Mike Fletcher: A Novel

by George Moore

"Your contention is that it is inconceivable that in an already over-crowded society men should not look rather with admiration than with contempt on those who, convinced that they block the way, surrender their places to those better able to fill them; and it is to you equally inconceivable that a man should be allowed to destroy his property and not his person. Your difficulty seems to me to arise from your not taking into consideration the instinctive nature of man. The average man may be said to be purely instinctive. In popular opinion—that is to say, in his own opinion—he is supposed to be a reasonable being; but a short acquaintance shows him to be illumined with no faintest ray of reason. His sense of right and wrong is purely instinctive; talk to him about it, and you will see that you might as well ask a sheep-dog why he herds the sheep."

"Quite so; but I do not see how that explains his aversion to suicide."

"I think it does. There are two forces in human nature—instinct and reason. The first is the very principle of life, and exists in all we see—give it a philosophic name, and call it the 'will to live.' All acts, therefore, proceed from instinct or from reason. Suicide is clearly not an instinctive act, it is therefore a reasonable act; and being of all acts the least instinctive, it is of necessity the most reasonable; reason and instinct are antagonistic; and the extreme point of their antagonism must clearly be suicide. One is the assertion of life, the other is the denial of life. The world is mainly instinctive, and therefore very tolerant to all assertions of the will to live; it is in other words full of toleration for itself; no one is reproved for bringing a dozen children into the world, though he cannot support them, because to reprove him would involve a partial condemnation of the will to live; and the world will not condemn itself.

"If suicide merely cut the individual thread of life our brothers would rejoice. Nature is concerned in the preservation of the species, not in the preservation of the individual; but suicide is more than the disappearance of an individual life, it is a protest against all life, therefore man, in the interest of the life of the race, condemns the suicide. The struggle for life is lessened by every death, but the injury inflicted on the desire of life is greater; in other words, suicide is such a stimulant to the exercise of reason (which has been proved antagonistic to life), that man, in defence of instinct, is forced to condemn suicide.

"And it is curious to note that of all the manners of death which may bring them fortune, men like suicide the least; a man would prefer to inherit a property through his father falling a prey to a disease that tortured him for months rather than he should blow his brains out. If he were to sound his conscience, his conscience would tell him that his preference resulted from consideration for his father's soul. For as man acquired reason, which, as I have shown, endangers the sovereignty of the will to live, he developed notions of eternal life, such notions being necessary to check and act as a drag upon the new force that had been introduced into his life. He says suicide clashes with the principle of eternal life. So it does, so it does, he is quite right, but how delightful and miraculously obtuse. We must not take man for a reasoning animal; ants and bees are hardly more instinctive and less reasonable than the majority of men.

"But far more than with any ordinary man is it amusing to discuss suicide with a religionist. The religionist does not know how to defend himself. If he is a Roman Catholic he says the Church forbids suicide, and that ends the matter; but other churches have no answer to make, for they find in the Old and New Testament not a shred of text to cover themselves with. From the first page of the Bible to the last there is not a word to say that a man does not hold his life in his hands, and may not end it when he pleases."

"Why don't you write an article on suicide? It would frighten people out of their wits!" said Mike.

"I hope he'll do nothing of the kind," said a man who had been listening with bated breath. "We should have every one committing suicide all around us—the world would come to an end."

"And would that matter much?" said Mike, with a scornful laugh. "You need not be afraid. No bit of mere scribbling will terminate life; the principle of life is too deeply rooted ever to be uprooted; reason will ever remain powerless to harm it. Very seldom, if ever, has a man committed suicide for purely intellectual reasons. It nearly always takes the form of a sudden paroxysm of mind. The will to live is an almost unassailable fortress, and it will remain impregnable everlastingly."

The entrance of some men, talking loudly of betting and women, stopped the conversation. The servants brought forth the card-tables. Mike played several games of écarté, cheating openly, braving detection. He did not care what happened, and almost desired the violent scene that would ensue on his being accused of packing the cards. But nothing happened, and about one o'clock, having bade the last guest good-night, he returned to the dining-room. The room in its disorder of fruit and champagne looked like a human being—Mike thought it looked like himself. He drank a tumbler of champagne and returned to the drawing-room, his pockets full of the money he had swindled from a young man. He threw himself on a sofa by the open window and listened to the solitude, terribly punctuated by the clanging of the clocks. All the roofs were defined on the blue night, and he could hear the sound of water falling. The trees rose in vague masses indistinguishable, and beyond was the immense brickwork which hugs the shores. In the river there were strange reflections, and above the river there were blood-red lamps.