so that religious teachers are forced to base their condemnation of
suicide on philosophical grounds of their own invention. These are
so very bad that writers of this kind endeavor to make up for the
weakness of their arguments by the strong terms in which they express
their abhorrence of the practice; in other words, they declaim against
it. They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice; that
only a madman could be guilty of it; and other insipidities of the
same kind; or else they make the nonsensical remark that suicide is
_wrong_; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world
to which every mail has a more unassailable title than to his own life
and person.

Suicide, as I have said, is actually accounted a crime; and a crime
which, especially under the vulgar bigotry that prevails in England,
is followed by an ignominious burial and the seizure of the man's
property; and for that reason, in a case of suicide, the jury almost
always brings in a verdict of insanity. Now let the reader's own moral
feelings decide as to whether or not suicide is a criminal act. Think
of the impression that would be made upon you by the news that some
one you know had committed the crime, say, of murder or theft, or been
guilty of some act of cruelty or deception; and compare it with your
feelings when you hear that he has met a voluntary death. While in the
one case a lively sense of indignation and extreme resentment will be
aroused, and you will call loudly for punishment or revenge, in the
other you will be moved to grief and sympathy; and mingled with your
thoughts will be admiration for his courage, rather than the moral
disapproval which follows upon a wicked action. Who has not had
acquaintances, friends, relations, who of their own free will have
left this world; and are these to be thought of with horror as
criminals? Most emphatically, No! I am rather of opinion that the