"What good is soap to a negro, and advice to a fool?"
"Do not make a wicked man thy companion, nor act on the advice of a fool."—Gems from the East.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUICIDE.
BY T. B. WILSON.
There is a very much deeper meaning than some people suppose, to what Paul said to the Romans, "None liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." In inflicting a wound upon himself, the suicide wounds all there is, and his death shocks every living thing. That is so because of the oneness, the solidarity, the interdependence of all that is. Hence it is that the atom is as necessary to the universe as a world. It is a very old philosophy, but it is a demonstrable cosmological and psychological fact, for we know that man necessarily lives and moves and has his being under the same law of growth and maintenance that supports and sustains every other entity, even from the atom subdivided into a million parts away to the mightiest god. It is just as incumbent upon the bowlder that it fulfill its destiny as it is that man should fulfill his. Hence, it is a violation of the law of being to purposely or unnecessarily retard the unfoldment of one's self or any other thing. The wrong done to the thing hindered reflects back upon the doer in force, in addition to the injury done to that which was wronged.
The divinity which shapes the course of a man's journey through the worlds of existence is his own thoughts and acts, and, furthermore, every thought and act exerts an influence for good or for evil everywhere. It is true, altogether true, that every man is more or less his brother's keeper, and that no one can escape the consequences of his acts and thoughts upon his own life, nor of the influence they exert upon the lives of others. The interdependence of all things and the universality of being is seen in all things. This is a principle of existence which to know the full meaning of, one must know one's self.
Existence as a personality and individuality, with power to reason and understand, is at once the most sublime and most fearful stage of unfoldment. It is sublime when considered as evidence of individual possibilities, and fearful when, in the presence of God in manifestation, the responsibility which the realization of the universality of being and the interdependence of all things imposed upon the individual is felt. The law of being makes a relationship to exist between individuals as a whole which transcends the ties of consanguinity. You may call it universal brotherhood, if you like, but any way, the relationship imposes tasks of toil and burdens of duty upon everyone, and to wilfully make the burden of duty or the task of toil harder for one's self or for another is to defy the power of the universe and invite the wrath of the source and maintainer of being.
But somehow or some way the average man and woman finds in the so-called philosophy of suicide a most bewitching theme for conversation and discussion, and it is just possible that not a few are persuaded to try the realities of it by letting their minds dwell upon the subject too much. That there is a certain fascination in the problem of life and death, no one will deny, but the thoughtful person would not seek its solution in self-destruction. The better a man understands the law of his being the clearer he sees that in ratio to his obedience to the laws of nature is he in harmonious relation with all things, and that when in such harmony, existence in the body is altogether desirable, whether he be sick or well, rich or poor.