And we are warranted in believing that, although in many cases self-destruction is a symptom of diseased organism, yet in other cases it is a matter of healthy choice of possible good rather than positive evil. It is a choice which men make each day of their lives. Speculation is a choice of a possibility as against a certainty. Gambling is for the pleasure of playing with possibilities. Many motives are only "orders," and some of them are dishonored in time. Well, suicide may be the act of a healthy mind.' It may in all cases be a mistaken choice: it may always be wiser

"To bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of.""

But a mistake is not a proof of mental unsoundness, nor is folly an indication of insanity. A colonel of the Prussian Hussars, having lost all he had at the gaming table, and not wishing to face the world that frowns so severely upon poverty, went home, made arrangements, married a girl that he had seduced, and then shot himself. A Greenwich pensioner who had his allowance stopped stabbed himself with his spectacles. In such cases there is no indication of the presence of mental disease. But although a man may destroy himself and still be sane, in a large majority of cases the act is done under the influence of insanity. And although in [155] some cases an attempt to commit suicide should be punished as a misdemeanor at common law, yet in very many cases the individual should, upon the ground of insanity, be held irresponsible for his act, and exempted upon that account from punishment.

230. Suicide the Result of Insanity.-When suicide is. the result of insanity it may either be the result of profound melancholy amounting to disease, or from a perversion of

'One-sixth of 4077 cases examined by Brierre de Boismont he assigned, as regards their causes, to insanity, one-sixth to drunkenness, one-fourth to domestic troubles and wretchedness. See " On Suicide," p. 100.

The suicide," says Aristotle, "does not undergo death because it is honorable, but in order to avoid evil."

* See the charge of the Lord Justice Clerk in Yates' Case, 20 March, 1847, Arkley's Rep. 238, at p. 341.

+ Reg. v. Burgess, 1 L. & C. C. C. 258.

those instinctive desires for self-preservation which are the very foundation stones of our mental constitutions. There may exist what has been called suicidal monomania, and selfdestruction may be had recourse to as a reasoned act to get rid of the awful load of unreasoned and unreasoning grief and despondency. Cases have come under the notice of almost every medical man who is in connection with hospitals for the insane in which patients have petitioned to be restrained from committing self-destrction. Individuals there are who are aware of their own weakness in the presence of temptation, just as those individuals who are liable at certain seasons to invasion by impulsive desires are aware of their impotency in the presence of that monarch motive which binds them to do his bidding, and so before the steed is stolen they try to shut the door. This is not the ordinary bravado shout of a boy who does not want to hurt himself, but makes a great show of preparations for instant death to frighten his relatives, and who, if he sees no preventive measures on the part of his friends, cries, "Hold me, or I'll shoot myself: I know I will." No, in the real cases of impulsive propensity to commit suicide a great number of circumstances will conduce to show that the person is really at certain times unable to control his actions, and the motive of the threat in the one case will distinguish it from the warning and demand for restraint in the other.

231. Case of Suicidal Insanity.-Dr. Tuke quotes a case from M. Debreyne' as follows: "The patient, who was opulent, stated that he was perfectly happy, and free from any cause of suffering, with the exception of one circumstance which tormented him. This was the desire, thought, or violent temptation, to cut his throat whenever he shaved himself. He felt as if he should derive from the commission of the act an indescribable pleasure. He was often obliged to throw the razor away."

8 232. Power of Suggestion.-As to the facility of the formation of such a sentiment as that just mentioned, we

On Suicide, p. 82.

may remark that the very existence of suggestion is a very [156] powerful motive in all weak minds. Children will do anything they see done, and the mainspring of such actions is the simple thought or suggestion. We have heard a gentleman confess that when in a position to do any act which he had never done, and that he was not in the habit of thinking about, the very thought seemed to create a desire to do the act in question. Once standing beside a line of rail, the thought of how easy it would be to see death's treasured mysteries by throwing himself before the approaching train, he felt a desire or impulse to do so, which, however, he had no difficulty in resisting by the consideration of motives for not doing so. This gentleman was perfectly sane, but the type of act and motive is the same in health and in disease: the comparative power to resist is only infinitely less in the latter than in the former.

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7 233. Suicide in relation to Delusions.—As in all the other forms of partial moral mania, we find that it is frequently associated with intellectual disorder. Many men commit suicide under the influence of delusions. Voices from heaven urge them to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for a sinful world. M. Brierre de Boismont, in his work on 'Suicide," has observed, concerning suicidal patients which had come under his cognizance, that eighty-three had hallucinations of hearing, thirty of sight; and in six there were illusions of hearing, thirteen of sight, thirty-three of smell and taste, and six of touch. We shall consider-1st. The modes of death; 2d. The age; 3d. The sex; 4th. Hereditary transmission; 5th. The seasons; 6th. The assigned motives in connection with this subject: as an intimate knowledge of the facts of diseased suicide will often enable the medical jurist to determine whether the act, or the attempted act, was due to morbid mental conditions or not. There is evidence. of the necessity of a more thorough knowledge of suicide and its relation to health in the frequency of the verdict given by coroners' juries of "temporary insanity."

2234. The Modes of Death.-The statistics with regard to suicide are not in a satisfactory condition. In one table

we find that the greatest number of suicides is ascribed to drowning, in another to strangulation, and this cannot be accounted for by supposing that they are the statistics of different countries. But one thing we gather from all the tables that we have looked at with reference to this matter—that drowning, strangulation, and the use of firearms are more frequently the immediate causes of death in cases of suicide than are precipitation, the use of cutting instruments, or poison. [157]So far as we can ascertain, there is no guide to be found in the mode of death to the solution of the question as to sanity or insanity, as the same means are adopted by those who are sane as by those who are insane. Much ingenuity is manifested in many instances in the contrivances which are meant to procure death both by the healthy and diseased. Weak-minded persons not unfrequently try to injure themselves by swallowing things utterly indigestible. And in one case a large number of pebbles were swallowed with this intention, but nature, although it could not digest the stones, put up with the inconvenience, and no injury resulted.

? 235. Age in relation to Suicide.-Suicide does not occur very often early in life, although there are many instances of suicide committed by children on record.2 The ages at which it is most common in France is shown, so far as such a table can give a correct indication, in the following comparison: 3

We may add the following facts as to suicide in Geneva, as stated by M. Prevost:

1 See Dr. Winslow's Anatomy of Suicide, p. 283 et seq. Several interesting cases are given in the Reports of the Cri. Roy. Inst. for 1850, p. 20, and 1851, p. 13.

* "Children know nothing of that breaking from prison which is called suicide," Bays Victor Hugo (L'Homme qui Rit.)

* See Bertrand, Traité du Suicide, p. 73.

236.

Sex in relation to Suicide.-Suicide is less common amongst women than men, if [158] statistics may be believed, and we confess that we have no belief in the infallibility of figures. If we did regard them with the reverence that some would have us, we would look upon suicide in males to suicide in females as bearing the same numerical relation that three does to one. But, upon the whole, we should say that self-murder is more common in the stronger than in the weaker sex. According to the experience of M. de Boismont, there is no such peculiar relation with respect to suicide of the two sexes in the insane. Another opinion seems borne out by all the evidence which is to be had in the case. Attempts at suicide are not at all infrequent during pregnancy. Amongst the sane more unmarried persons of both sexes commit suicide than married; and when we turn to the insane, we find their relation reversed.

2237. Hereditary Transmission in relation to Suicide. We must say we do not believe in the hereditary transmission of a tendency to commit self-murder as it is ordinarily understood. That many cases are to be found of father and son and grandsons committing suicide, or making the attempt, we are prepared to hear, and already believe; but we are inclined to think that in such cases the suicide was dependent upon a mental disease, which was transmissible, and upon circumstances which tried the individual and found him unable to stand the test. We are loath to credit the descent of something which has no real existence, except in so far as it originates in lack of mental power as regards a particular class of circumstances or objects. But we are most willing to credit the inheritance of tendencies, of strength or weakness, of disease or health. If education and nurture