic premise. When nature makes us unhappy, then we are ful-fillingher decreeby our death: it is a case of nature fightingnaturewithin us. The idea of some kind of mystical reciprocalobligationbetweenman and nature is absurd. Birth and death are both invol-untary-including what is mistakenly called "voluntary" death."Si l'hommen'est libre dans aucun instant de sa vie, il l'est encorebien moinsdans 'acte qui la termine." 7Oneseeming paradoxgrewout of the "nature " phase of the con-troversy. In broadening he questionof naturallaw, or man'snature,to the largerone of the relation of his actions to the macrocosm, hedefendersof suicide-who mademan the measureof ethical judgment-depreciated his significance n the universalscheme; whereas theiropponents,while denyingman his autonomy,exalted his importance.Jean Dumas, for instance,held that when a man took his life, he re-moved himself, by an act of violence, from the established orderofthings,and therebydamaged t. Mendelssohndeclaredemphaticallythat suicidesbreakthe courseof God'splansand destroythe harmonythat exists between the earth-dwellerand the Universal. To thosewho claimedthat man was insignificant,Formey repliedthat there isno " insignificance" in the eyes of God; man's worthcomes fromhissoul, not from his size. From a false idea of human significance, twould be just as easy to justify murder.Formey was endeavoring o refute Montesquieu'sdefense of sui-cide. It wasthe author of the Lettrespersaneswhohad initiated thisphase of the discussion. It is only our pride that makes us like tothink that our life matters, writes Usbeck to Ibben.58 Actually ourdeath will have no effect on the universalorder,muchless on the workof God. "Croyez-vous que cette nouvelle combinaisonsoit moinsparfaite et moins dependantedes lois generales?" Do we not con-stantly upset and overrulethe course of nature? Certainlythis is aright given to us.Voltaire echoed Montesquieu'sview with his own ironic turn ofphrase: ". .. comme s'il importait a l'tItre des etres que l'assemblagede quelquespartiesde matiere fut dans un lieu ou dans un autre."59

57In his refutation,Bergierpoints out that if everythingis natural and neces-sary, then all crimesare equally justifiable. 58Lettrelxxvi. 59L'ngenu, ch. XX.


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62 LESTER G. CROCKERHere is a clear instance of the humanistic defender of man's rightsannihilatingthe cosmicsignificanceof his actions, of his very exist-ence. Of course,this dual perspectiveon man, from the earthly andthe cosmicviewpoints,was typical of the revaluation of human des-tiny and the meaningof the humanjourney.In only one writer is exaltation of man's cosmic importancecoupledwith the condemnationof suicide. In the Foundationsof theMetaphysicsof Morals(1785) andin the Critiqueof PracticalReason(1788), Kant holds that since suicide cannot obtain as a universallaw, it thereforecontradicts he supremeprincipleof all duty. Also,it considersman only as a means to a tolerable ife. But man is nota means;he is an end in himself,as humanityis an end in itself. Lifetakes meaningnot from our happiness,but from our actions.59The fullest developmentof the implicationsof this comparativelyabstractphase of the questionwas providedby the greatest philoso-pher amongthe humanisticgroup-David Hume. It is Hume's de-claredpurpose, n his Essay on suicide,"to restoremento their nativeliberty" by showingthat suicide s free fromeveryimputationof guiltor blame. It is meaninglessto say there is an offence to God, hisProvidenceor natural order; man is an intimate part of that order.In the universe there are only universal laws, and no exceptions.Shall we assert that the Almighty has reservedto himself in anypeculiarmannerthe disposal of the lives of men, and has not sub-mitted that event, in common with others, to the general laws bywhich the universe is governed?" A flood,a poison,will kill a manindiscriminatelywith any other animal-all aresubjectto the generallaws of matter and motion.But is suicide not criminal because it disturbs the operation ofthese laws? Definitely not, Humeanswers. All animalshave author-ity "as far as their powerextends, to alter all the operationsof na-ture "-this is necessary o life, andwe areconstantlydoingit. Thereis no reasonwhy suicide shouldbe considered n a separate ight. Thelife of a man "is of no greater mportance o the universethan that ofan oyster." 0 Andeven if it be moreimportant,"the orderof naturehas actually submitted it to human prudence,and reducedus to anecessity in every incident of determiningconcerning t." Were thedisposal of human life the peculiar province of God, it would beequallycriminalto act for the preservationof life as for its destruc-

59aCritiqueof PracticalReasonand OtherWritingson Ethics (Chicago,1949),59, 87, 154.6o"A hair,a fly, an insect is able to destroythis mighty beingwhoselife is ofsuchimportance." Certainlyman himselfshouldhave the samepower. (P. 10.)


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 63tion. "If I turn aside a stone which is falling on my head, I disturbthe course of nature, and I invade the peculiar province of the Al-mighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period written by thegeneral laws of matter and motion he has assigned it." It is in fact avery part of Divine Providence that we have the power to escape fromlife when it becomes unbearable.Hume now proceeds to carry this idea one step further. Men's ac-tions are operations of God as much as those of inanimate beings."When I fall upon my own sword, therefore, I receive my deathequally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion,a precipice or a fever." All our powers and faculties come from theCreator, and there is no action, however irregular, that can encroachupon his providence or on universal order. (In other words, every-thing that is, is natural.) 61 Suicide is no more impious than agricul-ture, which also produces a change in the course of nature. When thehorror of pain prevails over love of life, that too is part of Providenceand order.Hume probably took his initial idea from Montesquieu. Butwhere the latter had glimpsed an idea and stated it in the words of ajournalist, Hume brings out its full philosophical implications. Herelates suicide to fundamentals of the eighteenth-century credo: thebelief in an all-inclusive order of nature, and the insistence on regard-ing man solely as one more item in that order. In doing so, he over-looks what is purely human in man's role in nature, that is, his will,not to say free will, and his conception of morality, which puts a spe-cial mark on all his actions. Consequently he tends to reduce all ac-tions to a single standard. As the opponents of suicide would havecountered, if they had known this essay, his reasoning as to " natural-ness," at least as far as he carries it, justifies murder as well as self-destruction.The third general division of the controversy related to the socialconsequences and implications of suicide. Aristotle and St. ThomasAquinas had insisted that we cannot separate an individual's actsfrom the community he is a part of. When a man kills himself, hedamages the social fabric. Eighteenth-century traditionalists, sens-ing a possible contradiction between their adversaries' espousal ofsuicide and their general social morality, made much of the point.And, without a doubt, the humanists were troubled by this con-sideration. For one thing, it impelled them to examine more closelythe nature of the social bond. Montesquieu again led off with theirbasic reasoning. Society, Usbek writes to Ibben, is founded for mu-

61Cf. Donne's argument that something men have always done cannot beagainst the law of nature.


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64 LESTER G. CROCKERtual advantage. When an individualfinds there is no advantageforhim, society has broken its shareof the social contractand the indi-vidual, freed of his obligations,may make his departure. Besides,wehad no choiceon enteringinto this agreement;the relationship s in-voluntary, thereforenot binding in any case. We must obey lawswhile we live under laws, but we can remove ourselvesfrom theirjurisdiction f we wish.2After Montesquieu,d'Holbachalso insisted strongly on the reci-procityof the social contract. Voltaire andCondorcetdo not mentionthe compact,but declare that suicidein no way offendsthe rights ofothermen or of society as a whole.63 Hume,repeatingall of Montes-quieu'sarguments, urtherspecifiedthat the contractcannot reason-ably requireus to do a small goodto society at the expenseof a greatharm to ourselves. Also, there are times when we are actually aweighton society,whenself-destructions not only innocent but laud-able. (This is an evasion of the general question. It is worthnotingthat Hume devotes a relatively small portion of his discourseto thesocial phase.)

The opponentsof suicide deniedthat the socialcontract eft roomfor unilateraldecisionsof this type. The generalpact, writesDumas,includesthe commitmentto remain attached to the body of society,"de se conserverchacunautant pourelle que poursoi-meme,et de nedisposerde sa vie qu'avecson consentement,pour sa defenseou sonavantage." 4 Even when the advantageis no longermutual, justice,gratitudeand honor bid us remain. Delisle and Bergierreasonsimi-larly. If d'Holbach'sargumentwere to be accepted,writes the latter,then we must concludethat a man has no social duty at all, exceptwhen he finds it to his advantage. "Jamais son interet particuliernedoit 'tre sacrifiea celui de la societe." Even if the pact were condi-tional, it would be for society, not for the individual,to decide,andsociety has judgedsuicide criminal. But that is not so; the relation-ship, althoughmutual,is natural,involuntaryand therefore ndissol-uble. In otherwords,the individual s not an equalcontractingpartywith society.

This utilitarianandsocialview was a strongdefensebecause t wasso muchin accordwith the philosophes'own outlook. Even d'Alem-bert, who upholds the morality of suicide,had to admit that it was62 Lettres persanes,Lettre Ixxvi.8 Voltaire: Remarquessur les penseesde M. Pascal, xxx; Condorcet: Notessur Voltaire,"Suicide."64Op. cit., 214.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 65sociallyundesirable:a man'slife belongsto other men almostas muchas to himself.Other harmful consequencesto society were pointed out, oftenrepetitiously, by Bergier,Delisle, Dumas, Sabatierde Castres,d'Ar-gens, Chaudon, Robinet, Du Pont de Nemours, Moore, Hey andAdamsand others. Suicidepreventsreparationof injuriesand cutsoff any further good action. It is worse than murder,because thecriminalcannotbe punishedforbreaking he law. It causesdeepsor-row and lasting disgrace o one'sfamily, and therebydoes irreparableharmpreciselyto those to whomwe owe the most. Thereis no suchthing as being useless: "tout homme est utile a l'humanitepar celaseul qu'il existe." Worst of all, approvalof suicidewould make eachman the judgeof his own actionsand destroypublicorder. It wouldteach a man not only to die when he pleases,but also to live as hepleases, since it secureshim from all dread of human punishment;thus it would nullify the penal laws. It could logically be extendedto the right of murder: f we may kill ourselves to end our unhappi-ness, why may we not disposeof the personwho is causingour un-happiness? We might even kill ourfamily, to sparethem the chagrinof our suicide. In addition, suicide would decimate the population.In a word,self-destructioncan be describedonly as "un vol fait augenrehumain," "un larcinfait a la societe." Turgot, writingto DuPont de Nemours, summarizedthe indictment: "Aussi detestai-je[sic] cordialement es predicateursdu suicide que je regardecommedes assassins publics. .. ." 65 All of this was of course denied by thehumanists. "La republique,"commentedVoltaire, "se passeratresbien de moi apresma mort,commeelle s'en est passeeavant ma nais-sance." Their defense,however,seems a little weak, and perhapsalittle half-hearted.In the space of this brief study, we cannot enter into the minorpaths and by-ways of the controversyover suicide. Was the wholequestionlargelyone of mores? What weightcan we assignto the ex-amplesof other peoples, such as the Greeks,Romans and Hebrews?The authorityof the Scriptures, he admissionof martyrdom, he ex-ample of Christhimself-these and other factorsof lesserimportna-turally found their way into the discussion.6

65Oeuvres,ed. Schelle (Paris, 1923), V, 626 (22 juin 1780).66Even a touch of esprit gauloiswas not excluded. In discussing he exampleof Lucretia,one wit pointed out that she waited until after she was violated tocommit suicide. Another appeared dubious about the fact itself: "d'abord unhommeseul avec une femme ne la viole pas." Besides,it seems to him, it wouldhave been wiser if she had killedSextusinstead of herself.


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66 LESTER G. CROCKEROneaspectthat must be mentionedbrieflywas the practicalappli-cation of ethical judgmentto law. The Greekspunishedthose sui-cidesthey consideredcriminalby personaldefamation: the hand wascut off from the body and buriedseparately. The Romans,a less po-etic people, preferred onfiscationof property. The Christiansof theeighteenth century combined both principles. As the struggle grewmore bitter, the punishmentsbecame more severe. Criticismof thelaws againstsuicidehad been initiated earlier n juridicalwritings;itdid not becomegeneraluntil the publicationof Beccaria'sDei delitti edellepene (1764). Beccariastated the argumentso logicallyand con-

cisely, that Voltaire,Condorcetand otherswho propagandizedn thesame directioncould not improveon his reasoning. Punishmentof asuicide,wrote Beccaria, s unjust and tyrannical,since it affectsonlyan insensiblebody and innocentpeople. To be just or effective,pun-ishmentmust be personal. The presentlaw was no morethan whip-ping a statue, and couldhave little influence n preventingthe crimeitself.67Whereas in the theoretical debating, some defendersof suicidefound themselveswaveringon certainpoints and sidingwith the tra-ditionalview, in this matter the situationwas reversed. Some of thetraditionalists,notablyMoore and Delisle de Sales,agreedcompletelythat the laws wereiniquitousanduseless,andthat the practiceof sui-cide couldbe preventedonly by the convictionof its wrongness. De-lisle attacksthe lawsviolently in a patheticseven-page etter in whichhe pretendsthe widowof a suicide is writingto the legislative body.Others,however,took issue with Beccaria'scontentions. Hutchesonhad already nsistedthat societyhad the right to use force to preventsuicide,and that the examplewas effective. True, Hey and Dumasconceded, nnocents are punished,but the communitymust protectthe public good even at the expenseof a few private citizens. Lawhas as its purposeprevention,and men are influencedby what willhappen to their memories,to their bodies, to their families. D'Ar-gens, Formeyand Merianadvancedthe sameopinion. Montesquieu,surprisinglyenough,also defends the laws against suicide,in the Es-prit des lois,69hus reversing he positionhe had taken in the Lettrespersanes. It must be remembered hat he wrote before Beccaria'swork.Thus the battle raged,until these laws wereswept away with theentire fabric of the medievalstructure.

7Ch. xxxii.68Systemof Moralphilosophy,quotedby Dumas: op. cit., 237-39.69LivreXIV, ch. xii, Partie II.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 67A separatewordmust be said abouttwo importantfigureswho, invarying degrees,participated n the controversy,Diderot and Rous-seau. Diderot'sopinionson suicide present a special difficulty. Hetouched on the subject briefly,never profoundly,and as with manyother matters-cryptically, so that his opinion is difficult to deter-mine.70Rousseau,better than any one else, summarized he controversy.His two letters on the subjectin the Nouvelle Heloise arewell knownand do not requirelengthy analysis.7 In the first letter, obviouslytrying to recapitulatethe "philosophic" stand, Rousseauhas Saint-Preuxmention such well-knownreferencesas Robeck,the cutting offof the arm,the Bible, admittedexceptions,and most of the usual ar-guments. It is sensible and rational, says Saint-Preux,and it is our70 His principalstatement s in the article"Suicide" in the Encyclopedie. Thispiecereadsas if it camefrom the hand of Dumasor Bergier,and is obviouslynoth-ing more than a "front,"as weremanyother orthodoxarticles. Certainly, t bearsno evidenceof Diderot'spersonalthought and is merely a compilation. Roger B.Oake ("DiderotandDonne,"MLN 56 [1946], 114-15) hassuggested hat Diderot'strue conviction is to be found in his presentation of Donne's views, which, a la

Bayle, he rejectswith orthodoxarguments. However,this is not certain. The onlystatementI have foundin Diderot'swritingsthat may possiblybe construedas fa-voringsuicide s in La Religieuse,when Father Lemoinecomments hat it werebet-ter the MotherSuperiorcommitted suicideratherthan seduce the innocentSoeurSuzanne. This, however, s only a dramaticdevice,and not an argument. Accord-ing to Bayet, Diderot is both for suicide and against it, at different imes. He isagainstit in his dialogue,"La Marquisede Claye et Saint-Alban,"where he holdsto the law of self-preservationOeuvres,IV, 60). He is for it in the Essai sur lesregnesde Claude et de Neron, where he admires he courageof Cato and the Ro-mans,and quotesSeneca,"Il est dur de vivre sous la necessit6,mais il n'y a pointde necessited'y vivre." However, Bayet is again unfaithful to his text. Admira-tion for Cato was frequent n both camps,and Diderot here is only explainingSen-eca's thoughtand the social conditions hat provoked t. Diderot'sown judgmentis clearlyindicated: suicideis bound to injure the happinessand honor of familyand friends. "La honted'une actionrejaillitsurles parents;les amissont au moinsaccus6s d'unmauvaischoix; un corps,une secte entiereest calomni6e. II est rarequ'onne fasse du mal qu'asoi." And yet we cannoteven be sure that this appar-ently clear statementrepresentsDiderot'strue opinion. Diderot'seditor, Assezat,notes that the philosopheswere commonlyaccusedof beingresponsible or the fre-quency of suicide, and called "empoisonneurspublics." Is Diderot here, in thispublishedwork, again defendinghis "sect "? It is difficult to reconcileDiderot'sgeneralhumanismwith his apparent opinionon suicide.71Partie III, Lettres xxi, xxii. Two other references o suicideoccur in Rous-seau'swritings. In his famous letter to Voltaire(18 aoiut1756), written after thelatter'sPoeme sur le desastrede Lisbonne,he informsVoltairethat if life is bad, itis generallyour own fault, but "Cela n'empechepas que le sage ne puissequelque-fois delogervolontairement,ans murmureet sans desespoir,quandla nature ou lafortune ui portentbiendistinctement 'ordredemourir." (Oeuvres Hachette,Paris,


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right according o nature's law to seek happinessand flee suffering.True, God gave us ourlife, but once given, it is ours. Sentinels maynot leave without permission,but that permission s given in our un-happiness. "Voila la voix de la nature et la voix de Dieu." Suicideis not a rebellionagainst the laws of Providence,but a carrying-outof its decrees. We must not exaggeratethe importanceof our life;man is no more the work of God than a straw. We change otherthings that Godhas put into the world,thereforewe can changethisthing. Far from saying life is never as bad as we imagine, it is theoppositewe shouldsay. Saint-Preuxheaps scorn on the college pro-fessorswho bravelylive and condemnfor cowardice he Romanswhoconquered he world. Man is not a slave. God has given him "laliberte pour faire le bien, la consciencepour le vouloir et la raisonpourle choisir;il l'a constitueseul juge de ses propresactions."Rousseau cannot be accused of having set up a straw man; andone wonders,on finishingthe firstletter, how he will makeout in thesecond. At the very start of the LordBomston'sreply, we see thatwe are dealing with what Schinz called "le Rousseau romain." Aman is not worththe name of man unlesshe is above the suffering nlife, and too indifferent o death to seek it out. Saint-Preux'sentireletter is summedup as a monstroussophism. All he has said missesthe real point: "I y a bien peut-etre a la vie humaine un but, unefin, un objet moral?" Or are we here just to live, suffer and die?Living is doinga job we are here for, and no one is here long enoughfor that. In saying life is evil, he is confusingessenceand accident.We have no moreright to kill ourselvesthan we have to stop being aman. We owe our lives to the society and countryof which we are apart: suicide is "un vol fait au genre humain. . . . Tout homme estutile a l'humanitepar cela seul qu'il existe. Chaquefois que tu serastente d'ensortir,dis en toi-meme: ' Queje fasse encore une bonneac-tion avant de mourir. . .. Puis va chercher quelque indigent a se-courir,quelque nfortunea consoler,quelqueopprimea defendre. ...Si [cette consideration] ne te retient pas . . . meurs: tu n'es qu'unmechant.' "721865], X, 125-26). Also, to an unwanted correspondent (-with his usual charm,Rousseau tells him, "Je ne vous connais point, monsieur, et n'ai nul desir de vousconnaitre "), he suggests, "s'il etait quelque cas ou l'homme efit le droit de se de-livrer de sa propre vie, ce serait pour des maux intolerables et sans remede." (XII,229, 24 novembre 1770.)72We must not omit reference to one concession: Rousseau approves of suicidein cases of incurable physical suffering, for then the afflicted person has actuallyceased being a man.


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 69It is obvious that Rousseau is less interested in attacking suicidethan in demolishing his mortal enemies, the philosophes. Suicide forhim represents everything they stand for. That is why he gives fullforce to their arguments, and then brands the whole structure a gi-gantic " sophism " (a favorite word) that has no relation to reality orthe meaning of life. His method is the typical mixture of abstractlogic supplemented in the pinches by sentiment and oratory. It maybe objected that Rousseau, too, was in many ways a humanist-in hisemphasis on the development of the individual and on happiness(" Courez a la felicite, c'est la fortune du sage "). But we must notforget that his moral theory has a Calvinistic rigidity, and that in theContrat social he takes a despairing view of human nature and up-holds repression of the individual as the key to social organization.It has doubtless been apparent, throughout the development ofthis discussion, that the line-up of the opposing sides correspondsfairly closely to the great divisions in eighteenth-century thought.The defenders of the Christian interpretation (a group that in Francecoincides with the supporters of the Old Regime) were faced with anassault from the " philosophes " and their allies, a heterogeneous bandwhose unity lay in their faith in the untrammeled exercise of criticalreason and empirical observation. A few defections there were-pos-sibly the mysterious case of Diderot-and on each side some weretroubled by this point or that; but on the whole, the two camps re-tained a uniform consistency.This rather sharp split, in a question of such relative complexity,grew out of the fundamental character of the central issue. This issueinvolves an estimate of man's nature and of his relationship with God.For the Christians, man is an imperfect creature, dependent on hisCreator for both his entrance into life and his exit from it. There ex-ists a mystical or supernatural limitation on man's dominion overhimself. Furthermore, just as in the universe there is written somegrand plan, beyond the reach of our understanding, so does our lifehave a meaning and a purpose, which may at times defy our penetra-tion, but which is certainly-since man is created in his Maker'simage--a moral purpose. Consequently, suicide is a revolt againstman's estate, against his God and the entire cosmic structure of whichhuman life is an integral part. Whatever arguments the traditional-ists advanced were all corollaries of this theme, and designed to but-tress it. Their denial of basic evil, their clever recourse to naturallaw and especially to the social consequences of suicide, must be con-sidered extensions and adjuncts of the fundamental decision. Thequestion of natural law seems of little intrinsic interest to the Chris-


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tians; the social aspect had a limited importancederived from thegeneralbent of thoughtin the eighteenth century,but an importancethat was intentionallymagnified. The chargeof cowardice s one ofthe most obviousexamplesof their utilizationof a side-issueto con-found the enemy.For the few atheists who were involved, notably d'Holbach,therepudiationof these basic assumptionswas automatic. Their rejec-tion by others, who, like Voltaire and d'Alembert,believedin a PrimeMover and a universalplan but abjuredthe Christian nterpretationof the human drama,was also a necessaryconclusion. These menweredeistic naturalists. Their faith was also in a universalorderinnature,but they held that by definition,everythingis a part of thatorder. No actionman canperform s conceivableas beingoutsidethenatural order,contradictory o it or in any way injuriousto it, butonly as an inevitable consequenceof it. Perhaps not all suicide ismoral. But they couldnot accept a prejudgmentof conduct accord-ing to an arbitrary,anti-rational,supernatural thic that mademan aspecialcreation. Thus the reinsertionof maninto nature,whileit de-prived him of his extraordinary tatus, restoredhis freedomand hismasteryover his own fate. He lost both importanceand protection,but regained,in the humanisticsense, his dignity. Plato's analogywith the animals s particularly ignificantof the traditionalists'eval-uation and of the humanists'resentmentof it.For these humanists, life has no meaning other than what mancaresto give to it, no importanceexcept for himself. Moralitybasedon supernatural anctions is not in accordwith his nature, thereforeineffective. Throughlaw and social organizationwe make our ownethic, onewhich still leavesa largesphereto the pragmaticdecisionofthe individual. It was on this basis that the philosophesjustifiedvoluntary departurefrom life, an act that was in logical agreementwith their conceptof man'sconditionand of natural law. But thesemen were essentiallyutilitarians. And althoughthey endeavoredtoprovethat suicide s not sociallyharmfulorcontradictoryo the socialcompact,they wereill at ease and repliedratherweaklyto their ene-mies' chargeson this score. We may assume they held the socialinjuryvery small compared o the essentialprincipleat stake.It is interestingto note that in dealingwith natural law and socialjudgments,the thinkingon both sides is on the sameplane; both aretalking the same language. But in mattersrelatingmorestrictly tothe evaluationof man and life, there seem to be two separateworldsof thought without contact. In the first instancewe can see the uni-versalpenetrationof a new set of viewpointsand criteria;in the sec-


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DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IN THE 18TH CENTURY 71ond, we witness the persistenceof the traditionalaxiomsand precon-ceptions. Natural law and social utilitarianism exist for both. Buthave we beenplacedhereto prepare or the life eternal,or is this acci-dent of ourbeinghere a value in itself? From this questionstem themetaphysicscharacteristic f one groupand the criticalrationalismofthe other.

Logical errorson both sides were an inevitable result of heatedcontroversy. The traditionalistsconstantlyinsist that justifyingsui-cide is equivalentto justifying murder. This is to overlook the factthat in suicideone takes only his own life andin murderone deprivesanotherpersonof his, against his will. The philosophes pointed tomanycaseswherekillingis permitted, orgettingthat these exceptionsgenerallyhave as their object,defenseof anotherhuman life or some-thing consideredequally sacred. There are other fallacies. But thetraditionalists, t can at least be said, were thoroughlyconsistent intheir reasoning. This is not entirely true of their adversaries,whowere trying to replacethe Christian version with a new philosophy.These men-including of courseRousseau-were not able to recon-cile, even to their own satisfaction,the rights of individual freedomand happinesswith the exigenciesof a purely social morality. Thisproblemis in evidence throughouttheir thinking on political, socialand moral problems. They upheld both with equal vigor and trieddesperatelyto harmonizethem-logically, as in Helvetius' De l'Es-prit, practically, as in Rousseau's Contrat social.Thereis a still moreimportantcontradictionmplicit in the philo-sophes'defenseof suicide. We have alreadyreferred o it in discus-sing Hume. The philosophesrefuseto make man an exception n na-ture, and they simultaneouslydo makehim an exceptionby giving tohim alonemasteryof his fate. They fail to see that if man does havethis autonomy,it is preciselybecausehe is the one exceptionto themechanical aws of nature. The laws are blind, and man has vision.We may ormay not go as far as Goethe,whoheld that man'smasteryof his fate is the reflectionof a divine qualityin him. But thereis, atleast, a purelyhumanquality that distinguisheshim fromthe rest ofnature-the ability to contemplatethe rest of nature, and himself,both in retrospectand with foresight. It is on this ability that thephilosophes'ownbeliefin virtue andhumandignityis predicated. Weare confrontedwith the essential dichotomy of eighteenth-centurythought: on the one hand, a rationalismthat is humanistic, tingedeven with the spiritual,believing in man as a moral being; on theother hand, a rationalisticmaterialismthat denied the existence of


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suicide 18th c

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