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CHAPTER IV. - ON THE INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN MENTAL STATES IN INDUCING THE DISPOSITION TO SUICIDE.

Moral causes of disease -- Neglect of psychological medicine -- Mental philosophy a branch of medical study -- Moral causes of suicide -- Tables of Falret, &c. -- Influence of remorse -- Simon Brown, Charles IX. of France -- Massacre of St. Bartholomew -- Terrible death of Cardinal Beaufort, from remorse -- The Chevalier de S -- -- . Influence of disappointed love -- Suicide from love -- Two singular cases -- Effects of jealousy -- Othello -- Suicide from this passion -- The French opera dancer -- Suicide from wounded vanity -- False pride -- The remarkable case of Villeneuve, as related by Buonaparte -- Buonaparte’s attempt at suicide -- Ambition -- Despair, cases of suicide from -- The Abbé de Rancé -- Suicide from blind impulse -- Cases -- Mathews, the comedian -- Opinion of Esquirol on the subject -- Ennui, birth of -- Common cause of suicide in France -- Effect of speculating in stocks -- Defective education -- Diffusion of knowledge -- “Socialism” a cause of self-destruction -- Suicide common in Germany -- Werter -- Goëthe’s attempt at suicide -- Influence of his writings on Hackman -- Suicide from reading Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason” -- Suicide to avoid punishment -- Most remarkable illustrations -- Political excitement -- Nervous irritation -- Love of notoriety -- Hereditary disposition -- Is death painful? fully considered, with cases -- Influence of irreligion.

In our voyage through life, the passions are said to be the gales that swell the canvass of the mental bark; they obstruct or accelerate its course, and render the passage favourable or full of danger, in proportion as they blow steadily from a proper point, or are adverse or tempestuous. Like the wind itself, the passions are engines of mighty power and of high importance. Without them we cannot proceed, and with them46 we may be shipwrecked and lost. Curbed in and regulated, they constitute the source of our most elevated happiness; but when not subdued, they drive the vessel on the rocks and quicksands of life, and ruin us.

“How few beneath auspicious planets born
With swelling sails make good the promis’d port,
With all their wishes freighted.”
Young.

“In this country,” Dr. J. Johnson justly observes, “where man’s relations with the world around him are multiplied beyond all example in any other country, in consequence of the intensity of interest attached to politics, religion, amusement, literature, and the arts; where the temporal concerns of an immense proportion of the population are in a perpetual state of vacillation; where spiritual affairs excite in the minds of many great anxiety; and where speculative risks are daily involving in difficulties all classes of society, -- the operation of physical causes in the production of disease dwindles into complete insignificance when compared with that of anxiety and perturbation of mind.”

“Mens conscia recti in corpore sano,” is Horace’s well-known description of the happy man. Lucretius appears to have formed a correct estimate of the most important bodily and mental conditions on which our happiness depends: --

“O wretched mortals! race perverse and blind!
Through what dread, dark, what perilous pursuits
Pass ye this round of being! Know ye not,
Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,
But for the body freedom from disease,
And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”

Like human beings, the sciences are closely connected with, and are mutually dependent upon, one another. The link in the chain may not be apparent, but it has a real and palpable existence. Medical and moral science are more nearly allied than we should, à priori, conclude. We speak of the science of medicine, not the practice of it; for, like judgment and wit, or, as the author of the School for Scandal ironically observes,47 like man and wife, how seldom are they seen in happy union. Garth feelingly alludes to this unnatural divorce: --

“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,
And, once a science, has become a trade.”

Psychological medicine has been sadly neglected. We recoil from the study of mental philosophy as if we were encroaching on holy ground. So great is the prejudice against this branch of science, that it has been observed, that to recommend a man to study metaphysics was a delicate mode of suggesting the propriety of confining him in a lunatic asylum!

In order to become a useful physician, it is necessary to become a good metaphysician; so says a competent authority. It was not, however, Dr. Cullen’s intention to recommend that species of philosophy which confounds the mind without enlightening it, and which, like an ignis fatuus, dazzles only to lead us from the truth. To the medical man we can conceive no preliminary study more productive of advantage than that which tends to call into exercise the latent principle of thought, and to accustom the mind to close, rigid, and accurate observation. The science of mind, when properly investigated, teaches us the laws of our mental frame, and shews us the origin of our various modes and habits of thought and feeling -- how they operate upon one another, and how they are cultivated and repressed; it disciplines us in the art of induction, and guards us against the many sources of fallacy in the practice of making inferences; it gives precision and accuracy to our investigations, by instructing us in the nicer discriminations of truth and falsehood.

The value of mental philosophy as a branch of education will be properly appreciated when we consider that this ennobling principle was given to us for the purpose of directing and controlling our powers and animal propensities, and bringing them into that subjection whereby they become beneficial to the individual and to the world at large, enabling him to exchange with others those results which the power of his own and the48 gigantic efforts of other minds have developed; maintaining and perpetuating the most dignified and exalted state of happiness, the attribute of social life; unfolding not only treasures which the concentrated powers of individuals are enabled to discover, but developing those more quiet and unobtrusive characteristics of virtuous life, those social affections, which are alone calculated to make our present state of being happy.

Independently of the utility of the study, what a world of delight is open to the mind of that man who has devoted some portion of his time to the investigation of his mental organization! In him we may truly behold --

“Nature, gentle, kind,
By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,
And all the radiant fruits of truth matured.”

When we take into consideration the tremendous influence which the different mental emotions have over the bodily functions, when we perceive that violent excitement of mind will not only give rise to serious functional disorder, but actual organic disease, leading to the commission of suicide, how necessary does it appear that he to whose care is entrusted the lives of his fellow-creatures, should have made this department of philosophy a matter of serious consideration! It is no logical argument against the study of mental science, to urge that we are in total ignorance of the nature or constitution of the human understanding. We know nothing of the nature of objects which are cognizable to sense, and which can be submitted to actual experiment, and yet we are not deterred from the investigation of their properties and mutual influences. The passions are to be considered, in a medical point of view, as a part of our constitution. They stimulate or depress the mind, as food and drink do the body. Employed occasionally, and in moderation, both may be of use to us, and are given to us by nature for this purpose; but when urged to excess, the system is thrown off its balance, and disease is the result.

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To the medical philosopher, nothing can be more deeply interesting than to trace the reciprocity of action existing between different mental conditions, and affections of particular organs. Thus the passion of fear, when excited, has a sensible influence on the action of the heart; and when the disease of this organ takes place independently of any mental agitation, the passion of fear is powerfully roused. Anger affects the liver and confines the bowels, and frequently gives rise to an attack of jaundice; and in hepatic and intestinal disease, how irritable the temper is!

Hope, or the anticipation of pleasure, affects the respiration; and how often do we see patients, in the last stage of pulmonary disease, entertaining sanguine expectations of recovery to the very last!

As the passions exercise so despotic a tyranny over the physical economy, it is natural to expect that the crime of suicide should often be traced to the influence of mental causes. In many cases, it is difficult to discover whether the brain, the seat of the passions, be primarily or secondarily affected. Often the cause of irritation is situated at some distance from the cerebral organ; but when the fountain-head of the nervous system becomes deranged, it will react on the bodily functions, and produce serious disease long after the original cause of excitement is removed. It is not our intention to attempt to explain the modus operandi of mental causes in the production of the suicidal disposition. That such effects result from an undue excitement of the mind cannot for one moment be questioned. Independently of mental perturbation giving rise to maniacal suicide, there are certain conditions of mind, dependent upon acquired or hereditary disposition, or arising from a defective expansion of the intellectual faculties, which originate the desire for self-destruction. These states will all be alluded to in the course of the present inquiry.

Some idea of the influence of certain mental states on the body will be obtained by an examination of the various tables which have been published, in this and other countries, re50specting the causes of suicide, as far as they could be ascertained.

The following suicides were committed in London, between the years 1770 and 1830:19 --

According to a table formed by Falret of the suicides which took place between 1794 and 1823, the following results appear: -- Of 6782 cases, 254 were from disappointed love, and of this number 157 were women; 92 were from jealousy; 125 from being calumniated; 49 from a desire, without the means, of vindicating their characters; 122 from disappointed ambition; 322 from reverses of fortune; 16 from wounded vanity; 155 from gambling; 288 from crime and remorse; 723 from domestic distress; 905 from poverty; 16 from fanaticism.

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In preparing the present work, we have endeavoured to obtain access to documents which would throw some light on the probable origin of the many cases of self-destruction which have taken place within the last four or five years. In many cases we could obtain no insight into the motives of the individuals; but in nine-tenths of those whose histories we succeeded in making ourselves somewhat conversant with, we found that mental causes played a very conspicuous part in the drama. Our experience on this point accords with that of many distinguished French physicians who have devoted their time and talents to the consideration of the subject.

In considering the influence of mental causes, we shall in the first instance point out the effects of certain passions and dispositions of the individual on the body; then investigate the operation of education, irreligion, and certain unhealthy conditions of the mind which predispose the individual to derangement and suicide.

There is no passion of the mind which so readily drives a person to suicide as remorse. In these cases, there is generally a shipwreck of all hope. To live is horror; the infuriated sufferer feels himself an outcast from God and man; and though his judgment may still be correct upon other subjects, it is completely overpowered upon that of his actual distress, and all he thinks of and aims at is to withdraw with as much speed as possible from the present state of torture, totally regardless of the future.

“I would not if I could be blest,
I want no other paradise but rest.”

The most painfully interesting and melancholy cases of insanity are those in which remorse has taken possession of the mind. Simon Brown, the dissenting clergyman, fancied that he had been deprived by the Almighty of his immortal soul, in consequence of having accidentally taken away the life of a highwayman, although it was done in the act of resistance to his threatened violence, and in protection of his own person. Whilst kneeling upon the wretch whom he had suc52ceeded in throwing upon the ground, he suddenly discovered that his prostrate enemy was deprived of life. This unexpected circumstance produced so violent an impression upon his nervous system, that he was overpowered by the idea of an involuntary homicide, and for this imaginary crime fancied himself ever afterwards condemned to one of the most dreadful punishments that could be inflicted upon a human being.

A young lady was one morning requested by her mother to stay at home; notwithstanding which, she was tempted to go out. Upon her return to her domestic roof, she found that the parent whom she had so recently disobliged had expired in her absence. The awful spectacle of a mother’s corpse, connected with the filial disobedience which had almost immediately preceded, shook her reason from its seat, and she has ever since continued in a state of mental derangement.

It is said that the solitary hours of Charles the Ninth of France were rendered horrible by the repetition of the shrieks and cries which had assailed his ears during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.21

The death of Cardinal Beaufort is represented as truly terrible. The consciousness of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester is said to have rendered Beaufort’s death one of the most terrific scenes ever witnessed. Despair, in its worst form, appeared to take possession of his mind at the last moment. 53 His concluding words, as recorded by Harpsfield,22 were -- “And must I then die? Will not all my riches save me? I could purchase the kingdom, if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing of death? When my nephew, the Duke of Bedford, died, I thought my happiness and my authority greatly increased; but the Duke of Gloucester’s death raised me in fancy to a level with kings, and I thought of nothing but accumulating still greater wealth, to purchase at last the triple crown. Alas! how are my hopes disappointed! Wherefore, O my friends, let me earnestly beseech you to pray for me, and recommend my departing soul to God!” A few minutes before his death, his mind appeared to be undergoing the tortures of the damned. He held up his two hands, and cried -- “Away! away! -- why thus do ye look at me?” It was evident he saw some horrible spectre by his bed-side. This last scene in the Cardinal’s life has been most ably delineated by the immortal Shakspeare: --

Scene -- The Cardinal’s Bed-chamber.

Enter King Henry, Salisbury, and Warwick.

King Hen.

How fares my Lord?
Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

Cardinal.

If thou be’st Death,
I’ll give thee England’s treasure,
Enough to purchase such another island,
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.

King Hen.

Ah! what a sign it is of evil life When death’s approach is seen so terrible.

Warwick.

Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.

Cardinal.

Bring me unto my trial when you will.
Died he²³ not in his bed? Where should he die?
Can I make men live whe’er they will or no?
O, torture me no more, I will confess --
Alive again? then shew me where he is:
I’ll give a thousand pound to look upon him --
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them. --
Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright,
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul. -- ⁵⁴
Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary
Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.

King Hen.

O thou eternal Mover of the Heav’ns,
Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch.

O, beat away the busy meddling fiend,
That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul,
And from his bosom purge this black despair.
See how the pangs of death do make him grin!

Salisbury.

Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably.

King Hen.

Peace to his soul, if God’s good pleasure be!
Lord Cardinal, if thou think’st on heaven’s bliss,
Lift up thy hand, make signal of thy hope. --
He dies, and makes no sign -- O God, forgive him!

Warwick.

So bad a death argues a monstrous life.

King Hen.

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. --
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close,
And let us all to meditation. ²⁴

M. Guillon relates the following remarkable case: -- “The Chevalier de S -- -- had been engaged in seventeen ‘affairs of honour,’ in each of which his adversary fell. But the images of his murdered rivals began to haunt him night and day; and at length he fancied he heard nothing but the wailings and upbraidings of seventeen families -- one demanding a father, another a son, another a brother, another a husband, etc. Harassed by these imaginary followers, he incarcerated himself in the monastery of La Trappe; but the French revolution threw open this asylum, and turned the chevalier once more into the world. He was now no longer able to bear the remorse of his own conscience, or, as he imagined, the sight of seventeen murdered men, and therefore put himself to death. It is evident that insanity was the consequence of the remorse, and the cause of the suicide.

“No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure as that which is complicated with the idea of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from 55the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give pain; but when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them.”25

How accurately has the poet depicted the tortures, the sleeplessness, of a guilty conscience: --

“Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gathered in a cloud;
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.”

A woman with her husband had been employed in a French hospital as servants for a considerable time. Having left their situations, the wife, thirty years afterwards, declared she heard a voice within, commanding her to repair instantly to the chief commissioner of police, and confess the thefts she had committed during the time she was at the hospital. The fact was, that she had been guilty of appropriating occasionally to her own use a portion of the food supplied for the patients attached to the Institution. The commissioner listened to the woman’s story, and her demand that she should be punished, but refused to take any cognizance of the offence. She returned home, and for some time was extremely dejected. She became so miserable that existence was no longer desirable; and as the legal tribunals refused to punish her, she determined on suicide, which she committed at the age of fifty-one.

It is admitted, by almost universal consent, that there is no affection of the mind that exerts so tremendous an influence over the human race as that of love.

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“To love, and feel ourselves beloved,”

is said to constitute the height of human happiness. This sacred sentiment, which some have debased by the term passion, when unrequited and irregulated, produces the most baneful influence upon the system.

“A youthful passion, which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls -- it bursts -- consuming and destroying all around, even as itself expires.”26

From the constitution of woman, from the peculiar position which she of necessity holds in society, we should, à priori, have concluded that in her we should see manifested this sentiment in all its purity and strength. Such is the fact. A woman’s life is said to be but the history of her affections. It is the soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life blood along her veins, “blending with every atom of her frame.” Separated from the bustle of active life -- isolated like a sweet and rare exotic flower from the world, it is natural to expect that the mind should dwell with earnestness upon that which is to constitute almost its very being, and apart from which it has no existence.

“Alas! the love of woman, it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown;
And if ’tis lost, life hath no more to bring
To them, but mockeries of the past alone.”
Byron.

The term “broken heart” is not a mere poetical image. Cases are recorded in which that organ has been ruptured in consequence of disappointed hope. Let those who are sceptical as to the fact that physical disease so often results from blighted affection, visit the wards of our public and private 57asylums. In those dreary regions of misery they will have an opportunity of witnessing the wreck of many a form that was once beauteous and happy. Ask their history, and you will be told of holy and sincere affection nipped in the bud -- of wild and passionate love strangled at its birth -- of the death of all human hopes, of a severance from those about whom every fibre of the soul had entwined itself. Silent and sullen grief, black despair,

“And laughter loud, amidst severest woe,”

are the painful images that meet the eye at every step we
take through these “hells upon earth.”

In this country, the great majority of the cases of insanity among women, in our establishments devoted to the reception of the insane, can clearly be traced to unrequited and disappointed affection. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider the present artificial state of society. We make “merchandize of love;” both men and women are estimated, not by their mental endowments, not by their moral worth, not by their capacity of making the domestic fire-side happy, but by the length of their respective purses. Instead of seeking for a heart, we look for a dowry. Money is preferred to intellect; pure and unadulterated affection dwindles into nothingness when placed in the same scale with titles and worldly honours,

How little do those who ought to be influenced by more elevated motives calculate the seeds of wretchedness and misery which they are sowing for those who, by nature, have a right to demand that they should be actuated by other principles!

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says Catherine, in the spirit of honest indignation. It should be remembered that “wedlock joins nothing, if it joins not hearts.”

How many melancholy cases of suicide can clearly be traced to this cause! Death is considered preferable to a long life of unmitigated sorrow. When the heart is seared, when there exists no “green spot in memory’s dreary waste,” -- when all hope is banished from the mind, and wretched loneliness and desolation take up their residence in the heart, need it excite surprise that the quiet and rest of the grave is eagerly longed for! If a mind thus worked upon be not influenced by religious principles, self-destruction is the idea constantly present to the imagination.

Of all the sufferings, however, to which we are exposed during our sojourn below, nothing is so truly overwhelming and irreparable as the death of one with whom all our early associations are inseparably linked -- one endeared to us by the most pleasing recollections. Death leaves a blank in our existence; a cold shuddering shoots through the frame, a mist flits before our eyes, darkening the face of nature, when the heart that mingled all its feelings with ours lies, cold and insensible, in the silent grave.

As long as life lasts, there is hope; but death snatches every ray of consolation from the mind. The only prop that supported us is removed, and the mansion crumbles to the dust; the mind becomes utterly and hopelessly wrecked. To say that this is but the effect on understandings constitutionally weak, is to say what facts will not establish. The most elevated and best cultivated minds are often the most sensitively alive to such impressions.

The following case made considerable noise at Lyons, in 591770. A young gentleman of rank, of handsome exterior, possessing considerable mental endowments, and most respectably connected, fell in love with a young lady, who, like himself, possessed a handsome person, in union with accomplishments of a high order. They met; the passion was reciprocal, and the gentleman accordingly made an application to her parents to be allowed to consummate their bliss by marriage. The parents, as parents sometimes do under these circumstances, refused compliance. The gentleman took it greatly to heart; it preyed much upon his mind, and in the midst of his grief he burst a blood-vessel. His case was given over by the medical men. The young lady, on being made acquainted with his condition, paid him a clandestine visit, and they then agreed to destroy themselves. Accordingly the lady brought with her, on her next visit, two pistols and two daggers, in order that, if the pistols missed, the daggers might the next moment pierce their hearts. They embraced each other for the last time. Rose-coloured ribbons were tied to the triggers of the pistols; the lover holding the ribbon of his mistress’ pistol, while she held the ribbon of his; both fired at a given signal, and both fell at the same instant dead on the floor!

The case now about to be recorded presents some peculiarly interesting features. An English lady, moving in the first circles of society, went, in company with her friends, to the opera at Paris. In the next box sat a gentleman, who appeared, from the notice he took of the lady, to be enamoured of her. The lady expressed herself annoyed at the observation which she had attracted, and moved to another part of the box. The gentleman followed the carriage home, and insisted upon addressing the lady, declaring that he had had the pleasure of meeting her elsewhere, and that one minute’s conversation would convince her of the fact, and do away with the unfavourable impression which his apparent rudeness might have made upon her mind. As his request60 did not appear at the moment unreasonable, she consented to see him for a minute by herself. In that short space of time he made a fervent declaration of his affection; acknowledged that desperation had compelled him to have recourse to a ruse to obtain an interview, and that, unless she looked favourably on his pretensions, he would kill her and then himself. The lady expressed her indignation at the deceit he had practised, and said, with considerable firmness, that he must quit the house. He did so, retired to his home, and with a lancet opened a vein in his arm. He collected a portion of blood in a cup, and with it wrote a note to the lady, telling her that his blood was flowing fast from his body, and it should continue to flow until she consented to listen to his proposals. The lady, on the receipt of the note, sent her servant to see the gentleman, and found him, as he represented, actually bleeding to death. On the entreaty of the lady, the arm was bound up and his life saved. On writing to the lady, under the impression that she would now accept his addresses, he was amazed on receiving a cool refusal, and a request that he would not trouble her with any more letters. Again driven to desperation, he resolved effectually to kill himself. He accordingly loaded a pistol and directed his steps towards the residence of his fair amorosa, when, knocking at the door, he gained admission, and immediately blew out his brains. The intelligence was communicated to the lady, she became dreadfully excited, and a severe attack of nervous fever followed. When the acute symptoms subsided, her mind was completely deranged. Her insanity took a peculiar turn. She fancied she heard a voice commanding her to commit suicide, and yet she appeared to be possessed of sufficient reason to know that she was desirous of doing what she ought to be restrained from accomplishing. Every now and then she would exclaim, “Take away the pistol! I won’t hang myself! I won’t take poison!” Under the impression that she would kill herself, she was carefully61 watched; but notwithstanding the vigilance which was exercised she had sufficient cunning to conceal a knife, with which, during the temporary absence of the attendant, she stabbed herself in the abdomen, and died in a few hours. It appears that the idea that she had caused the death of another, and that she had it in her power to save his life by complying with his wishes, produced the derangement of mind under which she was labouring at the time of her death; and yet she did not manifest, and it was evident to everybody that she had not, the slightest affection for the gentleman who professed so much to admire her. Possessing naturally a sensitive mind, it was easily excited. The peculiar circumstances connected with her mental derangement were sufficient to account for the delusions under which she laboured. Altogether the case is full of interest.

Few passions tend more to distract and unsettle the mind than that of jealousy. Insanity and suicide often owe their origin to this feeling. One of the most terrific pictures of the dire effects of this “green-eyed monster” on the mind is delineated in the character of Othello. In the Moor of Venice we witness a fearful struggle between fond and passionate love and this corroding mental emotion. Worked upon by the villainous artifices of Iago, Othello is led to doubt the constancy of Desdemona’s affection; the very doubt urges him almost to the brink of madness; but when he feels assured of her guilt, and sees the gulf into which he has been hurled, and the utter hopelessness of his condition, he abandons himself to despair. Nothing which the master spirit of Shakspeare ever penned can equal the exquisitely touching and melting pathos of the speech of the Moor when he becomes perfectly conscious of the wreck of one around whom every tendril of his heart had indissolubly interwoven itself. To be forcibly severed from one dearer to us than our own existence is a misfortune that requires much philosophy to bear up against; to be torn from a beloved object by death, to feel that the62 earth encloses in its cold embrace the idol of our affections, freezes the heart; but to be separated from one who has forfeited all claim to our affection and friendship, and who still lives, but lives in dishonour, must be a refinement of human misery. Need we then wonder that, when influenced by such feelings, Othello should thus give expression to the overflowings of his soul: --

It is under the infliction of such a concentration of misery that many a mind is shattered, and that death is courted as the only relief within its grasp. Othello, having discovered when it was too late that he had wrongly suspected Desdemona, and had sacrificed the life of the sweetest creature on earth, a combination of passions drives him to distraction, and under their influence he plunges the dagger into his heart. Jealousy was not, as some have supposed, the exclusive cause of Othello’s suicide.

The following singular case attracted considerable notice fifteen years ago. A woman was subjected to much maltreatment by her husband. She was jealous of his attentions to one of the servants, and she had frequently declared, that if he persisted in insulting her under her own roof she would either cause his or her own death. On one occasion she was more than usually violent, and expressed her determination to ruin him. Fearful that she would carry her threat into execution, he had her placed in a room where there was no fur63niture, and nothing that she could use for the purpose of self-destruction. Her rage was greatly increased by this barbarous treatment, and her screams were sufficiently loud to alarm the whole neighbourhood. As her husband refused to release her from confinement, she determined no longer to submit to his brutal control, and resolved to commit suicide. Having no instrument that she could use, she felt some difficulty in effecting her purpose. She held her breath for some time, but that did not succeed. She then tried to strangle herself with her hands, but that mode was equally unsuccessful. Her determination was so resolutely fixed, that in desperation she tore her hair out by the roots. Still death did not come to her relief. In vain she searched in every corner of the room for something with which she might effectually take away her life. Just as she was beginning to give up the idea as hopeless, her eye caught a sight of the glass in the window; she instantly broke a pane, and with a piece of it endeavoured to cut her throat; and yet she could not succeed in effecting her horrid purpose. At last, as a dernier resort, she resolved to swallow a piece of the broken glass, hoping by this means to choke herself. She did so, and the glass stuck in her throat, and produced the most excruciating agony. Her groans became audible; the husband became alarmed, and opened the door, when he found his wife apparently in the last struggles of death. Medical relief was immediately obtained, and although everything that surgical ingenuity could suggest was had recourse to, she died, a melancholy spectacle of the effects of unsubdued passion.

The two following cases shew how trifling a cause often incites to self-destruction: --

Madame N -- -- , a once famous dancer at the French opera-house, was taken to task by her husband for not acquitting herself so well in the ballet as she usually did. She exhibited indications of passion at the, as she thought, unmerited reproof. When she arrived home, she resolved to die, but was much puzzled to effect her purpose. The next morning, she64 purchased a potent poison, but when she returned to her home she found that her husband looked suspiciously at her, and appeared to watch her movements. She then made up her mind to take the fatal draught in the evening, as she was going in the carriage to the opera. She accordingly did so; the poison did not have an immediate effect. The ballet commenced, and Madame N -- -- was led on the stage; and it was not until she had commenced dancing that she began to feel the draught producing the desired effect. She complained of illness, and was removed to her dressing-room, where she expired in the arms of her husband, confessing that she had, in a fit of chagrin at his rebuke, swallowed poison!

A young gentleman, of considerable promise, of high natural and acquired attainments, had been solicited to make a speech at a public meeting, which was to take place in the town in which he resided. As he had never attempted to address extemporaneously a public body, he expressed himself extremely nervous as to the result, and asked permission to withdraw his name from the published list of speakers. This wish was not, however, complied with, as it was thought that when the critical moment arrived he would not be found wanting even in the art of public speaking. He had prepared himself with considerable care for the attempt. His name was announced from the chair; when he rose for the purpose of delivering his sentiments. The exordium was spoken without any hesitation; and his friends felt assured that he would acquit himself with great credit. He had not, however, advanced much beyond his prefatory observations, when he hesitated, and found himself incapable of proceeding. He then sat down, evidently excessively mortified. In this state he retired to a room where the members of the committee had previously met, and cut his throat with his penknife. He wounded the carotid artery, and died in a few minutes.

A case of suicide from mortified pride, somewhat similar65 to the last, occurred some years ago in London. A gentleman, whose imagination was much more active than his judgment, conceived that he was possessed of histrionic powers equal to those which were exhibited by the immortal Garrick. A manager of a London theatre, to whom he was introduced, allowed him to make his débût at his theatre. As is often the case, the public formed a different estimate of his abilities to that which the vanity of the young aspirant had induced him to form; and the consequence was, that he was well hissed and hooted for his presumption in attempting a character for which his talents so little adapted him. Being naturally sensitive, his failure preyed on his mind; and under the influence of the mortification, he hung himself, leaving in his room the following laconic epistle, addressed to his mother: --

“My Dear Mother, -- All my hopes have been ruined. I fancied myself a man of genius; the reality has proved me to be a fool. I die, because life is no longer to be supported. Look charitably on this last action of my life. Adieu!”

A common cause of suicide is the feeling of false pride. The only reason assigned for the desperate act of Elizabeth Moyes, who threw herself from the Monument, was, that, owing to the reduced circumstances of her father, (a baker,) it was determined that she should procure a situation at a confectioner’s, and support herself. This she allowed to prey upon her mind, although she expressed a concurrence in the propriety of the course suggested. How true it is --

Owing to the fictitious notions abroad in society, the ridiculously false views which are taken of worldly honours, the ideas which a sickly sentimentality infuses into the mind, this feeling is engendered, to an alarming extent, through the66 different ranks of society. This constitutes one great element which is undermining and disorganizing our social condition. A fictitious value is affixed to wealth and position in the world; it is estimated for itself alone, all other considerations being placed out of view.

Vatel committed suicide because he was not able to prepare as sumptuous an entertainment as he wished for his guests.

We cannot conceive how this evil is to be obviated, unless it be possible to revolutionize the ideas which are generally attached to fame and worldly grandeur. It is difficult to persuade such persons that the end of fame is merely

There is a nameless, undefinable something, that the world is taught to sigh after -- is always in search of; a moral ignis fatuus, which is dazzling to lead it from the road which points to true and unsophisticated happiness.

Persons naturally proud are less able than others to bear up against the distresses of life; they are more severely galled by the yoke of adversity; and hence this passion often produces mental derangement. Such characters exhibit a morbid desire for praise; it acts like moral nourishment to their souls; it is a stimulus that is almost necessary to their very being, forgetting that

Dr. Reid justly observes, that “he who enters most deeply into the misfortunes of others, will be best able to bear his own. A practical benevolence, by habitually urging us to disinterested exertion, tends to alienate the attention from any single train of ideas, which, if favoured by indolence and self contemplation, might be in danger of monopolizing the67 mind, and occasions us to lose a sense of our personal concerns in an enlarged and liberal sympathy with the general good.”

Villeneuve, the celebrated French admiral, when he was taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat that he studied anatomy in order to destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France, Buonaparte ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and consequently losing his fleet, (for Napoleon had ordered him not to sail or to engage the English,) determined to destroy himself; and accordingly took his plates and compared them with the position of his heart. Exactly in the centre he made a mark with a large pin; then fixed it, as near as he could judge, in the same spot in his own breast, and shoved it on to its head; it penetrated his heart, and he expired. When the room was opened, he was found dead, the pin through his breast, and a mark in the plate corresponding with the wound.29

It has been said that after the death of Josephine, and when Buonaparte was overwhelmed with misfortunes, he attempted suicide. Those who consider Napoleon immaculate deny the accuracy of the charge. But in order to give the reader an opportunity of judging for himself, we lay before him Sir Walter Scott’s account of the transaction referred to. “Buonaparte,” he observes, “belonged to the Roman school of philosophy; and it is confidently reported by Baron Fane, his secretary -- though not universally believed -- that he designed to escape from life by an act of suicide. The Emperor, according to this account, had carried with him, ever since his retreat from Moscow, a 68packet containing a preparation of opium, made up in the same manner with that used by Condorcet, for self-destruction. His valet-de-chambre, in the night of the 12th or 13th of April, heard him arise, and pour something into a glass of water, drink, and return to bed. In a short time afterwards the man’s attention was called by sobs and stifled groans; an alarm took place in the chateau; some of the principal persons were roused, and repaired to Napoleon’s chamber. Yvan, the surgeon who had procured him the poison, was also summoned; but hearing the Emperor complain that the operation of the potion was not quick enough, he was seized with a panic of terror, and fled from the palace at full gallop. Napoleon took the remedies recommended, and a long fit of stupor ensued, with profuse perspiration. He awakened much exhausted, and surprised at finding himself still alive. He said aloud, after a few moments’ reflection, ‘Fate will not have it so;’ and afterwards appeared reconciled to undergo his destiny without similar attempts at personal violence.” Napoleon’s illness was, at the time, imputed to indigestion. A general of the highest distinction transacted business with Napoleon on the morning of the 13th of April. He seemed pale and dejected, as from recent and exhausting illness. His only dress was a night-gown and slippers; and he drank, from time to time, a quantity of ptisan, or some such liquid, which was placed beside him, saying he had suffered severely during the night, but that his complaint had left him.30

We cannot conceive a more piteous condition than that of a man of great ambition without the powers of mind which are indispensable for its gratification. In him a constant contest is going on between an intellect constitutionally weak, and a desire to distinguish himself in some particular department of life. How often a man so unhappily organized ends his career in a mad-house, or terminates his miserable existence 69by suicide! Let men be taught to make correct estimates of their own capabilities, to curb in the imagination, to cease “building castles in the air,” if we wish to advance their mental and bodily health. “Ne sutor ultra crepidam,” said Apelles to the cobbler. A young man who “penned a stanza when he ought to engross,” blew out his brains because he had failed in inducing a London publisher to purchase an epic poem which he had written, and which he had the vanity to conceive was equal to Paradise Lost, forgetting that, in order to be a poet, --

That this state of mind predisposes and often leads to the commission of suicide, numerous cases testify.

Despair often drives men to suicide. The dread of poverty and want; the hopes in which we often injudiciously place too much of our happiness entirely blasted; either honest or false pride humbled by public or private contempt; ambitious views suddenly and unexpectedly disappointed; pains of the body, the loss of those dear and near to us, -- tend to originate this feeling, and induce the unhappy person to seek relief in self-murder.

How terrible is the situation of the man exposed to the influence of this passion, and deprived of the cheering and elevating influence of hope! We had an opportunity, some years back, of witnessing the case of a maniac, whose derangement of mind consisted in his having abandoned himself completely to despair. He laboured under no distinct or prominent delusion, but his mental alienation consisted in the total absence of all prospect of relief. The iron had entered his very soul; he appeared as if the hand of a relentless destiny had written on the threshold of his door, as on the gate of the Inferno of Dante, the heart-rending sentence, “Abandon all hope!”

70

A woman is seduced by some heartless and profligate wretch; she is in a short time forsaken and left to her fate. Her mind recurs to the past; she recalls to recollection her once happy state of innocence and peace. Scorned by the world, shunned by her relations and friends, she is driven to a state of agonizing distraction. Despair, in its worst features, takes possession of her mind, and under this feeling she puts an end to her existence. A man under the operation of this passion wrote as follows: --

“It has pleased the Almighty to weaken my understanding, to undermine my reason, and to render me unfit for the discharge of my duty. My blood rolls in billows and torrents of despair. It must have vent. How? I possess a place to which I am a dishonour, inasmuch as I am incapable of discharging it properly; I prevent some better man from doing it more justice. This piece of bread which I lament is all that I have to support myself and family; even this I do not merit; I eat it in sin, and yet I live. Killing thought! which a conscience hitherto uncorrupted inspires. I have a wife, also, and my child reproaches me with its existence. But you do not know, my dear friends, that if my unhappy life is not speedily ended, my weak head will require all your care, and I shall become a burthen rather than an assistance to you. It is better that I yield myself a timely sacrifice to misfortune, than, by permitting the delusion to continue longer, I consume the last farthing of my wife’s inheritance. It is a duty of every person to do that which his situation requires; reason commands it, religion approves. My life, such as it is, is a mere animal life, devoid of reason; in my mind, a life which stands in opposition to duty is moral death, and worse than that which is natural. In favour of the few whose life I cannot render happy, it is at least my duty not to become an oppression. I ought to relieve them from a weight which sooner or later cannot fail to crush them.”

This unfortunate man, after penning the above account of his morbid feelings, sent his wife to church on Sunday,71 May 13th, 1783; and after writing an addition to his journal, took a pair of scissors and attempted, although unsuccessfully, to terminate his life by cutting his throat. He then opened the arteries at the wrists, and again failed in destroying himself; he staggered to the window, and saw his wife returning home, upon which he seized a knife used for killing deer, and stabbed himself in the heart. He was lying weltering in his blood when his wife came in, but was not quite dead. M. le Clarc, who relates the case, observes, that he was a man of understanding, and of a lively wit. He possessed a great deal of theoretical learning; his heart was incorruptibly honest. Like every calm and determined self-murderer, he was proud; but his pride was not the pride of rank, of riches, or of learning, but that divine pride which arises from a consciousness of incorruptible honesty, and of being possessed of good powers of mind. The office he held was that of an assistant judge in a small college of justice at Insterberg. His mother had been once deranged in her mind.

Few persons have given a more striking example of this passion than the Abbé de Rancé, when first touched with remorse for the enormity of his past life, and before the disturbed state of his mind had settled into that turn for religious seclusion and mortification which produced the appalling austerities of La Trappe. “To a state of frantic despair,” says Don Lancelot, in his letter to La Mère Angelique of Port Royal, “succeeded a black melancholy. He sent away all his friends, and shut himself up in his mansion at Veret, where he would not see a creature. His whole soul, nay, even his bodily wants, seemed wholly absorbed in a deep and settled gloom. Shut up in a single room, he even forgot to eat and drink; and when the servant reminded him that it was bed-time, he started as from a deep reverie, and seemed unconscious that it was not still morning. When he was better, he would often wander in the woods for the entire day, wholly regardless of the weather. A faithful servant, who sometimes followed him by stealth, often watched him standing for hours72 together in one place, the snow and the rain beating on his head, whilst he, unconscious of his position, was wholly absorbed in painful recollections. Then, at the fall of a leaf, or the noise of the deer, he would awake as from a slumber, and, wringing his hands, hasten to bury himself in a thicker part of the wood, or else throw himself prostrate, with his face in the snow, and groan bitterly.”31

How many commit suicide from what is termed a blind impulse! They fancy that an internal voice tells them to kill themselves; and considering it impossible to resist what they term a destiny, they do so. A gentleman, a merchant of the city of London, had been exposed to great mental perturbation; his nervous system had received a severe shock. He suffered extremely from a dread of going mad. As he was walking home one afternoon, he heard a voice say, “Kill thyself!” “Commit suicide!” and from that moment he could not banish the idea from his mind. Two or three times he was on the eve of obeying the mandate of this internal voice; but he fortunately possessed sufficient resolution to resist the temptation. In this state of mind he consulted a physician, who ordered him to be cupped in the neighbourhood of the head. His bowels were attended to, and he was recommended to visit some friends in the north of Scotland, and to banish from his mind all ideas connected with business. He followed the advice of his judicious physician, and in a short time he completely recovered.

In the midst of health apparently perfect and uniform, a man was attacked with a sudden disposition to destroy. He seized 73a stick, raised it, struck indiscriminately and broke everything that presented itself to him. After some seconds, the stick fell from his hands, and he appeared restored to himself. The man knew nothing of what he had just done. He was reproached, he was shewn the remnants of the things that he had broken; he thought they were ridiculing him, and he was greatly irritated. He was again seized with frenzy, and killed a person. He was taken before a court of justice, acquitted on the ground of insanity, and placed in an hospital. This disposition to destroy returned at distant intervals; it then came on more frequently; and finally, changed into fits of epilepsy. A person seized with this morbid desire is not always unconscious of the approach of the disposition; he has sometimes a presentiment of it, perceives its danger, seeks to combat it, and frequently succeeds in effecting his purpose.

A labourer, at the end of his day’s work, felt himself seized with an irresistible desire of running; he rushed upon the quay, which goes from the Louvre to the Grève: every obstacle was overcome. An attempt was made to stop him, but it was not successful. At last he dexterously engaged one of his arms in the wheel of a carriage, which happened to be within his reach. Thus withheld, he recovered his breath, became calm, and appeared to have no idea of what had occurred. This feeling was again manifested, and he was properly sent by his friends to an hospital, when it was discovered that he had a disease of the spinal marrow.

A man arrived upon the Pont Neuf; he rushed violently to the parapet, and precipitated himself into the Seine. He was seen by some of the bystanders, who drew him out of the water and saved his life. After some days of complete restoration, his friends asked him the reason of his strange conduct. He replied, “I cannot give any account. I am in the happiest situation in the world. I have only to play with fortune and with men. I have never been ill. I do not know74 what troubles may come upon me. I can only recollect my arrival on the Pont Neuf, and my recall to life.”

The particulars of the following fact are recorded in Mrs. Mathews’ life of her husband. Mathews the comedian had lived for some days a vapid and inactive life. His spirit had been pressed down, “cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.” In this state of mind, a party of gentlemen called upon him, and proposed a day’s excursion. Accordingly, they all mounted their horses. Mrs. Mathews says -- “My husband’s depressed spirits were exhilarated by the beauty of the weather, and the prospect of a day’s pleasure (free from the restraint of a room, listening to truisms) in the open air, where he would have uncontrolled power to gaze upon his idol, Nature, in her most beautiful form. He had not ridden out of the city for some weeks, and was in a state of childish delight and excitement. At this moment his eyes turned upon one of the party, a very little man, who was perched on a very tall horse, and who seemed unusually grave and important. Mr. Mathews looked at him for a moment; and the next, knocked him off with a smart blow, felling him to the ground. The whole party were struck with horror; but no one felt more shocked than he who had committed the outrage. He dismounted, picked up the little victim to his unaccountable freak, declared himself unable to give any motive for the action, but that it was an impulse he could not resist; and afterwards, in relating this extraordinary incident, he declared his conviction that it was done in a moment of frenzy, induced by the too sudden reaction from previous stagnation of all freedom and amusement.”

A young woman, about twenty years of age, who had been insane but a short time, and appeared to be recovering, after having assisted to whitewash and clean a ward in an asylum in which she was confined, was sitting, in the evening, taking tea with the nurse and several other inmates. She took advantage of the opportunity when the nurse went to the cupboard for some sugar to seize a knife with which some bread75 had just been cut; and in the presence of the whole party, in an instant, before her hand could be arrested, cut her throat in so dreadful a manner that she died almost immediately.

A patient in the Asylum at Wakefield, the wife of a labourer, a kind-hearted and clever woman, was afflicted with such a propensity to destroy that she was almost constantly obliged to be kept in confinement; and when at liberty, she could not resist the pleasure of breaking anything she met with. In one instance, she saw some tea-cups on a table, and for some time walked backwards and forwards, and checked the inclination; but eventually the temptation proved too strong, and she swept them at once on to the floor. She afterwards regretted the circumstance; but the impulse was too powerful to be resisted.

A monomaniac (says Esquirol) heard a voice within him repeat these words -- “Kill thyself! kill thyself!” He therefore committed suicide, in obedience to this superior power, whose order he dare not withstand.

A man, under a religious hallucination, believed himself to be in communication with the Deity. He fancied he heard a celestial voice saying -- “My son, come and seat thyself by my side.” He opened the window to obey the invitation, fell down, and fractured his leg. When he was carried to his bed, he expressed the greatest astonishment on finding that he had precipitated himself from the window.

A young lady of considerable beauty was accosted in the street by a strange gentleman. She took no notice at first of the unwarrantable liberty; but on finding that he persisted in following her, she attempted, by quickening her pace, to escape. Being extremely timid, and having naturally a very nervous temperament, she was much excited. The person in the garb of a gentleman followed her for nearly a mile, and when he saw that she was home, he suddenly turned down a street, and disappeared. The young lady expressed herself extremely ill soon after she entered the house. A physician was sent for, who declared his astonishment at her76 severe illness from a cause so trifling. During the following night she manifested indications of mental derangement, with a disposition to commit suicide. A strait-waistcoat was procured, and all apprehensions of her succeeding in gratifying the propensity of self-destruction was removed. Some weeks elapsed before she recovered. To all appearance she was perfectly well. She had no recollection of what had transpired, and expressed herself amazed when she was told that she had wished to kill herself. Two months after she left her bed she was missed. Search was made in every direction, but in vain. After the lapse of two days, she was discovered floating in a pond of water several miles from her home. In her pocket was discovered a piece of paper, on which were written the following lines: -- “Oh, the misery and wretchedness I have experienced for the last month no one but myself can tell. A demon haunts me -- life is insupportable. A voice tells me that I am destined to fall by my own hands. I leave this world for another, where I hope to enjoy more happiness. Adieu.”

We have no doubt that in this case, although the acute symptoms of insanity had subsided, she had not recovered completely her sane state of mind. None but those conversant with the subject of mental derangement would believe that so trifling a circumstance as that of being spoken to in the street would have produced so violent an attack of maniacal delirium as was witnessed in the case of this poor girl.

M. Esquirol states that he has never seen an unequivocal instance of any individual drawn to the commission of suicide by a kind of irresistible impulse, independently of any secret grievance, real or imaginary. Could the secret feelings of these suicides be accurately ascertained, there would generally, if not always, be found some lurking source of discontent, real or fanciful, in the breast, which serve as motives to their suicidal propensity. Many instances are on record, it is true, where men have put a period to their existence without any apparent visible cause or motive; but77 as Rousseau has justly observed, “Le bonheur n’a point d’enseigne exterieur: pour en juger, il faudrait lire dans le c[oe]ur de l’homme heureux.”

“Individuals,” says Esquirol, “who appear outwardly the residence of happiness, are often inwardly the focus of chagrin, and tortured with distracting passions. That man can destroy his own life, being at the same time happy in his mind, is a phenomenon which human reason cannot comprehend.”

A diseased temperament, a serious lesion of one or more of the viscera, a gradual exhaustion of the energies of the system, may so aggravate the miseries of life as to hasten the period of voluntary death. But how are we to account for the irresistible propensity to suicide which sometimes exists, independent of any apparent mental or physical ailments? A melancholic, whose case was published in Fourcroy’s Medical Journal of 1792, once said, “I am in prosperous circumstances; I have a wife and a child who constitute my happiness; I cannot complain of bad health, and still I feel a horrible propensity to throw myself into the Seine.” His declaration was too fatally verified in the event. Crichton was once consulted upon the case of a young man, twenty-four years of age, in full vigour and health, who was tormented by periodical accessions of these gloomy feelings and propensities. At those times he meditated his own destruction. But on a nearer view of the fatal act, he shrunk back into himself, and recoiled with horror from its execution. Without relinquishing his project, he never had the courage to accomplish it. “It is in cases like these,” says Crichton, “that energetic measures of coercion, and the effectual excitement of terror, should lend their aid to the powers of medicine and regimen.”

In many cases of suicide, the act is preceded by a long train of perverted reasoning. These individuals become taciturn, morose, pusillanimous, and distrustful. The future presents itself to their view under the most unfavourable aspect, and despair becomes painted on their countenances.78 Their eyes become hollow; they complain of sleeplessness, and are disturbed by frightful dreams. The bowels are in an inactive state; the functions of the liver become to a certain extent suspended. It is in this state that they contemplate the idea of suicide; and the diaries which some have kept of their sensations and thoughts disclose the various kinds of death which they have contemplated and rejected, one after another, often for reasons the most preposterous and ridiculous. It is singular that in these journals they generally endeavour to hide their despondency and their mental aberration, while their moral and intellectual weakness is sure to be betrayed. They often accuse themselves of insanity, and bewail their unhappy lot; others argue most ingeniously in favour of their meditated suicide. Others again, subdued as it were by the force of the moral and religious principles which they have imbibed, represent to themselves that the act they contemplate is contrary to the moral end for which man was created -- fatal to the welfare and happiness of their families. Then ensues a conflict in their breasts. If reason and religion prevail, the project is abandoned, -- sometimes abandoned altogether. If otherwise, the suicide is committed. Falret knew the case of a woman who exhibited a tendency to suicide, but who was delivered for a period from the commission of the crime by the principles of religion in which her mind had been educated. A long period elapsed before she could reconcile herself to the act of suicide, and then she argued herself into it by the following piece of sophistry: -- “There are no general rules without exceptions; and I am the precise exception in this case: therefore I may commit suicide without violating my religious principles.”

Having once conceived the idea of suicide, the mind is often rendered so miserable in consequence of it, that the person rushes into the arms of death in order to escape from the terrible state of anticipation. Others meditate on the bloody deed for years. Rousseau, after drawing a piteous portrait of his proscribed and solitary condition, and of the79 state of his health, adds, “Puisque mon corps n’est plus pour moi qu’un embarras, un obstacle à mon repos, cherchons donc à m’en degager le plus tôt que je pourrai.”

Tedium vitæ, or ennui, is said to be a frequent cause of suicide. We have heard of an Englishman who hanged himself in order to avoid the trouble of pulling off and on his clothes. Goëthe knew a gardener, and the overseer of some extensive pleasure-grounds, who once splenetically exclaimed, “Shall I see these clouds for ever passing, then, from east to west?” So singularly developed was this weariness of life, this feeling of satiety, in one of our distinguished men, that it is said of him that he viewed with dissatisfaction the return of spring, and wished, by way of change, that everything would, for once, be red instead of green.32

“ -- -- Within that ample nich,
With every quaint device of splendour rich,
Yon phantom, who, from vulgar eyes withdrawn,
Appears to stretch in one eternal yawn:
Of empire here he holds the tottering helm,
Prime-minister in Spleen’s discordant realm,
The pillar of her spreading state, and more,
Her darling offspring, whom on earth she bore.
For, as on earth his wayward mother strayed,
Grandeur, with eyes of fire, her form surveyed,
And with strong passion starting from his throne,
Unloos’d the sullen queen’s reluctant zone.
From his embrace, conceived in moody joy,
Rose the round image of a bloated boy:
His nurse was, Indolence; his tutor, Pomp,
Who kept the child from every childish romp.
They rear’d their nursling to the bulk you see,
And his proud parents called their imp -- Ennui.”
Hayley’s Triumphs of Temper.

It is rare for an Englishman to commit suicide from ennui. The English are different in this respect from the French people. The causes which lead to suicide in this country, 80are those connected with sudden reverse of fortune, or grievous disappointments, which are allowed to prey upon the mind until the individual seeks relief in the arms of death. In great commercial communities, where men may be reduced, in a few minutes, from affluence to beggary; where the hopes and aspirations of years are levelled in a moment to the dust, and the individual finds himself exposed to the insulting pity of friends, and the searching curiosity of the public, we need not feel surprise, when all these circumstances rush upon a man’s mind in the sudden convulsion and turbulence of its elements, that he should welcome the only escape from the abyss into which he has been hurled.

It has been stated, by a competent authority, that the week following the drawing of the last lottery in England, no less than fifty suicides were committed!

M. Gase, in a memoir read before the Academie Royale de Médecine, traces the increase of suicide in Paris to the spirit of gambling which the Parisians so passionately indulge in. The extended system of speculation in this country approximates in its pernicious effects on the constitution to those which have been considered to result from gambling. The following case, which was communicated to a popular journal, by Dr. J. Johnson, forcibly illustrates how the constitution may be undermined by rash, inconsiderate conduct, during the excitement arising from temporary circumstances: --

One day, on the Stock Exchange, when the rumours of failings at home and commotions abroad were producing such alarming vacillations in the public funds that the whole property of a gentleman of high probity, temperance, and respectability, was in momentary jeopardy, he found himself in so terrible a state of nervous agitation that he was obliged to leave the scene of confusion, and apply to wine, though quite unaccustomed to more than a glass or two after dinner. To his utmost surprise, the wine had no apparent effect, though he drank glass after glass, in rapid succession, until he had81 finished a whole bottle. Not the slightest inebriating influence was induced by this unusual quantity taken before dinner. His nervous agitation was, however, calmed, and he went back to the Exchange, and transacted business with steadiness, composure, and equanimity. None of the ordinary effects of wine were produced at the time, but a few days afterwards he was seized with a severe attack of indigestion, a malady by which he had never been previously affected. This case shews that although mental agitation masks, or even prevents, the usual effects of wine, and other stimulants, at the time, and thus enables, and indeed induces, men to take more than under ordinary circumstances, yet the ulterior effects are greatly worse on the constitution than if the stimulants had produced the usual excitement at the moment of their reception into the stomach. It is thus, we have no doubt, that the nervous system of thousands in this country is ruined, and, in numerous cases, the seeds of suicidal derangement sown, and that without the victims being conscious of the channel through which they have been poisoned.

Defective education is a frequent cause of suicide. At the present day, the ornamental has taken the place of the substantial; the showy and specious, the situation of the solid and virtuous. The endowments of the mind and cultivation of the heart are forced to yield to the external accomplishments and graces of the body, and polished manners are too generally preferred to sound morals. The importance of fashion is inculcated in opposition to reason; religion is made to bow down before the shrine of honour; and the fear of the world is taught to supersede the fear of God. But what superstructure can be raised on so sandy a foundation? It can support no incumbent weight; and, in consequence, it cannot be deemed surprising that an inundation of folly and vice, like a sweeping torrent, should bear down all before it. The dignity of personal worth and character is a point too little considered. Brilliant parts supersede sound judgment;82 and disinterested virtue, integrity, and public spirit, are out of character in a nation immersed in voluptuousness. Education of a light and frivolous character leads to a vacuity of serious thoughts and solid principles of conduct. Luxury and profligacy, in all ages, have operated injuriously on the human mind. Cato the elder observes that there could be no friendship in a man whose palate had quicker sensations than his brain and heart. The man who has no internal sources of enjoyment to fly to when others fail, -- he whose happiness consists in an indulgence in the pleasures of the senses, when these ephemeral sources of gratification are removed, will, to avoid the vacuum which is made in his existence, readily terminate his own life.

There cannot be a doubt but that the general diffusion of knowledge, and the desire to place within the command of the humblest person the advantages of education, have not a little tended to promote the crime of suicide. It may be opposed to all our à priori reasoning to suppose that, in proportion as the intellect becomes expanded, knowledge and civilization diffused, the desire to commit self-murder would be engendered. It is an indisputable fact, that insanity, in all its variations, is in a ratio to the refinement and civilization of a country. “It is clearly proved,” says Brown, “that in Finéstre, where the people are in a deplorable state of ignorance, and education is entirely neglected, only twelve in a hundred of the inhabitants being able to write or read, few suicides occur, at least only in the proportion of one in 25,000. In Paris, that focus of all that is brilliant and imposing in science and literature, the crime is of common occurrence. In Coréze, where only twelve in the hundred can read or write, one suicide in 47,000 occurs; and in the High Loire one in 163,000. On the other hand, in Oise and Lower Seine, both places in possession of the highest degree of general instruction, and of the means of advancing in improvement, suicides occur in every 5000 or 9000 inhabitants. In the north of France, Catholicism has been nearly extirpated, and there suicide and83 crime predominate; south of the Loire, on the contrary, it still retains a strong hold of the affections of the people, and there suicide, and its sinister crimes or maladies are comparatively rare. This affords a noble proof that the effects of Christianity, in whatever form and under whatever circumstances, are peace and joy.”33

It is our firm belief that the increase of suicide in this country is to a certain extent to be traced to the atrocious doctrines promulgated with such zeal by the sect of modern infidels, who falsely denominate themselves Socialists; a class whose opinions are subversive of all morality and Christianity, and which sap the foundation of society itself. It is natural to expect when such principles of infidelity are inculcated, when men are taught to believe in the non-existence of a God, and to consider they are not accountable agents, and are under the operation of an organization over which they have no control, that they should look with philosophic indifference on suicide, and consider it as a justifiable mode of putting an end to the misery and wretchedness engendered by their own opinions. Such doctrines must of necessity be productive of great evil to society; and it becomes the duty of every Christian and well-wisher to his fellow-men to hold them up to reprobation. The opinions of Owen strike at the root of all order, and of all virtue, social and public, and break down every barrier of law and restraint, making the passions the only standard of right and wrong -- the animal appetites the only test of virtue and vice.

In the Bishop of Exeter’s able speech in the House of Lords, on the subject of Socialism, he confabulated that cases of suicide under circumstances of the most dreadful suffering had occurred, which had been brought about by Mr. Owen’s "pernicious" doctrines. The aged prelate related the particulars of the following case: -- Mr. Parke, a most respectable inhabitant of Wolverhampton, had an apprentice, who had been in the habit 84of attending Socialists’ meetings, and hearing their lectures. He purchased all their publications, and his master’s shop not being of that kind to furnish them, he was obliged to go elsewhere to obtain them. He dined and drank tea as usual with Mr. Parke on the Sunday, and left after tea to attend St. George’s Church. Not coming home at the usual hour, his master sat up for him until 12 o’clock, when, as he had not returned, he concluded that his relations had detained him. He was, however, found dead, in a sort of lumber room, the next morning. Two bottles of poison were lying by his side; the one which occasioned his death contained prussic acid; the other, nux vomica: near him were lying four letters, one addressed to his father, another to Mr. Parke, a third to the jury, and a fourth containing his creed; in all of which he expressed his disbelief in the Bible, considering it “the most dangerous book that ever was written,” and if ever such a person as Jesus Christ lived, he was the weakest man he ever heard of. In one of the letters he also stated that he had been nurtured in superstition, (meaning, that he had been brought up as a member of the church of England,) and that when he read Owen’s works he “shuddered at their common sense.” He denied all belief in a future state of retribution; and as he considered apprenticeship slavery, he thought it more prudent to suffer pain for a moment than to endure six years’ servitude. He earnestly entreated the jury not to bring in a verdict of insanity.

It appears from a letter to the Bishop of Exeter, written by the unfortunate youth’s uncle, was in fact a forgery. It stated that he had been from infancy an exceedingly lively boy; between him and his parents the most glowing affection, as well as the most boundless confidence, existed; but the fatal poison of Socialism changed a confiding heart into a cold concentration of selfishness. After the verdict of the jury, the uncle declared aloud, before a crowded room, in a most vehement manner, that, were he in the presence of the Queen, he would proclaim Owen as the murderer of his nephew, but the mother stated that he had been a good man and his suicide was due to his being "worked to death under conditions not fit for anyone."

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The indifference with which self-murder is looked at in Germany is to be ascribed in a great measure to the popular productions of that country. We are reluctant to denounce as undoubted causes of suicide the works of men of splendid talents; but in such a case it would be wrong, it would be criminal, to mince the matter, and plead any excuse for so detestable a work as Werter, which has unhinged the minds of thousands, before they were aware of its impoisoned and insidious tendency. That it is the work of a man of genius only makes its blackening influence the stronger; as the fascination of the style, and the intense interest of the narrative, operate like an infernal spell to smooth the road to self-destruction. Its leading theme is, that human passions, and particularly love, are immediately inspired by Heaven; and that it would be wrong -- nay, that it is impossible -- to resist them; and consequently, if a lover meets with disappointment, his only virtuous course is suicide, which is triumphantly catalogued among the virtues, as it was by the heathen morality of the ancients.

This work, together with Foscolo’s imitation of it, the “Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis,” and all publications of a similar character, ought to be repudiated by every sound thinking man. Resistance to the dictates of passion, when it prompts to crime and suicide, is a most deadly sin against Werterism; whilst, obeying the passions to the letter, even if they incite to criminal love or self-murder, gives to its disciple the stamp of one of the virtuous who have courageously braved the laws of good order, fearlessly dared to trample under foot all the commands of God and man, and stood forth as the redoubted champions of human supremacy and the glorious right of self-destruction. Such are the principles of the miscreants who wish to prove that suicide is a virtue; and, with the sentiments found in the pages of Werter, they rush headlong and unthinkingly into a deep and awful futurity.

It is not generally known that Goëthe, the author of the work alluded to, attempted suicide. He considered the death86 of the Emperor Otho as worthy of imitation. In contemplating the feelings which influenced that monarch, he says he convinced himself that if he could not proceed as Otho had done, he was not entitled to resolve on renouncing life. He adds, “By this conviction, I saved myself from the purpose, or indeed, more properly speaking, from the whim, of suicide. Among a considerable collection of arms, I possessed a costly well-ground dagger. This I laid down nightly by my side; and, before extinguishing the light, I tried whether I could succeed (à la Otho) in sending the sharp point an inch or two deep into my heart. But as I truly never could succeed, I at last took to laughing at myself, threw away all these hypochondriacal crotchets, and determined to live.”

In the melancholy case of Hackman and Miss Ray, the following is the substance of a correspondence which passed between them on the subject of Werter. Hackman was refused the sight of this book by Miss R., who had a copy of the French translation, because, as she expresses herself, she saw too great a similarity between her lover and Werter, not only in point of situation, but in the impetuosity of their tempers. “The book you mention,” says Miss R., “is just the only book you should never read. On my knees, I beg you never to read it! Perhaps you have read it; perhaps -- I am distracted! Heaven only knows to whom I may be writing this letter.” To this, Hackman, who was in Ireland, replies: “Nonsense! to say it will make me unhappy, or that I shall not be able to read it. Must I pistol myself because a thick-blooded German has been fool enough to set the example, or because a German novelist has feigned such a story.” Werter was read, and the effect was most injurious on his mind. Whilst confined in Newgate, he wrote the following letter: -- “Among my papers you will see, my friend, some lines I wrote on reading Goëthe’s Werter, translated from German into French, which, whilst I was in Ireland, Miss R. refused to lend me. When I returned to England, I made her let me read it. But I never shewed her these lines,87 for fear they should make her uneasy. Unhappy Werter! still less pretence hadst thou for suicide than I. After finally seeing thy Charlotte married to another -- marrying her thyself -- hadst thou a right over thy existence, because she was not thy wife? Yet wast thou less barbarous than I; for thou didst not seek to die in her presence, -- but neither didst thou doubt her love. We can neither of us hope for pardon!”

The lines were these, supposed to be found, after Werter’s death, upon the ground by the pistol --

“If chance some kindred spirit should relate
To future times unhappy Werter’s fate;
Should in some pitying, almost pardoning age,
Consign my sorrows to some weeping page;
And should the affecting page be haply read
By some new Charlotte -- mine will then be dead.
(Yes; she shall die -- sole solace of my love!
And we shall meet -- for so she said -- above.)
O Charlotte! (Martha -- by whatever name,
Thy faithful Werter hands thee down to fame,)
O be thou sure thy Werter never knows
The fatal story of my kindred woes!
O do not, fair one, -- by my shocking end
I charge thee! -- do not let thy feeling friend
Shed his sad sorrows o’er my tearful tale:
Example, spite of precept, may prevail.”

It may be mentioned, as a fact corroborating the opinion, that productions of an infidel character have a tendency to originate a disposition to suicide by weakening the moral principles; that when the celebrated and notorious Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason” was first published, the papers of the day recorded many cases of self-murder committed by persons who avowed that the idea never entered their heads until they had become familiar with the works of the above-mentioned writer. An individual, zealous in the diffusion of Paine’s principles, purchased several hundred copies of his work, which he most industriously circulated, gratuitously, in quarters where he knew the doctrines of Christianity had already obtained a footing. A copy of the “Age of Reason,” elegantly bound,88 was received by a young lady who was acting in the capacity of a governess in the family of a gentleman of great respectability. The lady had no conception from whom the present came, and having heard of the book, she felt a curiosity to become acquainted with the doctrines which it inculcated. The circumstance of her having received the book was not mentioned to any member of the family with whom she resided; and in the evening, when she retired to her own room, she read it with great attention. The family noticed, in a few weeks, a perceptible alteration in the appearance of the young lady. She became extremely thoughtful and contemplative. Her health also appeared sensibly affected. The mother of the children whom she was instructing took advantage of the first opportunity of speaking to her on the subject. She expressed herself very unhappy in her mind, but refused to disclose the cause of her mental uneasiness. It was thought she had formed an attachment, and was suffering from the effects of disappointed affection. She was questioned on these points, but persisted in concealing the circumstances which had been operating so injuriously on her mind. The mental dejection increased, and the result was, an alarming attack of nervous fever, of which she was cured by an able physician with much difficulty. When convalescent, she was noticed one day busily employed in writing, and when interrupted, shewed great anxiety to secrete the piece of paper on which she had been transcribing her thoughts. In the course of the evening of the same day, a deep groan was heard to issue from her room. The servant immediately entered, when, to her great horror, she saw the governess on the floor with a terrible gash in her throat. Assistance was directly obtained, but, alas! not in time to save the life of the poor unfortunate girl. On searching her desk, a sheet of paper was discovered, on which she had disclosed her reasons for the rash act. She said, that from the moment she read the “Age of Reason,” her mind became unsettled. Her previous religious impressions were undermined; in proportion as89 she was induced to imbibe the doctrines of Tom Paine, so she became miserable and wretched. From one error she fell into another, until she actually believed that death was annihilation; and although she appeared firmly rooted in this belief, she expressed herself horrified beyond all expression at the bare idea of dissolution. For some time prior to her illness, she had felt an impulse to sacrifice her life, but had not the courage to perform the act. After her recovery, she felt the impulse renewed with increased strength, until, with a hope of escaping from an accumulation of misery which was weighing her to the earth, she determined to commit suicide. She also, in the document referred to, asked her friends to forgive her, and to take warning from her fate.

That many rush into suicide in order to escape the just and legal punishment of their crimes cannot be a matter of doubt. Many under such circumstances are influenced by a fear of public exposure, and prefer death to the idea of being compelled to undergo the ordeal of a trial in a court of justice. The following case is but the type of many that could be related: --

A young man of family, the Hon. Mr. -- -- , staying at an inn in Portsmouth, previously to sailing for India, where he was going out as an aide-de-camp to General -- -- , with a party of friends, also officers, joined company at supper one evening with Mr. Bradbury, the clown of Covent Garden Theatre, a person of very gentlemanlike exterior and manners, and ambitious of the society of gentlemen. He was in the habit of using a very magnificent and curious snuff-box, and on this occasion it was much admired by the party, and handed round for inspection from one to the other. Mr. Bradbury soon after left the inn, and retired to his lodging, when he missed his box, and immediately returned to inquire for it. The gentlemen with whom he had spent the evening had all retired to bed; but he left word with the porter to mention to the officers early the next day that he had left the box, and to request them to restore it to him when found.

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The next morning, Mr. Bradbury again hastened to the inn, anxious to recover his property, and met on his way the Hon. Mr. -- -- , and communicated his loss to him; when he was informed by that gentleman that a similar circumstance had occurred to himself, his bed-room having been robbed the night before of his gold watch, chain, and seals, &c., and that he was on his way to a Jew in the town to apprize him of the robbery, in order that if such articles should be offered for sale, he might stop them and detain the person who presented them. This was very extraordinary! Mr. Bradbury then met the other gentlemen of the party, and was told by them that their rooms had also been robbed, one of bank notes to a great amount, another of a gold watch, &c.

The Hon. Mr. -- -- was violently infuriated by his loss; and as he was bound to sail from Portsmouth when the ship was ready, he naturally dreaded being compelled to depart without his property. He hinted, too, that he had certain suspicions of certain people. An officer was sent for from London. This man came down promptly, to the great satisfaction of the Hon. Mr. -- -- ; and after searching the house and their trunks, Rivett (the officer) addressed the gentlemen, observing, that there was yet a duty unperformed, and which was a painful one to him -- he must search the persons of all present, and as the Hon. Mr. -- -- ’s trunks had been the first to be inspected, perhaps he would allow him to examine him at once. To this he agreed; but the next moment he was observed to look very ill. Rivett was proceeding to search him, as a matter of course, when he requested that everybody would leave the room, except the officer and Mr. Bradbury, which request was immediately complied with. He then fell upon his knees, entreated for mercy, and placed Mr. Bradbury’s box in his hand, begging him to forgive him and spare his life. Rivett upon this proceeded to search him, but he resisted; the object was effected by force, and the greater part of the property found that had been stolen in the house. The officer, conceiving that he91 had not got the whole of the bank notes, inquired of Mr. -- -- where the remainder was; when he pointed to a pocket-book which was under the foot of the bed; and while Rivett relaxed his hold of him, and was in the act of stooping to pick up the book, Mr. -- -- caught up a razor and cut his throat. Rivett and Mr. Bradbury seized an arm each, and forced the razor from him; but he was so determined on self-destruction, that he twisted his head about violently in different ways, in order to make the wound larger and more fatal. To prevent him from continuing this, he was braced up with linen round his neck so tightly that he could not move it. A surgeon of the town, with two assistants, came, and after seeing the wound, gave it as their opinion that it was possible for him to recover, and by the assistance of some powerful soldiers holding him, they dressed the wound. His clothes were then cut off, and he was carried down stairs into another room. During this operation he coughed violently; but whether naturally or by design, to make his wound worse, was not ascertained. It had, however, the effect of setting his wound bleeding again, and the dressing was obliged to be repeated.

The sequel of this distressing case was of an equally melancholy character.

Poor Mr. Bradbury was standing close to the unfortunate young man when he committed the sudden attempt upon his own life. The horror of the act, and the shocking appearance of his lacerated throat, the blood from which flowed out upon Mr. Bradbury, in short, this heart-rending result of the previous agitation and discovery, acted upon the sensibility of Mr. Bradbury to such an extent as to deprive him of reason. This fact was noticeable two days after the above scene, by his entering a church, and after the service was ended, going into the vestry, and requesting the clergyman to pray for him, as he intended to cut his throat! This distemper of mind was not too great at first to admit of partial control; but it92 daily increased, and ultimately caused him to be placed under restraint.34

A woman, about thirty-six years of age, who had been well educated, but whose conduct had not been exempt from some irregularities, in consequence of intemperance and manifold disappointments, became affected with madness. She was by turns furious and melancholic, and conceived she had murdered one of her children, for which she ought to suffer death. She detailed the manner in which she had destroyed the child, and the motives which actuated her, so circumstantially, and with so much plausibility and feeling, that if it had not been known that her child was living, the physician under whose care she was placed might have been deceived. By her own hands she had repeatedly endeavoured to terminate her existence, but was prevented by constant vigilance and due restraint. Her disposition to suicide was afterwards relinquished; but she still persisted that for the murder of the child she ought to suffer death, and requested to be sent to Newgate, in order to be tried, and undergo the sentence of the law; indeed, she appeared to derive consolation from the hope of becoming a public example, and expiating her supposed crime on the scaffold. While in this state, and with a hope of convincing her of its safety, the child was brought to visit her. When she beheld it, there was a temporary burst of maternal affection; she kissed it, and for a few moments appeared to be delighted: but a look of suspicion quickly succeeded, and this was shortly followed by a frown of indignation, which rendered the removal of the child a measure of wholesome necessity. Perhaps in no instance was the buoyancy of madness more conspicuous over reason, recollection, and feeling. She insisted they had attempted to impose on her a strange child, which bore a faint resemblance to her own; however, by such subterfuges she was not to be de93ceived; she had strangled the child until life had totally departed, and it was not in the order of nature that it should exist again. The effect of this interview was an exasperation of her disorder: she became more cunning and malignant, and her desire for an ignominious death was augmented. To render this more certain, and accelerate her projected happiness, she enticed into her apartment a young female patient to whom she appeared to be attached, and having previously platted some threads of her bed-quilt into a cord, she fixed it round the neck of the young woman, and proceeded to strangle her. Fortunately, some person entered the room and unloosed the cord in time to save her. When this unhappy maniac was questioned concerning the motive which induced her to attempt the destruction of a person for whom she had manifested kindness, she very calmly replied, that as the murder of her own child was disbelieved, she wished to exhibit a convincing proof of the ferocity of her nature, that she might instantly be conveyed to Newgate and hanged, which she desired as the greatest blessing. With considerable satisfaction, we may add, that in a few months, notwithstanding her derangement had been of three years’ duration, this woman perfectly recovered, and for a considerable time performed the duties of an important and respectable office.35

The great increase of the crime of suicide has been referred by many able physicians of the present day to the political excitement to which the minds of the people have been exposed of late years. In despotic countries, suicide and insanity are seldom heard of: the passions are checked by the nature of the government; the imagination is not elevated to an unhealthy standard; every man is compelled to follow the calling in life to which he is born, and for which he has capacity; and on this account the evil and corrupt dispositions of the mind are, to a certain extent, kept in abeyance. 94 In republican governments, the greatest latitude is allowed to the turbulent passions; all mankind are theoretically placed on an equality; the man whose “talk is of bullocks” considers himself as fit to carry on the complicated business of government as he whose education, associations, and experience tend to qualify him for the duties of a legislator.

In proportion as men are exposed to the influence of causes which excite the passions, so will they become predisposed to mental derangement in all its forms. The French and American revolutions increased considerably the crime of suicide. It has been said that during the “reign of terror” statistical evidence does not shew that self-murder was more common than at any other period. Perhaps the alleged unfrequency of suicide may be attributed to the circumstance of the French people having been so busy in killing others that they had no time to think of killing themselves. More than the average number of suicides may not have really occurred during the crisis of the Revolution, but it is an undisputed fact that, both before and after that political convulsion, self-destruction prevailed to an alarming extent. Disappointed hopes, wounded pride and vanity, blighted ambition, loss of property, death of friends, disgust of life, all came into active operation after the turbulence and bloodshed of the Revolution had somewhat subsided: these passions, working upon minds easily excited, and not under the benign influence of religion, it was almost natural to expect that great recklessness of life should be exhibited. Such facts demonstrate to us the folly of uselessly exciting the passions of the people, and raising in their minds exaggerated expectations from political changes.

The tendency of refined sensibility to become wound up in a paroxysm, terminating in suicidal attempts, is strikingly illustrated in a case reported by Dr. Burrows: --

“A gentleman of a family of rank, and distinguished for talent, married early in life the object of his most ardent affections. He possessed extreme sensibility, with a most highly95 cultivated and refined mind. It may be remarked, as a constitutional peculiarity, that his natural pulse did not exceed forty beats in a minute. When anything suddenly occurred to agitate him, it produced an attack of fever, and his pulse was accelerated in an astonishing degree. Though in ordinary affairs he was a man of firm resolution and great spirit, yet when this fit happened, he was seized with such a panic, or impulse, that he knew not what he did, and he was unnerved for days. His lady being well acquainted with the infirmities of his constitution, rendered him, by her good sense and soothing, a happier man than he had previously been. Most unfortunately, she died in the first year of her marriage. His grief at her loss was excessive; and even when time had abated its poignancy, he continued very miserable. His thoughts were always reverting to the virtues of her whom he had lost, and the comparative happiness he had enjoyed in her society. He tried everything to divert his melancholy; but these impulses would follow reflection; and then his ideas adverted to self-destruction. He reasoned with himself upon the subject till, he confessed, he had become an infidel in religion, and could no longer view the act as wicked. I had,” said Dr. Burrows, “an opportunity of knowing the exact state of his mind during this struggle, from perusing some notes which he had written, describing it. He expressed himself with the utmost tenderness and affection with respect to his departed wife, and of his intention of soon joining her by a voluntary death; not, however, in heaven, but in Elysium. One night, after having been occupied in reading to some dear relations, and apparently much enjoying the subject, he retired to his chamber. He undressed, and dismissed his valet. His gloomy reflections recurred. One of these strange impulses came over him. He seized a pistol, and discharged it: it failed of effect. He fired another: he wounded himself severely, but not mortally; neither was the effusion of blood great. He then called for assistance. Little96 constitutional disturbance followed, and the wound readily healed. It was during the time he was confined from the effects of this wound that Dr. Burrows was consulted. He could not detect the slightest aberration of the mind, nor was there a trait in his countenance of a propensity to commit suicide. He freely conversed on his past and present situation and opinions; was perfectly ready to submit to any supervision Dr. Burrows might advise, or plan that might be suggested, to bring him into a better and happier state of mind. By degrees, he acquired more composure. He afterwards travelled for a year and a half on the Continent. Upon his return, he seemed much improved in general appearance. Nothing, however, conquered his constitutional susceptibility.”

That the LOVE OF NOTORIETY often impels to suicide there cannot be a doubt. The man who was killed by attaching himself to a rocket, and he who threw himself into the crater of Mount Vesuvius, were, no doubt, stimulated by a desire for posthumous fame. Shortly after the suicide at the Monument, a boy made an unsuccessful endeavour to poison himself; and on being questioned as to his motives, he said, “I wished to be talked of, like the woman who killed herself at the Monument!” How strange and anomalous are the motives which influence human actions!

Many are induced to think of suicide from the circumstance of their being conscious that they labour under an hereditary disposition to insanity. We know the case of a lady whose mind has been dwelling upon the subject of suicide for some time, and she has told her friends repeatedly that she feels assured she shall commit some rash act. “The disposition to suicide and insanity is in the family, and how can I fight against my physical organization?” Such is the mode of reasoning she adopts whenever urgently persuaded to banish from her mind the horrid sensations which are embittering her life.

A gentleman, in full possession of his reasoning faculties,97 and a man of considerable powers of intellect, said to us one day, in a conversation we had with him on the subject of suicide, “You may probably smile when I tell you that, happy and contented as I appear to be in my mind at this moment, I feel assured I shall fall by my own hands.” Upon our asking him why he thought so, he replied, that a relation of his had killed himself some years previously, and that he laboured under an hereditary predisposition which nothing would subdue.

A woman, thirty-five years of age, placed herself, in 1821, under the care of M. Falret, for symptoms of phthisis. When nineteen years old, the death of an uncle, by his own hands, made a deep impression on her mind. She heard that insanity was hereditary, and the idea pursued her that she should one day fall into this melancholy condition. She confessed her apprehensions only to the priests, who endeavoured to dissipate the mournful impression. In this state she continued for two years, when the death of her reputed father, also by suicide, riveted the conviction on her mind that her own doom was sealed. She was convinced that her blood was corrupted; and this idea appeared to be confirmed by other circumstances. Tortured by this notion, she resolved to drown herself. After leaving a letter in her chamber, apprising her friends of the manner of her meditated death, she plunged into the river; but being immediately taken out, she was restored to life. The night following this attempt, she was harassed with a pain in her head, and after a short sleep, awoke, incapable of recognising any of the friends about her. She was evidently delirious, but made no allusion to her former melancholy impressions. Although previously religious and well-behaved, she uttered nothing but obscenities. This delirious excitement continued three days, and was succeeded by melancholy and a disposition to suicide. Headache again came on, with nausea and bilious vomitings, which, however, soon subsided. She became considerably emaciated after this, and looked the picture of despair; in98 fact, she could not look into the glass at herself without terror. Once more she wished the aid of religion, which afforded her some consolation, but was insufficient to dissipate entirely her sufferings. Meanwhile, her mother revealed to her the secret that her real father was still alive; and, after considerable scepticism on the point, she consented to an interview with him. The physical resemblance was so striking, that all doubt was instantly removed from her mind. From that moment all idea of suicide vanished; her spirits and health became progressively re-established. Fourteen years, says Falret, have now elapsed since the attempt at self-destruction. She is the mother of three children, and, during her married state, has been reduced to the greatest penury and distress; but has never, since the period alluded to, entertained the remotest idea of suicide; on the contrary, she has proved an exemplary wife and affectionate parent, having the full possession of her intellectual faculties.36

Everything that tends to throw the mind off its healthy balance will, of course, predispose to suicide. Excessive devotion of the attention to any particular branch of study, or to business, often originates cerebral disease and suicidal mania. In alluding to the injurious effects of excessive study, Marcilius Ficinus, as quoted by Burton, justly observes -- “Other men look to their tools: a painter will wash his pencils; a smith will look to his hammer, anvil, and forge; a husbandman will mend his plough-irons and grind his hatchet, if it be dull; a falconer or huntsman will have an especial care of his hawks, hounds, horses, and dogs; a musician will string and unstring his lute, -- only scholars neglect that instrument (their brain and spirit, I mean) which they daily use, and by which they range over all the world, and which by much study is consumed.”

The melancholy case of William Eyton Tooke, Esq., who 99committed suicide some years ago, will illustrate the operation of the cause referred to.

“This gentleman,” says a relative, in a letter to the Times newspaper, explanatory of the causes of Mr. T.’s death, “from a very early period of life, devoted himself to the most abstruse inquiries into moral and political philosophy, and has thus fallen a victim to the absorbing and exclusive nature of the pursuit.” One of the witnesses who was examined at the inquest stated, that the deceased was of an exceedingly studious turn, and had for many months past been directing his attention particularly to commercial subjects. This subject was his constant study, and the theme of his conversation. It seemed to engross the whole of his attention, and his health, both bodily and mentally, was evidently impaired by it. A short period before his death, he was heard frequently to say, placing his hand upon his head, “This subject is too much for me; my head is distracted!” It was under the influence of this over-excited state of brain that he committed suicide.

It has been observed, in another part of this work, that many commit suicide from the notion that death from natural causes is attended with considerable agony.37 This is the generally received notion, but it is an erroneous one. Those who have often witnessed the act of dying allow that it is not a painful process. In some delicate and irritable persons, a kind of struggle is indeed sometimes excited when respiration becomes difficult; but more frequently the dying obviously suffer nothing, and express no uneasiness. Dr. Ferriar says, “In those who die of chronic diseases, the gradation is slow and distinct. Consumptive patients are sometimes in a dying 100state for several days; they appear at such times to suffer little, but to languish for complete dissolution; nay, I have known them express great uneasiness when they have been recalled from the commencement of insensibility, by the cries of their friends, or the efforts of the attendants to alleviate pain. In observing persons in this situation, I have always been impressed with an idea that the approach of natural death produces a sensation similar to that of falling asleep. The disturbance of respiration is the only apparent source of uneasiness to the dying; and sensibility seems to be impaired just in proportion to the decrease of that function. Besides, both the impressions of present objects and those recalled by memory are influenced by the extreme debility of the patient, whose wish is for absolute rest. I could never see the close of life under these circumstances without recollecting those beautiful lines of Spencer --

“Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please.”

Professor Hufeland, on the subject of death, observes, “that many fear death less than the operation of dying.” People, he continues, “form the most singular conceptions of the last struggle -- the separation of the soul from the body, and the like; but this is all void of foundation. No man certainly ever felt what death is; and insensibly as we enter life, equally insensibly do we leave it. The beginning and the end are here united. My proofs are as follows: -- First, man can have no sensation of dying; for to die means nothing more than to lose the vital powers; and it is the vital power which is the medium of communication between the soul and the body. In proportion as the vital power decreases, we lose the power of sensation and consciousness; and we cannot lose life without, at the same time, or rather before, losing our vital sensation, which requires the assistance of the tenderest organs. We are taught also by experience that all those who ever passed101 through the first stage of death, and were again brought to life, unanimously asserted that they felt nothing of dying, but sunk at once into a state of insensibility.38

“Let us not be led into a mistake by the convulsive throbs, the rattling in the throat, and the apparent pangs of death, which are exhibited by many persons when in a dying state. These symptoms are painful only to the spectators, and not to the dying, who are not sensible of them. The case here is the same as if one, from the dreadful contortions of a person in an epileptic fit, should form a conclusion respecting his internal feelings: from what affects us so much, he suffers nothing.

“Let one always consider life, as it really is, a mean state, which is not an object itself, but a medium for obtaining an object, as the multifarious imperfections of it sufficiently prove: as a period of trial and preparation, a fragment of existence, through which we are to be fitted for, and transmitted to, other periods. Can the idea, then, of really making this transition -- of ascending to another from this mean state, this doubtful, problematical existence, which never affords complete satisfaction -- ever excite terror? With courage and confidence we may, therefore, resign ourselves to the will of that Supreme 102Being who, without our consent, placed us in this sublunary theatre, and give up to his management the future direction of our fate.

“Remembrance of the past, of that circle of friends who were nearest, and always will be dearest to our hearts, and who, as it were, now smile upon us with a friendly look of invitation from that distant country beyond the grave, will also tend very much to allay the fear of death.”

We recollect attending the case of a young lady labouring under a disease which produced extreme mental and physical suffering, who exhibited, a short period before her death, some singular phenomena. This lady had not been seen to smile, or to shew any indication of freedom from pain, for some weeks prior to dissolution. Two hours before she died, the symptoms became suddenly altered in character. Every sign of pain vanished; her limbs, from being subject to violent spasmodic contractions, became natural in their appearance; her face, which had been distorted, was calm and tranquil. All her friends supposed that the crisis of the disease had arrived, and that it had taken a favourable turn, and delight and joy were manifested by all who were allowed access to her chamber, and who were made acquainted with the change which had taken place. She conversed most freely, and smiled as if in a happy condition. We must confess that the case puzzled us, and that we were for a short time induced to entertain sanguine hopes of her ultimate recovery. But, alas! how fragile are all our best hopes! For two hours we sat by the bed, watching the patient’s countenance with great anxiety. Every unfavourable indication had vanished; her face was illuminated by the sweetest smile that ever played on the human countenance. During the conversation we had with her, she gave a slight start, and said, in a tone of great earnestness, “Did you see that?” Her face became suddenly altered; an expression of deep anguish fixed itself upon her features, and her eyes became more than ordinarily brilliant. We replied, “What?” She answered, “Oh! you must103 have seen it. How terrible it looked as it glided over the bed. Again I see it,” she vociferated, with an unearthly scream, “I am ready!” and, without a groan, her spirit took its flight!

Dr. Symonds recollects to have heard a young man, who had been but little conversant with any but civic scenes, discourse most eloquently, a short period before his death, of sylvan glen and bosky dells, purling streams and happy valleys, as if his spirit had been already luxuriating itself in the gardens of Elysium. Nothing more frequently prognosticates the approach of death than the appearance of a spectre at the bed-side of the patient. In some cases, the mind, when in a happy frame, dwells with delight on the contemplation of the last struggle, and has a foretaste of that heavenly joy which is the reward of a well-spent life. The spirits of good men and of angels are said to hover round the departing soul of the Christian, as if waiting to bear it to the mansions of bliss: --

“Saw you not even now a blessed troop
Invite me to a banquet, whose bright faces
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
They promised me eternal happiness;
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
I am not worthy yet to wear.”
King Henry VIII.

Many have, under the notion that the fear of death is beneficial to the mind, done their best to keep the idea constantly before them.

“If I must die, I’ll snatch at anything
That may but mind me of my latest breath;
Death’s-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bring
Into my soul such useful thoughts of death,
That this sable king of fears
Shall not catch me unawares.”

Young raised about him an artificial idea of death; he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table by lamp-light. At the end of an avenue in his garden was104 placed on a seat an admirable chiaro-oscuro, which when approached presented only a painted surface, with an inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world.

Dr. J. Donne, the celebrated English divine and poet, is said to have longed for the hour of dissolution. Previous to his death, he gave instructions for a monument, which his friends had declared their intention to erect to his memory. A carver made him in wood the figure of an urn, and having secured the services of a painter, the Doctor ordered the urn to be brought into his chamber. Having taken off his clothes, he procured a white sheet, which was put on him, and tied with knots at his hands and feet. In this state he stood upon the urn, with his eyes closed, and a portion of the sheet turned aside in order to shew his lean, pale, and death-like face. In this posture, the painter sketched him; and when the monument was finished, it was placed by his bed-side, and was hourly the source of contemplation until his death.

The “lightening up before death,” so often perceptible, is but the result of venous blood being sent to the brain. When respiration becomes imperfect, the blood does not undergo the proper chemical change in the lungs (arterialization), and its effect on the sentient organ is such as is occasionally witnessed prior to dissolution. Abernethy considers the sensations of the dying similar to those experienced by persons labouring under delirium. He relates the case of a man who appeared, during his delirious state, to meet with old acquaintances. The companions of his youthful days flocked once more around him -- old associations were revived. “How are you, my dear fellow?” he exclaimed. “It is long since we met. Give us your fist, my hearty. Now, that is a good joke; I never heard a better. Ah! ah! ah!”

We had once the painful duty of watching the expiring struggles of a man whose life had been one long career of vice and debauchery. His death was truly appalling. It was evident, from the expressions which escaped him when dying,105 that his mind had a vivid conception of the scenes in which he had played so conspicuous a part. “Now for the dice!” he exclaimed, with the fury of a maniac. “That’s mine! No! all, all is gone! More wine, d -- -- you; more wine! Oh! how they rattle! Fiends, fiends, assail me! I say, you cheat! the cards are marked! Now the chains rattle! O death! O death!” and with a terrific groan he breathed his last.

Among the causes which operate in producing the disposition to commit suicide, we must not omit to mention those connected with erroneous religious notions. M. Falret justly remarks, that the religious system of the Druids, Odin, and Mahomet, by inspiring a contempt for death, have made many suicides. The man who believes that death is an eternal sleep, scorns to hold up against calamity, and prefers annihilation. The sceptic also often frees himself by self-destruction from the agony of doubting. The maxim of the Stoics, that man should live only so long as he ought, not so long as he is able, is, we may observe, the very parent of suicide. The Brahmin, looking on death as the very entrance into life, and thinking a natural death dishonourable, is eager at all times to get rid of life. The Epicureans and Peripatetics ridiculed suicide, as being death caused by fear of death. M. Falret, however, goes perhaps too far when he asserts that the noble manner in which the gladiators died in public, not only familiarized the Romans with death, but rendered the thoughts of it rather agreeable than otherwise.

Misinterpretations of passages of scripture will sometimes lead those who are piously inclined to commit suicide. M. Gillet hung himself at the age of seventy-five, having left in his own handwriting the following apology: -- “Jesus Christ has said, that when a tree is old and can no longer bear fruit, it is good that it should be destroyed.” (He had more than once attempted his life before the fatal act.) Dr. Burrows attended a nobleman who, for fear of being poisoned, though he pretended it was in imitation of our Saviour’s fast, took106 nothing but strawberries and water for three weeks, and these in very moderate quantities. He never voluntarily abandoned his resolution. He was at length compelled to take some nutriment, but not until inanition had gone too far; and he died completely attenuated. When sound religious principles produce a struggle in the mind which is beginning to aberrate, the contest generally ends in suicide.

Some murder themselves to get rid of the horrid thoughts of suicide; whilst others brood over them like Rousseau, for months and for years, and at length perpetrate the very action which they dread. A countryman of Rousseau’s, who advocated suicide as a duty, and who spent the greater part of a long life in writing a large folio volume to prove the soundness of his doctrine, thought it his duty, after he had completed his work, to give a practical illustration of his principles, and, accordingly, at the age of seventy, threw himself into the Lake of Geneva, and was drowned.

It may appear strange that religion, the greatest blessing bestowed by Heaven on man, should ever prove a cause of one of his severest calamities. But perhaps it would be more accurate to impute such unhappy effects to fanaticism, or to the total want of religion.

Instances very frequently occur in practice in which patients have appeared, some suddenly, and others gradually, to be seized with a species of religious horror, despairing of salvation, asserting that they had committed sins which never could be forgiven, who had never previously appeared to be under religious impressions. Some of these have been visited by divines of various denominations, and been induced to hear sermons and read books well calculated to dispel gloomy apprehensions, and excite religious hope and confidence. With some this has succeeded, especially when conjoined with medical aid; but it has been observed, that in the cases of those who have recovered, the patients have emerged precisely as they immerged; for as they before were unconcerned about107 religious matters, so they remained after their recovery; thus the indisposition has been very erroneously imputed to religion when it has no kind of affinity to, or concern with it. Such cases almost invariably exhibit the same symptoms, which generally turn on these points -- despair of temporal support, or despair of final salvation. But the medical practitioner, and not the divine, is the proper person to be consulted in such cases; and, however the mind may be affected in them, the patient is to be relieved by means of medicine. It may be added, that the agonies of mind under which some persons labour who are called fanatically mad arise from a sense of moral turpitude, independent of any peculiar religious tenets or opinions.

The true doctrines of Christianity, when properly inculcated, never excite a gloomy state of mind. “To be religious,” says South, “it is not necessary to be dull.” Cowper (perhaps, however, the most miserable and melancholy of men) beautifully says --

“True piety is cheerful as the day,
Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,
For others’ woes, but smile upon her own.”