How few,─how less than few, wherein the soul
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment’s....”
Dr. Henry Maudsley writes: “Any poor creature from the gutter can put an end to himself; there is no nobility in the act, and no great amount of courage required for it. It is a deed rather of cowardice shirking duty, generated in a monstrous feeling of self, and accomplished in the most sinful, because wicked ignorance. Even if the act of Cato did not speak for itself, he was far too self-conscious. Montaigne tells us that he was given to drinking, and the Catos, as a race, were noted for rigid severity of character, which mostly signifies narrowness of vision, self-love, and conceit.”
Foreign Literature.
Desfontaines, in the Supplement du Dictionnaire de Trevoux, 1752, first uses the term “Suicide” in French Literature.
Duverger de Haurane, Abbot of St. Cyran, the patriarch of the Jansenists, wrote in 1608, a treatise on Suicide, speaking of it as equally permissible with the right of fellow men to execute judicially: he adds, “A man may kill himself for the good of his prince, for that of his country, or for that of his relations.”
Maupertuis, Pierre de, approved of its commission when life becomes wearisome. See “Œuvres,” 1752.
Montaigne, Michel de, “Essays:” these have much information of an historical character. See Lib. II. cap. iii., “The Custom of the Isle of Ceos,” also many references to the death of Cato.