276 PERSONAL DUTIES. [Part IV.

who would not condemn the latitude of such a rule ? Who doesnot perceive, that it would, in substance, be a permission to com-mit murder at pleasure ? A similar rule, regulating the right overour own lives, would be capable of the same abuse. Besideswhich, no one is useless for the purpose of this plea, but he whohas lost every capacity and opportunity of being useful, togetherwith the possibility of recovering any degree of either ; — a stateof such utter destitution and despair, as cannot, I presume, beaffirmed of any man living.

Again, shall we say, that to depart from life voluntarily, is law-ful for those alone, who leave none behind them to lament theirdeath ? If this consideration is to be admitted at all, the subjectof inquiry will be, not whether there are any to lament us, butwhether their pain, caused by our death, will exceed that whichwe should suffer by continuing to live. Now this is a compari-son of things so indeterminate in their nature, so capable of vary-ing judgments, and concerning which the judgment will differ somuch according to the state of the spirits, or the pressure of anypresent anxiety, that it would scarcely vary, in hypochondriacalconstitutions, from an unqualified license to commit suicide,whenever the distresses, which men felt or fancied, rose highenough to overcome the pain and dread of death. Men are nevertempted to destroy themselves but when under the oppression ofsome grievous uneasiness ; — the restrictions of the rule, there-fore, ought to apply to these cases. But what effect can we ex-pect from a rule, which proposes to weigh one pain against anoth-er ; the misery that is felt, against that which is only conceived ;and in so false a balance, too, as the party’s own distemperedimagination.

In like manner, whatever other rule we assign, it will ultimate-ly bring us to an indiscriminate toleration of suicide, in all casesin which there is danger of its being committed. What thenwould be the consequence of such toleration ? Manifestly, theloss of many lives to the community, of which some might bevaluable ; the affliction of many families, and the apprehension ofall ; for mankind must live in continual apprehension for the fateof their friends and dearest relatives, when the restraints of reli-gion and morality are withdrawn ; when every disgust, which is