[153] Ch. xi.
[154] This is not original in Holbach. Diderot’s article on Suicide in the Encyclopædia (Œuv., xvii. 235) contains the usual arguments of the Church against suicide, with some casuistic illustrations, but it also contains an account of Dr. Donne’s vindication of Suicide, called Bia-thanatos, 1651, in which these remarks of Holbach occur verbatim. Hallam found Donne’s book so dull and pedantic that he declares no one would be induced to kill himself by reading such a book unless he were threatened with another volume.
[155] Hume’s suppressed Essay on Suicide (see the edition by Mr. Green and Mr. Grose, 1875, vol. ii. 405) is a much more exhaustive argument than Holbach’s, though the language of the two pieces is sometimes curiously alike. Rousseau in this, as in so many other moralities—marriage, for instance—was on the side of the Church, only allowing suicide where a man happens to be stricken by a painful and incurable disease. See the two famous letters in the New Heloïsa, Pt. iii. 21, 22.
[156] Taine’s Ancien Régime, p. 287.
[157] The Biographie Universelle, followed by the Encyclopædia Britannica, tells a story of Raynal visiting the House of Commons; the Speaker, says the writer, learning that he was in the gallery, “suspended the discussion until a distinguished place had been found for the French philosopher.” This must be set down as a myth. The journals have been searched, and there is no official confirmation of the statement, improbable enough on the face of it.
[158] Morellet, i. 221.
[159] Walpole’s Corresp., vi. 147 and 445.
[160] Hédouin by name.
[161] Ch. xxi.
[162] Works, xii. 189 (edition of 1822).