are confounded by Mill, _On Utility_, in the fifth chapter where he
speaks (p. 77) of the "instinct of self-defence," which nine lines
below he converts into "the natural feeling of retaliation or
vengeance." It is a common but a grave mistake, and the parent of much
bad philosophy.

_Reading_.--St. Thos., 2a 2a, q. 64, art. 7.


SECTION III.--_Of Suicide_.


1. By suicide we shall here understand the _direct compassing of one's
own death_, which is an act never lawful. There is no difficulty in
seeing the unlawfulness of suicide for ordinary cases. The world could
not go on, if men were to kill themselves upon every slight
disappointment. But neither are they likely so to do. It is the hard
cases, where men are apt to lay violent hands on themselves, that put
the moralist on his mettle to restrain them by reasons. Why should not
the solitary invalid destroy himself, he whose life has become a
hopeless torture, and whose death none would mourn? Why should not a
voluntary death be sought as an escape from temptation and from
imminent sin? Why should not the first victims of a dire contagion
acquiesce in being slaughtered like cattle? Or if it be deemed
perilous to commit the departure from life to each one's private whim
and fancy, why not have the thing licensed under certificate of three
clergymen and four doctors, who could testify that it is done on good
grounds?

2. To all these questions there is one good answer returned by Paley