IS SUICIDE JUSTIFIABLE?

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2662, 3 August 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

IS SUICIDE JUSTIFIABLE?

The following interesting article on this subject is from the Spectator:—We quoted last week the opinion of a cou temporary that Mr Pigott's suicide went far " to atone for his manifold misdeeds ;" and though the meaning may only hive been that by throwing the most complete discredit on his testimony, he undid whatever mischief his testimony had done, the remark shows a marvellous indifference to the personal sin of suicide, a complete oblivion of any aspect of this particular act except the aspect which affected its bearing on the Irish question. Is there or is there not a growing tolerance for suicide as an act for which man has the full responsibility, and which he has as much right to choose for himself, after full consideration, as he lias to choose to emigrate or to volunteer for an Arctic voyage? We rather think there is ; and we should not wonder that there should be such growing tolerance, if it be indeed true that in the better educated classes belief in the providence of God,— indeed, any genuine belief in God,—is on decline*. If '1 blind destiny has brought a man into the world, he may fairly think that he has a right to decline the life that is thus forced upon him by some power for which he can feel no sort of reverence, and to do so at any time at which the burden appears to bo more than ho can bear. Suppose any one to be renlly convinced that God's providence is a fiction, and also that no human being- has any just claim on his life, and further, that the life of both soul and body ceases absolutely with deaths, these assumptions being , granted, we cannot conceive why ho should not commit suicide whenever ho is sick of living. Of courso, we do not believe that any man ever is really convinced of this. There is some mysterious hopo or dread which haunts the soul even of the most deliberate sceptic, that gives him "pause," alliumlet says, when he prepares to plunge, into tho world beyond. But the fainter r.he general belief in God's provident; become?, the fainter are these winnings iifiainst treating our life as a possession which wo arc at liberty to keep or U> cast away at pleasure. And undouH'dly, who'u public opinion declares that a man, could hardly do more " to atone for his manifold misdeeds " than precipitate himself out of life, a event stimulus must be given t> tho notion Ur-it suicide is not a kind of murder at all, not even the lo.vt guilty of its forms, but it in a Wit imato exercise of individual responsibility by one who \r.\--perhaps as frood mean* of knowledge whether his continued existence is desir able for himself and the world or not. If life is given us by God n.« tho m ans of ' edueatioa for our c.her.'Ottri, it ia ■ bvious

enough that wo arc not to choose for ourselves when we will regard that education as at an end. Ho who gave us our bodily life as the field for tho education of our character, may be trusted to take it away again when the uses of that education are fulfilled. But if that is not so, if our life has emerged from darkness, and is again to be merged in darkne3s at its close, it is difficult indeed to understand why there should be any cowardice in saying, " To this I am Dot equal; it is doing neither me nor any one else any good, so far as I cjn perceive, and there is no one, as far as I know, fitter to judge tho matter than myself," than there would be in a General officer's saying, "This post cannot be held by the force I have under my command ; we shall all be cut to pieces if we stay, and therefore I propose to retreat from it while there is yet time." No doubt tho motive of tho two retreats is not identical. The retreat of tho officer fron a post he oanuot hold is intended to save life and to ecotiomise the force which is at Ilia c.ouutry's disposal. And though the rotroat of a suicide from life can only at; best be intended to save himself pain and to remove a source of perplexity and embarrassment from the lot of others, yet the latter object, if not as worthy of praise as tho former, is at least legitimate in its way, whore it does not involve auy clear abandoning of a, higher duty; nor does it involve any such abandoning of a higher duty to one who is profoundly convinced that life is not a trust committed to his hands by a divine wisdom, but a labyrinth of misfortune in which he lias been involved by the inevitable evolution of :i chaotic fate. To Socrates who held that wo had been placed at our post as a sentinel is placed at his by tlio order* of his Gencrel, suicide was an act of cowardice and disobedience; but there is neither cowardice nor disobedience in it to tho man who is hentily persuaded — if any one ever is so persuaded — that life is a scr.ipj into which he has fallen as a lot fulls upon the selected instrument of a, jjrou,) of assassins, and that ho has as much right to escape from life when it becomes unendurable, as wo have to abdicate official functions in which we havo been entangled without our consent ana against our better judgment, by the pressure of a momentary emergency. ]snt to any one who has not the persuasion, to any one who ia evou so much as doubtful whether life is an education provided for us by infinite wi.sdom, or a thicket into which wo have wandered witliHut guidance and without resource, suicide should surely appear at once an arrogant and imbecile mistake. It is arrogant, beuauso nothing is more arrogant for a blind creature who does not know whether ho is or is not under the guidauce of another's clear vision, than to take for granted tb.it there is no such guidance, and precipitate Iho very destiny that is most dreaded : and it is imbecile, because it assumes tho worse of two alternatives, which must be disastrous, while the other which ouly might prove to be so, was still left open. [£ you are being guided and educated by a higher wisdom, you may reap a rich moral harvest out of a submission on behalf of which your own sense of l.elplessuess powerfully plead-?. If not. you can obviously reap no g.iin at all from assuming that the darkness is impenetrable from above as well as from beneath, since docility, even without a teacher, can hardly, except liy pure acedcufc, bo more injurious to us than ill the same predicament. When everything darkens around us, there is a natural fitness in the attitude of humility and submissivonoss which witnesses ■strongly against any daring an 1 highhanded act. To do and dare is appropriate to the zig ■•/. Mg lightening genius or inspiration ; it is not appropriate to the sense of utter bewilderment and confusion, " In your p-.iticncc ye shall win your souls," is the lesson appropriate to such a ■stale of mind, even though that lesson only initiates a great moral experiment of which we cannot foresee the issue. Ami "In your patieuco ye shall win your souls " is a precept which very strongly and naturally suggests that in our impalienco we shall lose them. The man who -strikes out wildly in thick darkness must feel that he is playing a mad part. _ A man who gropes on all sides and waits, must feel that he is playing, to say th'i very least, the part which nature fer the moment imposes upon him, whether that nature be the instrument of pi-ifect wisdom or not, ,: Behold, we count them happy which endure," awakens some echo in the heart of the most miserable sufferer under inevitable anguish ; for he feels that suffering, too, may be a. ea'.linc, »ud may breed a wisdom of which he. his -i dim forecast. But no one has said, in reference to "the pang* 5 , tho iut-rnnl pangs" of inevitable suffering, "B-liold, we "count them happy which revolt," And if it had been said it would have carried its own refutation with it, for revolt adds to the poignancy nf such .■snll'erins instead of relieving it, and turns the dim consciousness of. a possible vocation into the moral epilepsy of despair. And, of course, what applies to a mere doubter whether God's provic)e;ieo idles or not, applies with tenfold fore.-, to any one who beli«ves heartily in God, not to spe.ik of revelation. If God appoints us oin- earthly lot, and hides from us so eompletetely the consequence of putting ourselvc3 to death, that wo are simply and completely ignorant of what we choose iu choosing self-slaughter, it is simply impossible for one who believes in His providence to prefer the lot over which an impenetrable veil is cast, to the lot of which, even if it seems to be one of pure suffering, we can dimly guess the. signih'conee. If God offered us the choice between a prolonged earthly lot and a sudden plunge into the life beyond. % ILj would show us into what kind of life beyond we were electing to pass, instead of merely hiding it from us as a forbidden mystery into the secret of which, until His decree comes, we are not permitted to peep. If a man chooses between staying at home and emigration, ha chooses between two classes of duties of which he can compute the probable cansequences. If he chooses between staying at home and a perilous Arctic voys-g', agniii ho chooses between two cl.isses of duties iu either of which he may remi-r eminent services to his fellow-men, and only has to estimate for which of the two cla«so3 of services he seems to himself the better fitted. But if he chooses between life and voluntary death, ho chooses between a class of duties iitul sufferings which he *o far understands, that he knows in what spirit they ought to be discharged and borne, and a class of duties and sufferings of which he knows nothing at all except that they art) not kid before him as an alternative ou whicli his conscience can decide whether lie should undertake them or not, A man who voluntarily dashes into tho ti'Xt lifo without leave, is like a horseman who, out of pure s-elf-wili, leaps a wall without being able to conjecture whether or not on tho other side there be a precipice orgreenv ward. Professing to believe iu (J. id's pr<>. videnne, ho vet pops whero lie e.iunot even pretend that it guides him, sinw it gives him no vision of duty on tho hith'-r side. We refer now, of course, to ih» me.ro thrist, tho earnest believer in Oo.l's providence who is not also a beli-ver hi Christ's revcla'.iou. To any one u-ho is I hi-Litter as well as the former, suicide must ba a Htill more deliberate act of rebellion, t-ince tho whole genius of Christ's religion teaches that iu willing suffering tberp is

pome mysterious virtuo, from which, when wo an; led to it by tho providence of God, it is sheer impiety to shrink ; and certainly, if suicide bo not a deliberate shrinking from suffering, it is an utterly unintelligible act, of which no account at all can be given, least of all un account consistent in any fashion of snbmissivencKH to tho holy will which, as it has brought us into this world, can alone be wifely trusted to sanction our passing out of it.