The term ‘suicide’ is almost universally applied to all acts of self-destruction, and equally indiscriminately to all perpetrators thereof, no distinction being made as to their state of mind at the time of killing themselves. It is in this popularly understood sense that we have used the word throughout this article. From a legal point of view, however, the term can only be correctly employed to denote the self-murder (felonia de se) of a sane and legally responsible person. A lunatic cannot in a legal sense commit suicide, though he may destroy himself. A suicide, or felo de se, is in the eye of the law a criminal, and was formerly ‘punished’ by being buried at midnight at the meeting of four cross-roads, a stake being driven through the body. Since 1823, this post mortem punishment has been limited to simple interment at night in unconsecrated ground without any of the rites of Christian burial; and even this has but seldom to be carried out, owing to the charity, and perhaps also to the want of knowledge, of coroners’ juries, who generally find that the act has been committed during a fit of temporary insanity.
Among the ancients, suicide was very frequently resorted to, sometimes for the most trivial reasons, and was considered part of their code of religion and honour. By the Romans especially, it was regarded quite in the light of a national custom, and by their laws a man was justified in killing himself when worn out by lasting pain or lingering disease, or burdened with a load of debt, or even from sheer weariness of life (tædium vitæ). His will was valid; and if intestate, his heirs succeeded him. Among the illustrious individuals of former times who quitted this world voluntarily and prematurely, we find the names of Demosthenes, Antony and Cleopatra, Cato, Hannibal, Cassius and Brutus, and many others. Suicide was looked upon as a cardinal virtue by the Stoics, whose founder, Zeno, hanged himself at the ripe old age of ninety-eight. The custom was also highly commended by Lucretius and the Epicureans. The philosophers of old spoke of it as ‘a justifiable escape from the miseries of life;’ and as ‘the greatest indulgence given to man;’ Diogenes even going so far as to declare that ‘the nearer to suicide the nearest to virtue.’
The ideas of the ancients concerning this practice underwent a great change after the time of Constantine the Great, with the advancement of the Christian religion, which has always discouraged suicide, and regarded it as one of the degrees of murder. During the middle ages, when religious sentiment was predominant, instances of self-destruction were few and far between, these few being mostly caused by the monotony of monastic life; but with the Renaissance was revived a modified form of Stoicism, with, of course, a return of suicide. In More’s Utopia, the inhabitants of the happy republic, when, from sickness or old age, they are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, are exhorted—but in nowise compelled—by their priests to deliver themselves voluntarily from their ‘prison and torture,’ or to allow others to effect their deliverance. To the somewhat melancholy tendency of the Elizabethan period and the psychological studies of Shakspeare, succeeded a long period of calm; but towards the end of the eighteenth century began, with Werther—who has been called ‘Hamlet’s posthumous child’—the era of modern suicidal melancholy. This differs essentially from the suicidal era of the ancients, being psychical rather than physical. Whereas theirs was born of sheer exhaustion and satiety, with want of belief in a future state of existence, that of the present day is the melancholy of a restless and unceasingly analysing soul, eternally brooding over the insoluble problems ‘Whence?’ and ‘Whither?’ which disordered state not unfrequently leads to incapacity for action, and finally to inability to live.
It is a very prevalent but erroneous belief that suicide is invariably preceded by insanity. Self-destruction is always an unnatural act, and a violation of the laws of nature, but is not, therefore, necessarily an insane act. On the contrary, a large minority—some authorities say the majority—of suicidal acts are perpetrated by persons who cannot be called other than sane, though their mental state is indisputably more or less abnormal at the time, and the organic action of the brain and nervous system sometimes in a state of excitement bordering on real pathological irritation. Dr Wynter affirms the suicidal impulse to be ‘an inexplicable phenomenon on the borderlands of insanity;’ the power of the will to conquer any impulse is the sole difference between a healthy and an unsound mind. But self-destruction is not, as a rule, the outcome of a mere impulse, but an act of longer or shorter deliberation, and brought about by some cause, which may be either real or imaginary; and here we have the simple test for distinguishing between sane and insane suicides, namely, the absence or presence of delusions. Outside of insanity, the passions and emotions are generally at the root of self-murder; remorse, dread of exposure and punishment, long wearing sorrow or disease, or hopeless poverty, are the usual causes for an act which is generally regarded with far too great equanimity, and occasionally even with commiseration, being looked upon as ‘a catastrophe rather than a crime,’ although condemned by the religion and laws of the land. With lunatics, the causes inciting to the act are mainly if not wholly imaginary, or delusional; they often fancy they hear voices perpetually urging them to destroy themselves, and these supposed supernatural commands they generally obey sooner or later. Men in prosperous circumstances have frequently been known to make away with themselves from fear of poverty and want; others have perhaps committed some trifling act of delinquency, which they magnify into an unpardonable offence, only to be expiated by death. Some insane persons will kill those dear to them, especially their own children, before destroying themselves, probably with the view of preserving them from so wretched a lot as they conceive their own to be. There is usually previous ill health and depression, with great desire for solitude, in these cases of suicide by the insane, many of which could be prevented by the timely exercise of proper care and supervision, as is clearly shown by their mostly occurring among those lunatics who are not under proper restraint.
Melancholia is the name given to that form of delusional insanity, or partial moral mania, which chiefly manifests itself in a desire for self-destruction. Hypochondriacs may be said to be in the first stage of this, and in the first stage very fortunately most of them remain. They feel death would be a blessing, and are constantly talking about killing themselves; but they are very irresolute, and if they do summon up courage enough to make the attempt, it is generally abortive, and is not repeated.
Equally devoid of foundation is the assertion so persistently made by foreigners, and at last almost believed in by ourselves, that England is the land of suicide. Frenchmen especially seem seriously to entertain the idea that we are always ready to blow out our brains in a fit of the spleen, caused by our much-maligned climate, and general dullness and lack of amusement! In point of fact, Paris itself is the headquarters of self-destruction, and its Morgue one of the principal and most frequented show-places of the city. The cases there are much more numerous in proportion to the number of the population than in this country, and have been variously estimated at from three to five times as many; but there is not the publicity afforded them in the Parisian press that is given them by our own widely circulated daily and weekly papers. As a proof that climate has but little connection with the tendency to commit suicide, it may be pointed out that the inhabitants of damp and foggy Holland, a ‘country that draws fifty foot of water,’ are by no means addicted to self-slaughter. The buoyant, light-hearted Irish are, with the exception perhaps of the Neapolitans, the least suicidal people in Europe.
In what may be designated, as compared with European countries, the topsy-turvy nations of China and Japan, suicide is quite an institution, and is apparently looked upon as a fine art; so much so, that in the latter country the sons of people of quality exercise themselves in their youth for five or six years, in order that they may kill themselves, in case of need, with grace and elegance. If a functionary of the Japanese government has incurred disgrace, he is allowed to put an end to his own life, which spares him the ignominy of punishment at the hands of others, and secures the reversion of his place to his son. All government officials are provided with a habit of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, necessary for such an occasion; the sight of this garment must serve, we should think, as a perpetual memento mori, and as a warning not to stray from the right path. As soon as the order commanding suicide has been communicated to a culprit, he invites his friends to a feast, and takes formal leave of them; then, the order of the court having been read over to him, he makes his ‘last dying speech and confession,’ draws his sabre, and cuts himself across the body or rips himself up, when a confidential servant at once strikes off his head. In China also, the regulations for self-destruction are rigorously defined and carried out; a mandarin who can boast of the peacock’s feather is graciously allowed to choke himself by swallowing gold-leaf; while one of less lofty rank, who is only able to sport a red button on his cap, is obliged to rest content with the permission to strangle himself with a silken cord. In India, the voluntary self-immolation of widows on their deceased husbands’ funeral pyres was, until recently, a universal practice, and still takes place occasionally in secret, though very properly discouraged by the government. In some parts of the East Indies the natives vow suicide in return for boons solicited from their idols; and in fulfilment of this vow, fling themselves from lofty precipices, and are dashed to pieces. Or they will destroy themselves after having had a quarrel with any one, in order that their blood may lie at their adversary’s door.
Contrary to the generally received opinion, the spring and summer are the seasons when suicides most abound. The months of March, June, and July are those chiefly affected by males for this purpose; while females seem to prefer September, the much-abused November, and January. The time of day chosen for the deed is usually either early morning or early evening. The tendency to suicide varies with the occupation, and is said to be twice as great among artisans as it is among labourers; it is certainly much greater in cities than in rural districts, and increases with the increase of civilisation and education. The fact that married people are much less prone to self-destruction than the unmarried may be accounted for by the theory of natural selection, as it is usually, and especially with women, only the more healthy both in mind and body who enter the married state; while the fact of suicides among males being always so much more numerous than among females is perhaps to a certain extent to be explained by the former having a wider choice of means at their disposal, and ready at hand. Women, as a rule, prefer to put an end to their lives by drowning; and as they may have to travel a long distance before being able to accomplish their design, it is not unlikely that they may sometimes repent and alter their minds before their journey’s end. Again, people who throw themselves into the water are not unfrequently rescued before life is extinct, and restored. Unless insane, they are probably cured by the attempt, and will not renew it, the mind having regained its self-control. Suicide is but rarely met with in old people, and is also very uncommon in children, although instances are recorded of quite young children hanging or drowning themselves on being reproved or punished for some venial fault.
An ill-directed education and certain objectionable descriptions of literature favour the disposition to self-destruction. The propensity is most strongly marked in those persons who are of a bilious or of a nervous temperament.
Some would-be suicides resolve to kill themselves in a particular way, and may have to wait years for an opportunity; others will make use of the first mode of destruction that presents itself. Taylor says: ‘The sight of a weapon or of a particular spot where a previous suicide has been committed, will often induce a person, who may hitherto have been unsuspected of any such disposition, at once to destroy himself.’ Individuals conscious of their liability to commit self-murder would do well, therefore, to avoid that ‘sight of means to do ill deeds’ which might lead to the ‘ill deed’ being ‘done’ in a sudden fit of depression or frenzy.