The ancients were also very far from looking at the matter in this light.  Pliny says:  “Vitam quidem non adeo expetendam censemus, ut quoque modo trahenda sit.  Quisquis es talis, aeque moriere, etiam cum obscoenus vixeris, aut nefandus.  Quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi sui habeat:  ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte:  idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque praestare poterit.”  He also says:  “Ne Deum quidem posse omnia.  Namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscere, si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in taniis vitae poenis,” etc.

In Massilia and on the island of Ceos a hemlock-potion was offered in public by the magistrate to those who could give valid reasons for quitting this life.  And how many heroes and wise men of ancient times have not ended their lives by a voluntary death!  To be sure, Aristotle says “Suicide is a wrong against the State, although not against the person;” Stobaeus, however, in his treatise on the Peripatetic ethics uses this sentence:  [Greek:  pheukton de ton bion gignesthai tois men agathois en tais agan atychiais tois de kakois kai en tais agan eutychiais]. (Vitam autem relinquendam esse bonis in nimiis quidem miseriis pravis vero in nimium quoque secundis) And similarly:  [Greek:  Dio kai gamaesein, kai paidopoiaesesthai, kai politeusesthai], etc.; [Greek:  kai katholou taen aretaen aokounta kai menein en to bio, kai palin, ei deoi, pote di anankas apallagaesesthai, taphaes pronoaesanta] etc. (Ideoque et uxorem ducturum, et liberos procreaturum, et ad civitatem accessurum, etc.; atque omnino virtutem colendo tum vitam servaturum, tum iterum, cogente necessitate, relicturum, etc.) And we find that suicide was actually praised by the Stoics as a noble and heroic act, this is corroborated by hundreds of passages, and especially in the works of Seneca.  Further, it is well known that the Hindoos often look upon suicide as a religious act, as, for instance, the self-sacrifice of widows, throwing oneself under the wheels of the chariot of the god at Juggernaut, or giving oneself to the crocodiles in the Ganges or casting oneself in the holy tanks in the temples, and so on.  It is the same on the stage—­that mirror of life.  For instance, in the famous Chinese play, L’Orphelin de la Chine,[19] almost all the noble characters end by suicide, without indicating anywhere or it striking the spectator that they were committing a crime.  At bottom it is the same on our own stage; for instance, Palmira in Mahomet, Mortimer in Maria Stuart, Othello, Countess Terzky.  Is Hamlet’s monologue the meditation of a criminal?  He merely states that considering the nature of the world, death would be certainly preferable, if we were sure that by it we should be annihilated.  But there lies the rub!  But the reasons brought to bear against suicide by the priests of