monotheistic, that is of Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves to it, are weak sophisms easily contradicted.[20] Hume has furnished the most thorough refutation of them in his Essay on Suicide, which did not appear until after his death, and was immediately suppressed by the shameful bigotry and gross ecclesiastical tyranny existing in England.  Hence, only a very few copies of it were sold secretly, and those at a dear price; and for this and another treatise of that great man we are indebted to a reprint published at Basle.  That a purely philosophical treatise originating from one of the greatest thinkers and writers of England, which refuted with cold reason the current arguments against suicide, must steal about in that country as if it were a fraudulent piece of work until it found protection in a foreign country, is a great disgrace to the English nation.  At the same time it shows what a good conscience the Church has on a question of this kind.  The only valid moral reason against suicide has been explained in my chief work.  It is this:  that suicide prevents the attainment of the highest moral aim, since it substitutes a real release from this world of misery for one that is merely apparent.  But there is a very great difference between a mistake and a crime, and it is as a crime that the Christian clergy wish to stamp it.  Christianity’s inmost truth is that suffering (the Cross) is the real purpose of life; hence it condemns suicide as thwarting this end, while the ancients, from a lower point of view, approved of it, nay, honoured it.  This argument against suicide is nevertheless ascetic, and only holds good from a much higher ethical standpoint than has ever been taken by moral philosophers in Europe.  But if we come down from that very high standpoint, there is no longer a valid moral reason for condemning suicide.  The extraordinarily active zeal with which the clergy of monotheistic religions attack suicide is not supported either by the Bible or by any valid reasons; so it looks as if their zeal must be instigated by some secret motive.  May it not be that the voluntary sacrificing of one’s life is a poor compliment to him who said, [Greek:  panta kala lian]?[21]

In that case it would be another example of the gross optimism of these religions denouncing suicide, in order to avoid being denounced by it.

* * * * *

As a rule, it will be found that as soon as the terrors of life outweigh the terrors of death a man will put an end to his life.  The resistance of the terrors of death is, however, considerable; they stand like a sentinel at the gate that leads out of life.  Perhaps there is no one living who would not have already put an end to his life if this end had been something that was purely negative, a sudden cessation of existence.  But there is something positive about it, namely, the destruction of the body.  And this alarms a man simply because his body is the manifestation of the will to live.