XXXV. SUICIDE…

XXXV. SUICIDE

IN previous chapters we have discussed the moral valuation of acts, forbearances, and omissions, which directly concern the interests of other men; we shall now proceed to consider moral ideas regarding such modes of conduct as chiefly concern a man's own welfare. Among these we notice, in the first place, acts affecting his existence.

Suicide, or intentional self-destruction, has often been represented as a fruit of a higher civilisation; Dr. Steinmetz, on the other hand, in his essay on 'Suicide among Primitive Peoples,' thinks it probable that "there is a greater propensity to suicide among savage than among civilised peoples."[1] The former view is obviously erroneous; the latter probably holds good of certain savages as compared with certain peoples of culture, but cannot claim general validity.

[Footnote 1: Steinmetz, 'Suicide among Primitive Peoples,' in American Anthropologist, vii. 60.]

Among several uncivilised races suicide is said to be unknown.[2] To these belong some of the lower savages--the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,[3] the Andaman Islanders,[4] {230} and various Australian tribes;[5] whilst as regards most other tribes at about the same stage of culture information seems to be wanting. Of the natives in Western and Central Australia Sir G. Grey writes, "Whenever I have interrogated them on this point, they have invariably laughed at me, and treated my question as a joke."[6] When a Caroline Islander was told of suicides committed by Europeans, he thought that he had not grasped what was said to him, as he never in his life had heard of anything so ridiculous.[7] The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, though they have no intense fear of death, cannot understand suicide; "the idea of a man killing himself strikes them as inexplicable."[8]

[Footnote 2: Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nord-ost-Afrikas, p. 205 (Danakil and Galla). Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 532 (Barea and Kunáma). New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 99 (Wanika). Felkin, 'Notes on the For Tribe of Central Africa,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 231. Lumholtz (Unknown Mexico, i. 243) thinks it is doubtful whether a pagan Tarahumare ever killed himself.]

[Footnote 3: Bridge, in South American Missionary Magazine, xiii. 211.]

[Footnote 4: Man, Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 111.]

[Footnote 5: Grey, Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 248. Curr, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, p. 277 (Bangerang). Among the tribes of Western Victoria described by Mr. Dawson (Australian Aborigines, p. 62) suicide is not unknown, though it is uncommon; "if a native wishes to die, and cannot get any one to kill him, he will sometimes put himself in the way of a venomous snake, that he may be bitten by it."]

[Footnote 6: Grey, op. cit. ii. 248.]

[Footnote 7: von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea_, iii. 195.]

[Footnote 8: Scott Robertson, Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 381.]

Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to be very rare,[9] or to occur only occasionally;[10] whereas {231} among others it is represented as either common or extremely prevalent.[11] Of the Kamchadales we are told that the least apprehension of danger drives them to despair, and that they fly to suicide as a relief, not only from present, but even from imaginary evil; "not only those who are confined for some offence, but such as are discontented with their lot, prefer a voluntary death to an uneasy life, and the pains of disease."[12] Among the Hos, an Indian hill tribe, suicide is reported to be so frightfully prevalent as to afford no parallel in any known country:--"If a girl appears mortified by anything that has been said, it is not safe to let her go away till she is soothed. A reflection on a man's honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to self-destruction. In a recent case, a young woman attempted to poison herself because her uncle would not partake of the food she had cooked for him."[13] Among the Karens of Burma suicide is likewise very common where Christianity has not been introduced. If a man has some incurable or painful disease, he says in a matter-of-fact way that he will hang himself, and he does as he says; if a girl's parents compel her to marry the man she does not love, she hangs herself; wives sometimes hang themselves through jealousy, sometimes because they quarrel with their husbands, and sometimes out of mere {232} chagrin, because they are subject to depreciating comparisons; and it is a favourite threat with a wife or daughter, when not allowed to have her own way, that she will hang herself.[14] Among some uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women, though rarely by men.[15]

[Footnote 9: Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 267 (Greenlanders). Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41 (Point Barrow Eskimo), von Siebold, Die Aino auf der Insel Yesso, p. 35. von Stenin, 'Die Kirgisen des Kreises Saissansk im Gebiete von Ssemipalatinsk,' in Globus, lxix. 230. Beltrame, Il Fiume Bianco, p. 51 (Arabs). Felkin, 'Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Schwarz, quoted by Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Ibid. p. 52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Wandrer, ibid. p. 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's, p. 221 (Bantu race). Sorge, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 421 (Nissan Islanders in the Bismarck Archipelago). Kubary, 'Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,' in Original-Mittheilungen aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin, i. 78 (Pelew Islanders). Among the Malays suicide is reported to be extremely rare (Brooke, Ten Years in Saráwak, i. 56; Ellis, 'The Amok of the Malays,' in Journal of Mental Science, xxxix. 331); but Dr. Gilmore Ellis has been told by many Malays that they consider Amok a kind of suicide. If a man wishes to die, he "amoks" in the hope of being killed, rather than kills himself, suicide being a most heinous sin according to the ethics of Muhammedanism (ibid. p. 331). In Siam suicide is rare (Bowring, Siam, i. 106). Of the Western Islanders of Torres Straits Dr. Haddon says (in Reports of the Cambridge Anthrop. Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 278) that he does not remember to have heard of a case of suicide in real life, though there are some instances of it in their folk-tales.]

[Footnote 10: Comte, quoted by Mouhot, _Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China_, ii. 27 sq. (Bannavs in Cambodia). Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 316 (Nicobarese). Among the Bakongo cases of suicide occur, "although much less frequently than in civilised countries" (Ward, _Five Years with the Congo Cannibals_, p. 45).]

[Footnote 11: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 293 sq., Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, pp. 176, 200. Georgi, Russia, iii. 133 sq. (Kamchadales), 184 (Chukchi), 205 (Aleuts). Brooke, op. cit. i. 55 (Sea Dyaks). Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 106. Turner, Samoa, p. 305; Tregear, 'Niue,' in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 14; Thomson, Savage Island, p. 109; Hood, Cruise in the Western Pacific, p. 22 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 111 sq.; Collins, English Colony in New South Wales, i. 524 (Maoris). Reade, Savage Africa, p. 553 sq.; Idem, quoted by Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 117, n. 33 (West African Negroes). Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 23. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 74 (Barotse). In Tana, of the New Hebrides (Gray, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxviii. 132) and Nias (Rosenberg, Der malayische Archipel, p. 146) suicides are said to be not infrequent.]

[Footnote 12: Georgi, op. cit. iii. 133 sq. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 176.]

[Footnote 13: Tickell, 'Memoir on the Hodésum,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 206.]

[Footnote 14: Mason, 'Dwellings, &c., of the Karens,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.]

[Footnote 15: Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River_, i. 394 (Dacotahs); ii. 171 sq. (Chippewas). Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 87 (Dacotahs). Brooke Low, quoted by Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 117 (Sea Dyaks). Munzinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93.]

The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are manifold:--disappointed love or jealousy;[16] illness[17] or old age;[18] grief over the death of a child,[19] a husband,[20] or a {233} wife;[21] fear of punishment;[22] slavery[23] or brutal treatment by a husband;[24] remorse,[25] shame or wounded pride, anger or revenge.[26] In various cases an offended person kills himself for the express purpose of taking revenge upon the offender.[27] Thus among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, "should a person commit suicide, and before so doing attribute the act to the conduct of another person, that other person is required by native law to undergo a like fate. The practice is termed killing oneself upon the head of another, and the person whose conduct is supposed to have driven the suicide to commit the rash act is visited with a death of an exactly similar nature"--unless, indeed, the family of the suicide be pacified with a money compensation.[28] With reference to the Savage Islanders, who especially in heathen {234} times were much addicted to suicide, we are told that, "like angry children, they are tempted to avenge themselves by picturing the trouble that they will bring upon the friends who have offended them."[29] Among the Thlinkets an offended person who is unable to take revenge in any other way commits suicide in order to expose the person who gave the offence to the vengeance of his surviving relatives and friends.[30] Among the Chuvashes it was formerly the custom for enraged persons to hang themselves at the doors of their enemies.[31] A similar method of taking revenge is still not infrequently resorted to by the Votyaks, who believe that the ghost of the deceased will then persecute the offender.[32] Sometimes a suicide has the character of a human sacrifice.[33] In the times of epidemics or great calamities the Chukchi sacrifice their own lives in order to appease evil spirits and the souls of departed relatives.[34] Among some savages it is common for a woman, especially if married to a man of importance, to commit suicide on the death of her husband,[35] or to demand to be buried with him;[36] and many Brazilian Indians killed themselves on the graves of their chiefs.[37]

[Footnote 16: Lasch, 'Der Selbstmord aus erotischen Motiven bei den primitiven Völkern,' in Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ii. 579 sqq. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 503. Keating, op. cit. ii. 172 (Chippewas). Eastman, Dacotah, pp. 89 sqq., 168 sq.; Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 321 sq. (Dacotahs). Turner, 'Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Brooke Low, quoted by Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 115 (Sea Dyaks). Kubary, 'Religion der Pelauer,' in Bastian, Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde, i. 3 (Pelew Islanders). Senfft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 452 (Marshall Islanders). Codrington, Melanesians, p. 243 sq. (natives of the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 115; Malone, Three Years' Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 72 sq. (Maoris). Reade, Savage Africa, p. 554 (West African Negroes). Munzinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93 sq.]

[Footnote 17: Dodge, op. cit. p. 321 sq. (North American Indians) Holm, 'Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in Meddelelser om Grönland, x. 181 (Angmagsaliks of Eastern Greenland). Georgi, op. cit. iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Gray, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxviii. 132 (natives of Tana, New Hebrides). Sartori, 'Die Sitte der Alten- und Krankentötung,' in Globus, lxvii. 109 sq.]

[Footnote 18: Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, p. 346. Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331; Idem, Eskimo Life, pp. 170, 267 (Greenlanders). Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 294. Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 96; Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, p. 65 (Fijians). Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, iii. 33.5 (Troglodytes). Pomponius Mela, De situ orbis, iii. 7 (Seres). Hartknoch, Alt- und Neues Preussen, i. 181 (ancient Prussians). Mareschalcus, Annales Herulorum ac Vandalorum, i. 8 (Monumenta inedita rerum Germanicarum, i. 191); Procopius, De bello Gothico, ii. 14 (Heruli). Maurer, Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, ii. 79, n. 48 (ancient Scandinavians).]

[Footnote 19: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating, op. cit. ii. 172 (Chippewas). Colenso, Maori Races, pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris).]

[Footnote 20: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Haddon, in _Rep. Cambridge Anthr. Exped. to Torres Straits_, v. 17 (Western Islanders, according to a Kauralaig folk-tale). Colenso, op. cit. pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris).]

[Footnote 21: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Fawcett, Saoras, p. 17. Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris).]

[Footnote 22: Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 293. Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris).]

[Footnote 23: Modigliani, Viaggio a Nías, p. 473. Decle, op. cit. p. 74 (Barotse). Monrad, op. cit. p. 25 (Negroes of Accra). Donne, Biathanatos, p. 56 (American Indians).]

[Footnote 24: Wied-Neuwied, Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 349 (Mandans).]

[Footnote 25: Turner, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mr. Dawson (Australian Aborigines, p. 62 sq.) tells us of a native of Western Victoria who decided to commit suicide because, being intoxicated, he had killed his wife, and was so sorry for it. He besought the tribe to kill him, and seeing his determination to starve himself to death, his friends at last sent for the tribal executioner, who pushed a spear through him.]

[Footnote 26: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating, op. cit. ii. 171 (Chippewas). Dalton, op. cit. p. 206; Jickell, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807 (Hos). Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 76 sq. (Lethtas). Mac Mahon, Far Cathay, p. 241 (Tarus, one of the Chino-Burmese border tribes). Brooke, op. cit. i. 55 (Sea Dyaks). Chalmers, Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea, p. 227 (a woman at Port Moresby; Mr. Abel [Savage Life in New Guinea, p. 102] speaks of a New Guinea woman who was so annoyed because her old village friends had not visited her during her illness that she attempted to commit suicide). Codrington, op. cit. p. 243 sq. (natives of the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 106 (Fijians). Tregear, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 111 sq.; Collins, op. cit. i. 524; Angas, Savage Life in Australia and New Zealand, ii. 45; Colenso, op. cit. p. 56 sq. (Maoris). Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 45 (Bakongo). Lasch, 'Besitzen die Naturvölker ein persönliches Ehrgefühl?' in Zeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft, iii. 837 sqq.]

[Footnote 27: See Lasch, 'Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,' in Globus, lxxiv. 37 sqq.; Steinmetz, 'Gli antichi scongiuri giuridici contro i creditori,' in Rivista italiana di sociologia, ii. 49 sqq.]

[Footnote 28: Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 302. The same custom is mentioned by Monrad (op. cit. p. 23 sq.), Bowdich (Mission to Ashantee, pp. 256, 257, 259 n. [double dagger]), and Reade (Savage Africa, p. 554).]

[Footnote 29: Thomson, Savage Island, p. 109.]

[Footnote 30: Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 222.]

[Footnote 31: Lebedew, 'Die simbirskischen Tschuwaschen,' in Erman's Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, ix. 586 n. **]

[Footnote 32: Buch, 'Die Wotjaken,' in _Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicæ_, xii. 611 sq.]

[Footnote 33: See Lasch, 'Religiöser Selbstmord und seine Beziehung zum Menschenopfer.' in Globus, lxxv. 69 sqq.]

[Footnote 34: Skrzyncki, 'Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,' in Am Ur-Quell, v. 207 sq.]

[Footnote 35: Ashe, Two Kings of Uganda, p. 342 (Wahuma). Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 610 (Bairo). Junghuhn, _Die Battaländer auf Sumatra_, ii. 340 (natives of Bali and Lombok).]

[Footnote 36: Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 125 (Fijians). Codrington, op. cit. p. 289 (natives of Aurora Island, New Hebrides).]

[Footnote 37: Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 211. Cf. ibid. p. 209. Of the Niger Delta tribes M. le Comte de Cardi writes (in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 55):--"On the deportation of a king or a chief by the British or other European government for some offence I have seen the wives of the deported man throw themselves into the river and fight like mad women with the people who went to their rescue; I have also seen some of the male retainers both free and slaves of a deported chief attempt their own lives at the moment when the vessel carrying away their chief disappeared from their sight."]

In various other cases, besides the voluntary sacrifices of widows or slaves, the suicides of savages are connected with their notions of a future life.[38] The belief in the new {235} human birth of the departed soul has led West African negroes to take their own lives when in distant slavery, that they may awaken in their native land.[39] Among the Chukchi there are persons who kill themselves for the purpose of effecting an earlier reunion with their deceased relatives.[40] Among the Samoyedes it happens that a young girl who is sold to an old man strangles herself in the hope of getting a more suitable bridegroom in the other world.[41] We are told that the Kamchadales inflict death on themselves with the utmost coolness because they maintain that "the future life is a continuation of the present, but much better and more perfect, where they expect to have all their desires more completely satisfied than here."[42] The suicides of old people, again, are in some cases due to the belief that a man enters into the other world in the same condition in which he left this one, and that it consequently is best for him to die before he grows too old and feeble.[43]

[Footnote 38: Cf. Steinmetz, in American Anthropologist, vii. 60; Vierkandt, Naturvölker und Kulturvölker, p. 284; Lasch, in Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ii. 585.]

[Footnote 39: Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 5.]

[Footnote 40: Skrzyncki, in Am Ur-Quell, v. 207.]

[Footnote 41: von Struve, 'Die Samojeden im Norden von Sibirien,' in Ausland, 1880, p. 777.]

[Footnote 42: Georgi, op. cit. iii. 265. Cf. Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 294.]

[Footnote 43: Hale, op. cit. p. 65 (Fijians). Cf. supra, i. 390.]

The notions of savages concerning life after death also influence their moral valuation of suicide. Where men are supposed to require wives not only during their lifetime, but after their death, it may be a praiseworthy thing, or even a duty, for a widow to accompany her husband to the land of souls. According to Fijian beliefs, the woman who at the funeral of her husband met death with the greatest devotedness would become the favourite wife in the abode of spirits, whereas a widow who did not permit herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.[44] Among the Central African Bairo those women who refrained from destroying themselves over their husbands' graves were regarded as outcasts.[45] On the Gold Coast a man of low rank who has married one of the king's sisters is {236} expected to make away with himself when his wife dies, or upon the death of an only male child; and "should he outrage native custom and neglect to do so, a hint is conveyed to him that he will be put to death, which usually produces the desired effect."[46] The customary suicides of the Chukchi are solemnly performed in the presence and with the assistance of relatives and neighbours.[47] The Samoyedes maintain that suicide by strangulation "is pleasing to God, who looks upon it as a voluntary sacrifice, which deserves reward."[48] The opinion of the Kamchadales that it is "allowable and praiseworthy" for a man to take his own life,[49] was probably connected with their optimistic notions about their fate after death. And that the habitual suicides of old persons have the sanction of public opinion is particularly obvious where they may choose between killing themselves and being killed.[50]

[Footnote 44: Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125 sq.]

[Footnote 45: Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, i. 610.]

[Footnote 46: Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 287.]

[Footnote 47: Skrzyncki, in Am Ur-Quell, v. 208.]

[Footnote 48: von Struve, in Ausland, 1880, p. 777.]

[Footnote 49: Steller, op. cit. p. 269. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 204.]

[Footnote 50: Supra, i. 389 sq. (Fijians). Nansen, _First Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 331. Steller, op. cit. p. 294 (Kamchadales).]

Whilst in some cases suicide opens the door to a happy land beyond the grave, it in other cases entails consequences of a very different kind. The Omahas believe that a self-murderer ceases to exist.[51] According to the Thompson Indians in British Columbia, "the souls of people who commit suicide do not go to the land of souls. The shamans declare they never saw such people there; and some say that they have looked for the souls of such people, but could not find their tracks. Some shamans say they cannot locate the place where the souls of suicides go, but think they must be lost, because they seem to disappear altogether. Others say that these souls die, and cease to exist. Still others claim that the souls never leave the earth, but wander around aimlessly."[52] So also the Jakuts believe that the ghost of a self-murderer never {237} comes to rest.[53] Sometimes the fate of suicides after death is represented as a punishment which they suffer for their deed. Thus the Dacotahs, among whom women not infrequently put an end to their existence by hanging themselves, are of opinion that suicide is displeasing to the "Father of Life," and will be punished in the land of spirits by the ghost being doomed for ever to drag the tree on which the person hanged herself; hence the women always suspend themselves to as small a tree as can possibly sustain their weight.[54] The Pahárias of the Rájmahal Hills, in India, say that "suicide is a crime in God's eyes," and that "the soul of one who so offends shall not be admitted into heaven, but must hover eternally as a ghost between heaven and earth,"[55] The Kayans of Borneo maintain that self-murderers are sent to a place called Tan Tekkan, where they will be very poor and wretched, subsisting on leaves, roots, or anything they can pick up in the forests, and being easily distinguished by their miserable appearance.[56] According to Dyak beliefs, they go to a special place, where those who have drowned themselves must thenceforth live up to their waists in water, and those who have poisoned themselves must live in houses built of poisonous woods and surrounded by noxious plants, the exhalations of which are painful to the spirits.[57] In other instances we are simply told that the souls of suicides, together with those of persons who have been killed in war,[58] or who have died a violent death,[59] are not permitted to live with the rest of the souls, to whom their presence would cause uneasiness. Among the Hidatsa Indians some people say that the ghosts of men {238} who have made away with themselves occupy a separate part of the village of the dead, but that their condition in no other wise differs from that of the other ghosts.[60]

[Footnote 51: La Flesche, 'Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,' in Jour. of American Folk-Lore, ii. 11.]

[Footnote 52: Teit, 'Thompson Indians of British Columbia,' in Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, i. 358 sq.]

[Footnote 53: Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 101.]

[Footnote 54: Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 89. Cf. Keating, op. cit. i. 394.]

[Footnote 55: Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 268. Cf. Sherwill, 'Tour through the Rájmahal Hills,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xx. 556.]

[Footnote 56: Hose, 'Journey up the Baram River to Mount Dulit and the Highlands of Borneo,' in Geographical Journal, i. 199.]

[Footnote 57: Wilken, _Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel_, i. 44.]

[Footnote 58: Brebeuf, 'Relation de ce qui s'est passé dans le pays des Hurons,' in Relations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 104 sq. Hewitt, 'The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul,' in Jour. of American Folk-Lore, viii. 109.]

[Footnote 59: Steinmetz, in American Anthropologist, vii. 58 (Niase).]

[Footnote 60: Matthews, Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, p. 49.]

It is, however, hard to believe that the fate of the self-murderer, whether it be annihilation, a vagrant existence on earth, or separation in the other world, was originally meant as a punishment; for a similar lot is assigned to the souls of persons who have been drowned,[61] or who have died by accident or violence.[62] It seems that the suicide's future state is in the first place supposed to depend upon the treatment of his corpse. Frequently he is denied burial, or at least the ordinary funeral rites,[63] and this may give rise to the notion that his soul never comes to rest or, possibly, even ceases to exist. Or he is buried by himself, apart from the other dead,[64] in which case his soul must naturally remain equally isolated. Among the Alabama Indians, for instance, "when a man kills himself, either in despair or in a sickness, he is deprived of burial, and thrown into the river."[65] In Dahomey "the body of any person committing suicide is not allowed to be buried, but thrown out into the fields to be devoured by wild beasts."[66] Among the Fantis of the Gold Coast "il y a des places réservées aux suicides et à ceux qui sont morts de la petite vérole. Ils sont enterrés à l'écart loin de toute {239} habitation et de tout chemin public."[67] In the Pelew Islands a self-murderer is buried not with his own deceased relatives, but in the place where he ended his life, as are also the corpses of those who fall in war.[68] Among the Bannavs of Cambodia "anyone who perishes by his own hand is buried in a corner of the forest far from the graves of his brethren."[69] Among the Sea Dyaks "those who commit suicide are buried in different places from others, as it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in the seven-storied heaven with such of their fellow-country men as come by their death in a natural manner or from the influence of the spirits."[70] The motive for thus treating self-murderers' bodies is superstitious fear. Their ghosts, as the ghosts of persons who have died by any other violent means or by accident, are supposed to be particularly malevolent,[71] owing to their unnatural mode of death[72] or to the desperate or angry state of mind in which they left this life. If they are not buried at all, or if they are buried in the spot where they died or in a separate place, that is either because nobody dares to interfere with them, or in order to prevent them from mixing with the other dead. So also murdered persons are sometimes left unburied,[73] and people who are supposed to have been killed by evil spirits are buried apart;[74] whilst those struck with lightning are either denied interment,[75] or buried where they fell and in the position in which they died.[76] We sometimes hear of a connection between the way in which a suicide's body is treated and the moral opinion as regards his deed. Among the Alabama Indians his corpse {240} is said to be thrown into the river "because he is looked upon as a coward";[77] and of the Ossetes M. Kovalewsky states that they bury suicides far away from other dead persons because they regard their act as sinful.[78] But we may be sure that moral condemnation is not the original cause of these practices.

[Footnote 61: Teit, loc. cit. p. 359 (Thompson Indians).]

[Footnote 62: Soppitt, Kuki-Lushai Tribes, p. 12. Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, p. 146 (Kakhyens). Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 287 (Brazilian Indians). Supra, ii. 237. The Central Eskimo believe that all who die by accident or by violence, and women who die in childbirth, are taken to the upper, happier world (Boas, 'Central Eskimo,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 590). According to the belief of the Behring Strait Eskimo, the shades of shamans, or persons who die by accident, violence, or starvation, go to a land of plenty in the sky, where there is light, food, and water in abundance, whereas the shades of people who die from natural causes go to the underground land of the dead (Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 423).]

[Footnote 63: See Lasch, 'Die Behandlung der Leiche des Selbstmorders,' in Globus, lxxvi. 63 sqq.]

[Footnote 64: Ibid. p. 65.]

[Footnote 65: Bossu, Travels through Louisiana, i. 258.]

[Footnote 66: M'Leod, Voyage to Africa, p. 48 sq. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to this and a few other statements in the present chapter.]

[Footnote 67: Gallaud, 'A la Côte d'Or,' in Les missions catholiques, xxv. 347.]

[Footnote 68: Kubary, in _Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin_, i. 78.]

[Footnote 69: Comte, quoted by Mouhot, op. cit. ii. 28. See also 'Das Volk der Bannar,' in Mittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 70: St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East, i. 69.]

[Footnote 71: Lasch, in Globus, lxxvi. 65. Cf. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 414 sq.]

[Footnote 72: Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 11. Kubary, in Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin, i. 78.]

[Footnote 73: Rosenberg, Der malayische Archipel, p. 461 (Papuans of Dorey).]

[Footnote 74: Hodson, 'Native Tribes of Manipur,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 305 sq.]

[Footnote 75: Burton, Mission to Gelele, ii. 142 sq. (Dahomans).]

[Footnote 76: La Flesche, in Jour. American Folk-Lore, ii. 11 (Omahas).]

[Footnote 77: Bossu, op. cit. i. 258.]

[Footnote 78: Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine et loi ancienne, p. 327.]

It is comparatively seldom that savages are reported to attach any stigma to suicide. To the instances mentioned above a few others may be added. The Waganda, we are told, greatly condemn the act.[79] Among the Bogos "a man never despairs, never gives himself up, and considers suicide as the greatest indignity."[80] The Karens of Burma deem it an act of cowardice; but at the same time they have no command against it, they "seem to see little or no guilt in it," and "we are nowhere told that it is displeasing to the God of heaven and earth."[81] The Dacotahs said of a girl who had destroyed herself because her parents had turned her beloved from the wigwam, and would force her to marry a man she hated, that her spirit did not watch over her earthly remains, being offended when she brought trouble upon her aged mother and father.[82] In Dahomey "it is criminal to attempt to commit suicide, because every man is the property of the king. The bodies of suicides are exposed to public execration, and the head is always struck off and sent to Agbomi; at the expense of the family if the suicide were a free man, at that of his master if he were a slave."[83] On the other hand, it is expressly stated of various savages that they do not punish attempts to commit suicide.[84] The negroes of Accra see nothing wrong in the act. "Why," they would ask, "should a person not be {241} allowed to die, when he no longer desires to live?" But they inflict cruel punishments upon slaves who try to put an end to themselves, in order to deter other slaves from doing the same.[85] Among the Pelew Islanders suicide "is neither praised nor blamed."[86] The Eskimo around Northumberland Inlet and Davis Strait believe that any one who has been killed by accident, or who has taken his own life, certainly goes to the happy place after death.[87] The Chippewas hold suicide "to be a foolish, not a reprehensible action," and do not believe it to entail any punishment in the other world.[88] In his sketches of the manners and customs of the North American Indians, Buchanan writes:--"Suicide is not considered by the Indians either as an act of heroism or of cowardice, nor is it with them a subject of praise or blame. They view this desperate act as the consequence of mental derangement, and the person who destroys himself is to them an object of pity."[89]

[Footnote 79: Felkin, in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723.]

[Footnote 80: Munzinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93.]

[Footnote 81: Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.]

[Footnote 82: Eastman, op. cit. p. 169.]

[Footnote 83: Ellis, E[(w]e-speaking Peoples, p. 224.]

[Footnote 84: Leuschner, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Nicole, ibid. p. 135 (Diakité-Sarracolese). Lang, ibid. p. 262 (Washambala). Rautanen, ibid. p. 343 (Ondonga). Sorge, ibid. p. 421 (Nissan Islanders). Senfft, ibid. p. 452 (Marshall Islanders).]

[Footnote 85: Monrad, op. cit. pp. 23, 25.]

[Footnote 86: Kubary, in _Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin_, i. 78.]

[Footnote 87: Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 572. Cf. supra, ii. 238, n. 3.]

[Footnote 88: Keating, op. cit. ii. 172.]

[Footnote 89: Buchanan, _Sketches of the History, &c. of the North American Indians_, p. 184.]

From the opinions on suicide held by uncivilised races we shall pass to those prevalent among peoples of a higher culture. In China suicide is extremely common among all classes and among persons of all ages.[90] For those who have been impelled to this course by a sense of honour the gates of heaven open wide, and tablets bearing their names are erected in the temples in honour of virtuous men or women. As honourable self-murderers are regarded servants or officers of state who choose not to survive a defeat in battle or an insult offered to the sovereign of their country; young men who, when an insult has been paid to their parents which they are unable to avenge, prefer not to survive it; and women who kill {242} themselves on the death of their husbands or fiancés.[91] In spite of imperial prohibitions, sutteeism of widowed wives and brides has continued to flourish in China down to this day, and meets with the same public applause as ever;[92] whilst those widowed wives and brides who have lost their lives in preserving their chastity, are entitled both to an honorary gate and to a place in a temple of the State as an object of worship.[93] Another common form of suicide which is admired as heroic in China is that committed for the purpose of taking revenge upon an enemy who is otherwise out of reach--according to Chinese ideas a most effective mode of revenge, not only because the law throws the responsibility of the deed on him who occasioned it, but also because the disembodied soul is supposed to be better able than the living man to persecute the enemy.[94] The Chinese have a firm belief in the wandering spirits of persons who have died by violence; thus self-murderers are supposed to haunt the places where they committed the fatal deed and endeavour to persuade others to follow their example, at times even attempting to play executioner by strangling those who reject their advances.[95] "Violent deaths," says Mr. Giles, "are regarded with horror by the Chinese";[96] and suicides committed from meaner motives are reprobated.[97] It is said in the Yü Li, or "Divine Panorama"--a Taouist work which is very popular all over the Chinese Empire--that whilst persons who kill themselves out of loyalty, filial piety, chastity, or friendship, will go to heaven, those who do so "in a trivial burst of rage, or fearing the consequences of a crime which would not amount to death, or in the hope of falsely injuring a {243} fellow-creature," will be severely punished in the infernal regions.[98] No pardon will be granted them; they are not, like other sinners, allowed to claim their good works as a set-off against evil, whereby they might partly escape the agonies of hell and receive some reward for their virtuous deeds.[99] Sometimes suicide is classified by the Chinese as an offence against religion, on the ground that a person owes his being to Heaven, and is therefore responsible to Heaven for due care of the gift.[100]

[Footnote 90: Gray, China, i. 329. Huc, The Chinese Empire, p. 181. Matignon, 'Le suicide en Chine,' in Archives d'anthropologie criminelle, xii. 367 sqq. Cathonay, 'Aux environs de Foutchéon,' in Les missions catholiques, xxxi. 341 sq. Ball, Things Chinese, p. 564 sqq.]

[Footnote 91: Gray, op. cit. i. 337 sqq.]

[Footnote 92: de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol. ii. book) i. 748. Ball, op. cit. p. 565. Cathonay, in Les missions catholiques, xxxi. 341.]

[Footnote 93: de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 792.]

[Footnote 94: Huc, op. cit. p. 181. Matignon, in Archives d'anthropologie criminelle, xii. 371 sqq. de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 450 sq. Cathonay, in Les missions catholiques, xxxi. 341 sq. Ball, op. cit. p. 566 sq.]

[Footnote 95: Davis, China, ii. 94. Dennys, _Folk-Lore of China_, p. 74 sq.]

[Footnote 96: Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 363, n. 9.]

[Footnote 97: Gray, op. cit. i. 337.]

[Footnote 98: Giles, op. cit. ii. 365.]

[Footnote 99: Ibid. ii. 363.]

[Footnote 100: Alabaster, _Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law_, p. 304.]

"The Japanese calendar of saints," says Mr. Griffis, "is not filled with reformers, alms-givers, and founders of hospitals or orphanages, but is overcrowded with canonised suicides and committers of harakiri. Even to-day, no man more . . . surely draws homage to his tomb, securing even apotheosis, than the suicide, though he may have committed a crime."[101] There were two kinds of harakiri, or "belly-cutting," one obligatory and the other voluntary. The former was a boon granted by government, who graciously permitted criminals of the Samurai, or military, class thus to destroy themselves instead of being handed over to the common executioner; but this custom is now quite extinct. Voluntary harakiri, again, was practised out of loyalty to a dead superior, or in order to protest, when other protests might be unavailing, against the erroneous conduct of a living superior, or to avoid beheading by the enemy in a lost battle, or to restore injured honour if revenge was impossible. Under any circumstances harakiri cleansed from every stain, and ensured an honourable interment and a respected memory.[102] It is said in a Japanese manuscript, "To slay his enemy against whom he has cause of hatred, and then to kill himself, is the part of a noble Samurai, and it is sheer nonsense to look upon the place where he has disembowelled {244} himself as polluted."[103] In old days the ceremony used to be performed in a temple.[104]

[Footnote 101: Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 112.]

[Footnote 102: Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 219 sqq. Rein, Japan, p. 328. Kühne, in Globus, lxxiv. 166 sq. A very full account of the ceremony of harakiri is given in Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, ii. 193 sqq., from a rare Japanese manuscript.]

[Footnote 103: Mitford, op. cit. ii. 201.]

[Footnote 104: Ibid. ii. 196.]

Among the Hindus we meet with the practice of self-immolation of widows--until recently very prevalent in many parts of India[105]--and various forms of self-destruction for religious purposes. Suicide has always been considered by the Hindus to be one of the most acceptable rites that can be offered to their deities. According to the Ayen Akbery, there were five kinds of suicide held to be meritorious in the Hindu, namely:--starving; covering himself with cow-dung and setting it on fire and consuming himself therein; burying himself in snow; immersing himself in the water at the extremity of Bengal, where the Ganges discharges itself into the sea through a thousand channels, enumerating his sins, and praying till the alligators come and devour him; cutting his throat at Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna.[106] To these might be added drowning at Hurdwar, Allahabad, and Saugor; perishing in the cold of the Himalayas; the practice of dying under the wheels of Juggurnath's car;[107] and the custom of men throwing themselves down from certain rocks to fulfil the vows of their mothers, or to receive forgiveness for sins, or to be re-born rajas in their next state of transmigration.[108] It is also common for persons who are afflicted with leprosy or any other incurable disease to bury or drown themselves with due ceremonies, by which they are considered acceptable sacrifices to the deity,[109] or to roll themselves into fires with the notion that thus purified they will receive a happy transmigration into a healthy body.[110] Suicide was further {245} resorted to by Brâhmans for the purpose of avenging an injury, as it was believed that the ghost of the deceased would persecute the offender, and, presumably, also because of the great efficacy which was attributed to the curse of a dying Brâhman.[111] When one of the Rajput rajas once levied a war-subsidy on the Brâhmans, some of the wealthiest, having expostulated in vain, poniarded themselves in his presence, pouring maledictions on his head with their last breath; and thus cursed, the raja laboured under a ban of excommunication even amongst his personal friends.[112] We are told of a Brâhman girl who, having been seduced by a certain raja, burned herself to death, and in dying imprecated the most fearful curses on the raja's kindred, after which they were visited with such a succession of disasters that they abandoned their family settlement at Baliya, where the woman's tomb is worshipped to this day.[113] Once when a raja ordered the house of a Brâhman to be demolished and resumed the lands which had been conferred upon him, the latter fasted till he died at the palace gate, and became thus a Brahm, or malignant Brâhman ghost, who avenged the injury he had suffered by destroying the raja and his house.[114] At Azimghur, in 1835, a Brâhman "threw himself down a well, that his ghost might haunt his neighbour."[115] The same idea undoubtedly underlies the custom of "sitting dharna" which was practised by creditors who sat down before the doors of their debtors threatening to starve themselves to death if their claims were not paid;[116] and the sin attached to causing the death of a Brâhman would further increase the efficacy of the creditor's threats.[117] At the same time religious suicide is said to be a crime in a Brâhman.[118] And in the sacred books we read that for him who destroys {246} himself by means of wood, water, clods of earth, stones, weapons, poison, or a rope, no funeral rites shall be performed by his relatives;[119] that he who resolves to die by his own hand shall fast for three days; and that he who attempts suicide, but remains alive, shall perform severe penance.[120] The Buddhists allow a man under certain circumstances to take his own life, but maintain that generally dire miseries are in store for the self-murderer, and look upon him as one who must have sinned deeply in a former state of existence.[121] It should be added that in India, as elsewhere, the souls of those who have killed themselves or met death by any other violent means are regarded as particularly malevolent and troublesome.[122]

[Footnote 105: Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, ii. 206 sqq. Chevers, Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India, p. 665. Cf. supra, i. 473 sq. Sir John Malcolm observes (op. cit. ii. 206, n. [double dagger]) that the practice of suttee was not always confined to widows, but that sometimes mothers burned themselves on the death of their only sons.]

[Footnote 106: Chevers, op. cit. p. 664. Cf. Laws of Manu, vi. 31.]

[Footnote 107: Ibid. p. 664. Ward, View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos, ii. 115 sqq. Rájendralála Mitra, Indo-Aryans, ii. 70.]

[Footnote 108: Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official_, i. 132 sq. Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, ii. 209 sqq. Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, p. 172 sq.]

[Footnote 109: Sleeman, op. cit. ii. 344 sq.]

[Footnote 110: Ward, op. cit. ii. 119.]

[Footnote 111: Chevers, op. cit. p. 659 sqq. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, i. 191 sqq. van Mökern, Ostindien, i. 319 sqq.]

[Footnote 112: Tod, quoted by Chevers, op. cit. p. 659 sq.]

[Footnote 113: Crooke, op. cit. i. 193.]

[Footnote 114: Ibid. i. 191 sq.]

[Footnote 115: Chevers, op. cit. p. 663.]

[Footnote 116: Cf. Steinmetz, 'Gli antichi scongiuri giuridici contro i creditori,' in Rivista italiana di sociologia, ii. 58. For the practice of dharna see ibid. p. 37 sqq.; Balfour, Cyclopædia of India, i. 934 sq.; van Mökern, op. cit. i. 322 sq.]

[Footnote 117: Cf. Jones, quoted by Balfour, op. cit. i. 935.]

[Footnote 118: Ward, op. cit. ii. 115. Forsyth, op. cit. p. 173.]

[Footnote 119: Vasishtha, xxiii. 14 sq.]

[Footnote 120: Ibid. xxiii. 18 sqq.]

[Footnote 121: Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. 479.]

[Footnote 122: Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, i. 269. Fawcett, 'Nâyars of Malabar,' in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, iii. 253.]

The Old Testament mentions a few cases of suicide.[123] In none of them is any censure passed on the perpetrator of the deed, nor is there any text which expressly forbids a man to die by his own hand; and of Ahithophel it is said that he was buried in the sepulchre of his father.[124] It seems, however, that according to Jewish custom persons who had killed themselves should be left unburied till sunset,[125] perhaps for fear lest the spirit of the deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old home.[126] Josephus, who mentions this custom, denounces suicide as an act of cowardice, as a crime most remote from the common nature of all animals, as impiety against the Creator; and he maintains that the souls of those who have thus acted madly against themselves will go to the darkest place in Hades.[127] The Talmud considers suicide justifiable, if not meritorious, in the case of the chief of a vanquished army who is sure of disgrace and death at the hands of the exulting conqueror,[128] or when a person has {247} reason to fear being forced to renounce his religion.[129] In all other circumstances the Rabbis consider it criminal for a person to shorten his own life, even when he is undergoing tortures which must soon end his earthly career;[130] and they forbid all marks of mourning for a self-murderer, such as wearing sombre apparel and eulogising him.[131] Islam prohibits suicide, as an act which interferes with the decrees of God.[132] Muhammedans say that it is a greater sin for a person to kill himself than to kill a fellow-man;[133] and, as a matter of fact, suicide is very rare in the Moslem world.[134]

[Footnote 123: 1 Samuel, xxxi. 4 sq. 2 Samuel, xvii. 23. 1 Kings, xvi. 18. 2 Maccabees, xiv. 4 sqq.]

[Footnote 124: 2 Samuel, xvii. 23.]

[Footnote 125: Josephus, De bello Judaico, iii. 8. 5.]

[Footnote 126: Cf. Frazer, 'Burial Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 72.]

[Footnote 127: Josephus, op. cit. iii. 8. 5.]

[Footnote 128: Cf. 1 Samuel, xxxi. 4.]

[Footnote 129: Guittin, 57 B, quoted by Mendelsohn, Criminal Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 77, n. 163. Cf. 2 Maccabees, xiv. 37 sqq.]

[Footnote 130: Ab Zara, 18 A, quoted by Mendelsohn, op. cit. p. 78, n. 163.]

[Footnote 131: Mendelsohn, op. cit. p. 77.]

[Footnote 132: Koran, iv. 33.]

[Footnote 133: I have often heard this myself. Cf. Westcott, Suicide, p. 12.]

[Footnote 134: Lisle, Du suicide, pp. 305, 345 sq. Legoyt, Le suicide ancien et moderne, p. 7. Morselli, Il suicidio, p. 33. Westcott, op. cit. p. 12.]

Ancient Greece had its honourable suicides. The Milesian and Corinthian women, who by a voluntary death escaped from falling into the hands of the enemy, were praised in epigrams.[135] The story that Themistocles preferred death to bearing arms against his native country was circulated with a view to doing honour to his memory.[136] The tragedians frequently give expression to the idea that suicide is in certain circumstances becoming to a noble mind.[137] Hecuba blames Helena for not putting an end to her life by a rope or a sword.[138] Phaedra[139] and Leda[140] kill themselves out of shame, Haemon from violent remorse.[141] Ajax decides to die after having in vain attempted to kill the Atreidae, maintaining that "one of generous strain should nobly live, or forthwith nobly die."[142] Instances are, moreover, mentioned of women killing themselves on the death of their husbands;[143] and in Cheos it was the custom to prevent {248} the decrepitude of old age by a voluntary death.[144] At Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his own life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the body,[145] evidently in order to make him harmless after death.[146] Plato says in his 'Laws,' probably in agreement with Attic custom, that those who inflict death upon themselves "from sloth or want of manliness," shall be buried alone in such places as are uncultivated and nameless, and that no column or inscription shall mark the spot where they are interred.[147] At Thebes self-murderers were deprived of the accustomed funeral ceremonies,[148] and in Cyprus they were left unburied.[149] The objections which philosophers raised against the commission of suicide were no doubt to some extent shared by popular sentiments. Pythagoras is represented as saying that we should not abandon our station in life without the orders of our commander, that is, God.[150] According to the Platonic Socrates, the gods are our guardians and we are a possession of theirs, hence "there may be reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him."[151] Aristotle, again, maintains that he who from rage kills himself commits a wrong against the State, and that therefore the State punishes him and civil infamy is attached to him.[152] The religious argument could not be foreign to a people who regarded it as impious interference in the order of nature to make a bridge over the Hellespont and to separate a landscape from the continent;[153] and the idea that suicide is a matter of public concern evidently prevailed in Massilia, where no man was allowed to make away with himself unless the magistrates had given him permission to do so.[154] But the {249} opinions of the philosophers were anything but unanimous.[155] Plato himself, in his 'Laws,' has no word of censure for him who deprives himself by violence of his appointed share of life under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune, or out of irremediable and intolerable shame.[156] Hegesias, surnamed the "death-persuader," who belonged to the Cyrenaic school, tried to prove the utter worthlessness and unprofitableness of life.[157] According to Epicurus we ought to consider "whether it be better that death should come to us, or we go to him."[158] The Stoics, especially, advocated suicide as a relief from all kinds of misery.[159] Seneca remarks that it is a man's own fault if he suffers, as, by putting an end to himself, he can put an end to his misery:--"As I would choose a ship to sail in, or a house to live in, so would I choose the most tolerable death when about to die. . . . Human affairs are in such a happy situation, that no one need be wretched but by choice. Do you like to be wretched? Live. Do you like it not? It is in your power to return from whence you came."[160] The Stoics did not deny that it is wrong to commit suicide in cases where the act would be an injury to society;[161] Seneca himself points out that Socrates lived thirty days in prison in expectation of death, so as to submit to the laws of his country, and to give his friends the enjoyment of his conversation to the last.[162] Epictetus opposes indiscriminate suicide on religious grounds:--"Friends, wait for God; when he shall give the signal and release you from this service, then go to him; but for the present endure to dwell in the place where he has put you."[163] Such a signal, however, is given often enough: it may consist in incurable disease, intolerable pain, or misery of any kind. "Remember this: the door is open; be not more timid {250} than little children, but as they say, when the thing does not please them, 'I will play no longer,' so do you, when things seem to you of such a kind, say I will no longer play, and be gone: but if you stay, do not complain."[164] Pliny says that the power of dying when you please is the best thing that God has given to man amidst all the sufferings of life.[165]

[Footnote 135: Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 443.]

[Footnote 136: Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, xi. 58. 2 sq.]

[Footnote 137: See Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 442 sqq.]

[Footnote 138: Euripides, Troades, 1012 sqq.]

[Footnote 139: Idem, Hippolytus, 715 sqq.]

[Footnote 140: Idem, Helena, 134 sqq.]

[Footnote 141: Sophocles, Antigone, 1234 sqq.]

[Footnote 142: Idem, Ajax, 470 sqq. Cf. ibid. 654 sqq.]

[Footnote 143: Euripides, Supplices, 1000 sqq. Pausanias, iv. 2. 7.]

[Footnote 144: Strabo, Geographica, x. 5. 6, p. 486. Aelian, Varia historia, iii. 37. Cf. Boeckh, Gesammelte kleine Schriften, vii. 345 sqq.; Welcker, Kleine Schriften, ii. 502 sq.]

[Footnote 145: Aeschines, In Ctesiphontem, 244.]

[Footnote 146: Some Australian natives cut off the thumb of the right hand of a dead foe in order to make his spirit unable to throw the spear efficiently (Oldfield, in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 287).]

[Footnote 147: Plato, Leges, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 148: Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 104.]

[Footnote 149: Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, lxiv. 3.]

[Footnote 150: Cicero, Cato Major, 20 (73).]

[Footnote 151: Plato, **Phædo, p. 62.]

[Footnote 152: Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, v. 11. 3.]

[Footnote 153: See Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 83, 441; Rohde, Psyche, p. 202, n. 1.]

[Footnote 154: Valerius Maximus, Factorum dictorumque memorabilia, ii. 6. 7.]

[Footnote 155: See Geiger, _Der Selbstmord im klassischen Altertum_, p. 5 sqq.]

[Footnote 156: Plato, Leges, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 157: Cicero, Tusculanæ quæstiones, i. 34 (83 sq.). Valerius Maximus, viii. 9. Externa 3.]

[Footnote 158: Epicurus, quoted by Seneca, Epistulæ, 26.]

[Footnote 159: See Geiger, op. cit. p. 15 sqq.]

[Footnote 160: Seneca, Epistulæ, 70. See also Idem, De ira, iii. 15; Idem, Consolatia ad Marciam, 20.]

[Footnote 161: Lecky, History of European Morals, i. 214, n. 1.]

[Footnote 162: Seneca, Epistulæ, 70.]

[Footnote 163: Epictetus, Dissertationes, i. 9. 16.]

[Footnote 164: Ibid. i. 24. 20; i. 25. 20 sq.; ii. 16. 37 sqq.; iii. 13. 14; iii. 24. 95 sqq.]

[Footnote 165: Pliny, Historia naturalis, ii. 5 (7).]

It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with considerable moral indifference. According to Servius, it was provided by the Pontifical laws that whoever hanged himself should be cast out unburied;[166] but from what has been said before it is probable that this practice only owed its origin to fear of the dead man's ghost. Vergil enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants who have died prematurely and persons who have been condemned to die on a false charge.[167] Throughout the whole history of pagan Rome there was no statute declaring it to be a crime for an ordinary citizen to take his own life. The self-murderer's rights were in no way affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by law, and the regular order of succession was not interfered with.[168] In Roman law there are only two noteworthy exceptions to the rule that suicide is a matter with which the State has nothing to do: it was prohibited in the case of soldiers,[169] and the enactment was made that the suicide of an accused person should entail the same consequences as his condemnation; but in the latter instance the deed was admitted as a confession of guilt.[170] On the other {251} hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and praiseworthy act.[171] Even Cicero, who professed the doctrine of Pythagoras,[172] approved of the death of Cato.[173]

[Footnote 166: Servius, Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos, xii. 603.]

[Footnote 167: Vergil, Æneis, vi. 426 sqq.]

[Footnote 168: Bourquelot, 'Recherches sur les opinions et la législation en matière de mort volontaire pendant le moyen age,' in Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, iii. 544. Geiger, op. cit. p. 64 sqq. Bynkershoek, Observationes Juris Romani, iv. 4, p. 350.]

[Footnote 169: Digesta, xlix. 16. 6. 7.]

[Footnote 170: Ibid. xlviii. 21. 3 pr. Cf. Bourquelot, op. cit. iii. 543 sq.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 326; Lecky, History of European Morals, i. 219.]

[Footnote 171: Stäudlin, Geschichte der Vorstellungen und Lehren vom Selbstmorde, p. 62 sq.]

[Footnote 172: Cicero, Cato Major, 20 (72 sq.).]

[Footnote 173: Idem, De officiis, i. 31 (112).]

In no question of morality was there a greater difference between classical and Christian doctrines than in regard to suicide. The earlier Fathers of the Church still allowed, or even approved of, suicide in certain cases, namely, when committed in order to procure martyrdom,[174] or to avoid apostacy, or to retain the crown of virginity. To bring death upon ourselves voluntarily, says Lactantius, is a wicked and impious deed; "but when urged to the alternative, either of forsaking God and relinquishing faith, or of expecting all torture and death, then it is that undaunted in spirit we defy that death with all its previous threats and terrors which others fear."[175] Eusebius and other ecclesiastical writers mention several instances of Christian women putting an end to their lives when their chastity was in danger, and their acts are spoken of with tenderness, if not approbation; indeed, some of them were admitted into the calendar of saints.[176] This admission was due to the extreme honour in which virginity was held by the Fathers; St. Jerome, who denied that it was lawful in times of persecution to die by one's own hands, made an exception for cases in which a person's chastity was at stake.[177] But even this exception was abolished by St. Augustine. He allows that the virgins who laid violent hands upon themselves are worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no necessity for their doing so, since chastity is a virtue of {252} the mind which is not lost by the body being in captivity to the will and superior force of another. He argues that there is no passage in the canonical Scriptures which permits us to destroy ourselves either with a view to obtaining immortality or to avoiding calamity. On the contrary, suicide is prohibited in the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," namely, "neither thyself nor another"; for he who kills himself kills no other but a man.[178] This doctrine, which assimilates suicide with murder, was adopted by the Church.[179] Nay, self-murder was declared to be the worst form of murder, "the most grievous thing of all";[180] already St. Chrysostom had declared that "if it is base to destroy others, much more is it to destroy one's self."[181] The self-murderer was deprived of rights which were granted to all other criminals. In the sixth century a Council at Orleans enjoined that "the oblations of those who were killed in the commission of any crime may be received, except of such as laid violent hands on themselves";[182] and a subsequent Council denied self-murderers the usual rites of Christian burial.[183] It was even said that Judas committed a greater sin in killing himself than in betraying his master Christ to a certain death.[184]

[Footnote 174: See Barbeyrac, Traité de la morale des Pères de l'Église, pp. 18, 122 sq.; Buonafede, Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio, p. 135 sqq.; Lecky, op. cit. ii. 45 sq.]

[Footnote 175: Lactantius, Divines Institutiones, vi. ('De vero cultu') 17 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, vi. 697).]

[Footnote 176: Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, viii. 12 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xx. 769 sqq.), 14 (ibid. col. 785 sqq.). St. Ambrose, De virginibus, xiii. 7 (Migne, _op. cit._ xvi. 229 sqq.). St. Chrysostom, _Homilia encomiastica in S. Martyrem Pelagiam_ (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, l. 579 sqq.).]

[Footnote 177: St. Jerome, Commentarii in Jonam, i. 12 (Migne, op. cit. xxv. 1129).]

[Footnote 178: St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 16 sqq.]

[Footnote 179: Gratian, Decretum, ii. 23. 5. 9. 3.]

[Footnote 180: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 64. 5. 3.]

[Footnote 181: St. Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad Galatas commentarius, i. 4 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, lxi. 618 sq.).]

[Footnote 182: Concilium Aurelianense II. A.D. 533, can. 15 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio, viii. 837). See also Concilium Autisiodorense, A.D. 578, can. 17 (Labbe-Mansi, ix. 913).]

[Footnote 183: Concilium Bracarense II. A.D. 563, cap. 16 (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ix. 779).]

[Footnote 184: Damhouder, Praxis rerum criminalium, lviii. 2 sq., p. 258. See Gratian, op. cit. ii. 33. 3. 3. 38. At the trial of the Marquise de Brinvilliers in 1676, the presiding judge said to the prisoner that "the greatest of all her crimes, horrible as they were, was, not the poisoning of her father and brothers, but her attempt to poison herself" (Ives, Classification of Crimes, p. 36).]

According to the Christian doctrine, as formulated by Thomas Aquinas, suicide is utterly unlawful for three reasons. First, everything naturally loves itself and preserves itself in being; suicide is against a natural inclination and contrary to the charity which a man ought to bear towards himself, and consequently a mortal sin. {253} Secondly, by killing himself a person does an injury to the community of which he is a part. Thirdly, "life is a gift divinely bestowed on man, and subject to His power who 'killeth and maketh alive'; and therefore he who takes his own life sins against God, as he who kills another man's slave sins against the master to whom the slave belongs, and as he sins who usurps the office of judge on a point not referred to him; for to God alone belongs judgment of life and death."[185] The second of these arguments is borrowed from Aristotle, and is entirely foreign to the spirit of early Christianity. The notion of patriotism being a moral duty was habitually discouraged by it, and, as Mr. Lecky observes, "it was impossible to urge the civic argument against suicide without at the same time condemning the hermit life, which in the third century became the ideal of the Church."[186] But the other arguments are deeply rooted in some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity--in the sacredness of human life, in the duty of absolute submission to God's will, and in the extreme importance attached to the moment of death. The earthly life is a preparation for eternity; sufferings which are sent by God are not to be evaded, but to be endured.[187] The man who deliberately takes away the life which was given him by the Creator displays the utmost disregard for the will and authority of his Master; and, worst of all, he does so in the very last minute of his life, when his doom is sealed for ever. His deed, as Thomas Aquinas says, is "the most dangerous thing of all, because no time is left to expiate it by repentance."[188] He who kills a fellow-creature does not in the same degree renounce the protection of God; he kills only the body, whereas the self-murderer kills both the body and the soul.[189] By denying the latter the right of Christian {254} burial the Church recognises that he has placed himself outside her pale.

[Footnote 185: Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 64. 5.]

[Footnote 186: Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 44.]

[Footnote 187: Cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 23.]

[Footnote 188: Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 64. 5. 3. Cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 25.]

[Footnote 189: Damhouder, op. cit. lxxxviii. 1 sq., p. 258.]

The condemnation of the Church influenced the secular legislation. The provisions of the Councils were introduced into the law-books. In France Louis IX. enforced the penalty of confiscating the self-murderer's property,[190] and laws to the same effect were passed in other European countries.[191] Louis XIV. assimilated the crime of suicide to that of lèze majesté.[192] According to the law of Scotland, "self-murder is as highly criminal as the killing our neighbour."[193] In England suicide is still regarded by the law as murder committed by a man on himself;[194] and, unless declared insane, the self-murderer forfeited his property as late as the year 1870, when forfeitures for felony were abolished.[195] In Russia, to this day, the testamentary dispositions of a suicide are deemed void by the law.[196]

[Footnote 190: Les Établissements de Saint Louis, i. 92, vol. ii. 150.]

[Footnote 191: Bourquelot, op. cit. iv. 263. Morselli, op. cit. p. 196 sq.]

[Footnote 192: Louis XIV., 'Ordonnance criminelle,' A.D. 1670, xxii. 1, in Isambert, Decrusy, and Taillandier, Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises, xviii. 414.]

[Footnote 193: Erskine-Rankine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_, p. 559.]

[Footnote 194: Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, iii. 104. For earlier times see Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, fol. 150, vol. ii. 504 sq.]

[Footnote 195: Stephen, op. cit. iii. 105.]

[Footnote 196: Foinitzki, in von Liszt, La législation pénale comparée, p. 548.]

The horror of suicide also found a vent in outrages committed on the dead body. Of a woman who drowned herself in Edinburgh in 1598, we are told that her body was "harled through the town backwards, and thereafter hanged on the gallows."[197] In France, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, self-murderers were dragged upon a hurdle through the streets with the face turned to the ground; they were then hanged up with the head downwards, and finally thrown into the common sewer.[198] However, in most cases the treatment to which suicides bodies were subject was not originally meant as a punishment, but was intended to prevent their spirits {255} from causing mischief. All over Europe wandering tendencies have been ascribed to their ghosts.[199] In some countries the corpse of a suicide is supposed to make barren the earth with which it comes in contact,[200] or to produce hailstorms or tempests[201] or drought.[202] At Lochbroom, in the North-West of Scotland, the people believe that if the remains of a self-murderer be taken to any burying-ground which is within sight of the sea or of cultivated land, this would prove disastrous both to fishing and agriculture, or, in the words of the people, would cause "famine (or dearth) on sea and land"; hence the custom has been to inter suicides in out-of-the-way places among the lonely solitudes of the mountains.[203] The practice of burying them apart from other dead has been very wide-spread in Europe, and in many cases there are obvious indications that it arose from fear.[204] In the North-East of Scotland a suicide was buried outside a churchyard, close beneath the wall, and the grave was marked by a single large stone, or by a small cairn, to which the passing traveller was bound to cast a stone; and afterwards, when the suicide's body was allowed to rest in the churchyard, it was laid below the wall in such a position that no one could walk over the grave, as the people believed that if a woman enceinte stepped over such a {256} grave, her child would quit this earth by its own act.[205] In England persons against whom a coroner's jury had found a verdict of felo de se were buried at cross-roads, with a stake driven through the body so as to prevent their ghosts from walking.[206] For the same purpose the bodies of {257} suicides were in many cases burned.[207] And when removed from the house where the act had been committed, they were commonly carried out, not by the door, but by a window,[208] or through a perforation specially made for the occasion in the door,[209] or through a hole under the threshold,[210] in order that the ghost should not find its way back into the house, or perhaps with a view to keeping the entrance of the house free from dangerous infection.[211]

[Footnote 197: Ross, 'Superstitions as to burying Suicides in the Highlands,' in Celtic Magazine, xii. 354.]

[Footnote 198: Serpillon, Code Criminel, ii. 223. Cf. Louis XIV., 'Ordonnance criminelle,' A.D. 1670, xxii. 1, in Isambert, Decrusy, and Taillandier, op. cit. xviii. 414.]

[Footnote 199: Ross, in Celtic Magazine, xii. 352 (Highlanders of Scotland). Atkinson, Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, p. 217. Hyltén-Cavallius, Wärend och Wirdarne, i. 472 sq. (Swedes). Allardt, 'Nyländska folkseder och bruk,' in Nyland, iv. 114 (Swedish Finlanders). Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, §756, p. 474 sq. Schiffer, 'Totenfetische bei den Polen,' in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 52 (Lithuanians). Volkov, 'Der Selbstmörder in Lithauen,' ibid. v. 87. von Wlislocki, 'Tod und Totenfetische im Volkglauben der Siebenbürger Sachsen,' ibid. iv. 53. Lippert, Christenthum, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch, p. 391. Dyer, The Ghost World, pp. 53, 151. Gaidoz, 'Le suicide,' in Mélusine, iv. 12.]

[Footnote 200: Schiffer, in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 52 (Lithuanians).]

[Footnote 201: Ibid. pp. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Magyaren, p. 61. Strausz, Die Bulgaren, p. 455. Prexl, 'Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,' in Globus, lvii. 30.]

[Footnote 202: Strausz, op. cit. p. 455 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 203: Ross, in Celtic Magazine, xii. 350 sq.]

[Footnote 204: Gaidoz, in Mélusine, iv. 12. Frank, System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey, iv. 499. Moore, op. cit. i. 310 (Danes). Schiffer, in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). Volkov, ibid. v. 87 (Lithuanians). Strausz, op. cit. p. 455 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 205: Gregor, Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 213 sq.]

[Footnote 206: Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, iii. 105. Atkinson, op. cit. p. 217. This custom was formally abolished in 1823 by 4 Geo. IV. c. 52 (Stephen, op. cit. iii. 105). Why were suicides buried at cross-roads? Possibly because the cross was supposed to disperse the evil energy ascribed to their bodies. Both in Europe and India the cross-road has, since ancient times, been a favourite place to divest oneself of diseases or other influences (Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, §§ 483, 484, 492, 508, 514, 522, 545, pp. 325, 326, 331, 341, 345, 349, 361. Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, pp. 272, 473, 519. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 267, 268 n. 1). In the sacred books of India it is said that "a student who has broken the vow of chastity shall offer an ass to Nirriti on a cross-road" (Gautama, xxiii. 17), and that a person who has previously undergone certain other purification ceremonies "is freed from all crimes, even mortal sins, after looking on a cross-road at a pot filled with water, and reciting the text, 'Simhe me manyuh'" (Baudhâyana, iv. 7. 7). In the hills of Northern India and as far as Madras, an approved charm for getting rid of a disease of demoniacal origin is to plant a stake where four roads meet, and to bury grains underneath, which crows disinter and eat (North Indian Notes and Queries, i. § 652, p. 100; Madden, 'The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xvii. pt. i. 583; Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, i. 290). In the Province of Bih[=a]r, "in cases of sickness various articles are exposed in a saucer at a cross-road" (Grierson, Bih[=a]r Peasant Life, p. 407). According to a Bulgarian tale, Lot was enjoined by the priest to plant on a cross-road three charred twigs in order to free himself from his sin (Strausz, op. cit. p. 115). The Gypsies of Servia believe that a thief may divert from himself all suspicions by painting with blood a cross and a dot above it on the spot where he committed the theft (von Wlislocki, 'Menschenblut im Glauben der Zigeuner,' in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 64 sq.). In Morocco the cross is used as a charm against the evil eye, and the chief reason for this is, I believe, that it is regarded as a conductor of the baneful energy emanating from the eye, dispersing it in all the quarters of the wind and thus preventing it from injuring the person or object looked at (Westermarck, 'Magic Origin of Moorish Designs,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 214). In Japan, if a criminal belonging to one of the lower classes commits suicide, his body is crucified (Globus, xviii. 197). When, under Tarquinius Priscus (or Tarquinius Superbus), many Romans preferred voluntary death to compulsory labour in the cloaca, or artificial canals by which the sewage was carried into the Tiber, the king ordered that their bodies should be crucified and abandoned to birds and beasts of prey (Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxxvi. 24; Servius, Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos, xii. 603). The reason for thus crucifying the bodies of self-murderers is not stated; but it is interesting to notice, in this connection, the idea expressed by some Christian writers that the cross of the Saviour symbolised the distribution of his benign influence in all directions (d'Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, i. 646; Tauler, quoted by Peltzer, Deutsche Mystik und deutsche Kunst, p. 191. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Yrjö Hirn for drawing my attention to this idea). With reference to persons who had killed a father, mother, brother, or child, Plato says in his 'Laws' (ix. 873):--"If he be convicted, the servants of the judges and the magistrates shall slay him at an appointed place without the city where three ways meet, and there expose his body naked, and each of the magistrates on behalf of the whole city shall take a stone and cast it upon the head of the dead man, and so deliver the city from pollution; after that, they shall bear him to the borders of the land, and cast him forth unburied, according to law." The duels by which the ancient Swedes were legally compelled to repair their wounded honour were to be fought on a place where three roads met (Leffler, Om den fornsvenska hednalagen, p. 40 sq.; supra, i. 502). In various countries it has been the custom to bury the dead at cross-roads (Grimm, 'Ueber das Verbrennen der Leichen,' in Kleinere Schriften, ii. 288 (Bohemians). Lippert, Die Religionen der europäischen Culturvölker, p. 310 (Slavonians); Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell, p. 68; Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 267, 268, 562 n. 3)--a custom which may have given rise to the idea that cross-roads are haunted (Winternitz, op. cit. p. 68; Oldenberg, op. cit. p. 267 sq.; cf. Wuttke, op. cit. § 108, p. 89 sq.).]

[Footnote 207: Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 263. Hyltén-Cavallius, op. cit. i. 459; Nordström, _Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia_, ii. 331 (Swedes), von Wlislocki, 'Tod und Totenfetische im Volkglauben der Siebenbürger Sachsen,' in Am Ur-Quell, iv. 53.]

[Footnote 208: Wuttke, op. cit. § 756, p. 474; Frank, op. cit. iv. 498 sq.; Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 11 (people in various parts of Germany). Schiffer, in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders).]

[Footnote 209: Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 264 (at Abbeville).]

[Footnote 210: Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 726 sqq. Hyltén-Cavallius, op. cit. i. 472 sq. (Swedes).]

[Footnote 211: See infra, on Regard for the Dead. Contact with a self-murderer's body is considered polluting (Prexl, 'Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,' in Globus, lvii. 30; Hyltén-Cavallius, Wärend och Wirdarne, i. 459, 460, and ii. 412). We are told that in the eighteenth century people did not dare to cut down a person who had hanged himself, though he was found still alive (Frank, op. cit. iv. 499). Among the Bannavs of Cambodia **everybody who takes part in the burial of a self-murderer is obliged to undergo a certain ceremony of purification, whereas no such ceremony is prescribed in the case of other burials (Mittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena, iii. 9).]

However, side by side with the extreme seventy with which suicide is viewed by the Christian Church, we find, even in the Middle Ages, instances of more humane feelings towards its perpetrator. In mediæval tales and ballads true lovers die together and are buried in the same grave; two roses spring through the turf and twine lovingly together.[212] In the later Middle Ages, says M. {258} Bourquelot, "on voit qu'à mesure qu'on avance, l'antagonisme devient plus prononcé entre l'esprit religieux et les idées mondaines relativement à la mort volontaire. Le clergé continue à suivre la route qui a été tracée par Saint Augustin et à déclarer le suicide criminel et impie; mais la tristesse et le désespoir n'entendent pas sa voix, ne se souviennent pas de ses prescriptions."[213] The revival of classical learning, accompanied as it was by admiration for antiquity and a desire to imitate its great men, not only increased the number of suicides, but influenced popular sentiments on the subject.[214] Even the Catholic casuists, and later on philosophers of the school of Grotius and others, began to distinguish certain cases of legitimate suicide, such as that committed to avoid dishonour or probable sin, or that of a condemned person saving himself from torture by anticipating an inevitable death, or that of a man offering himself to death for the sake of his friend.[215] Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, permits a person who is suffering from an incurable and painful disease to take his own life, provided that he does so with the agreement of the priests and magistrates; nay, he even maintains that these should exhort such a man to put an end to a life which is only a burden to himself and others.[216] Donne, the well-known Dean of St. Paul's, wrote in his younger days a book in defence of suicide, "a Declaration," as he called it, "of that paradoxe, or thesis, that Self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise." He there pointed out the fact--which ought never to be overlooked by those who derive their arguments from "nature"--that some things may be natural to the species, and yet not natural to every individual member of it.[217] In one of his essays Montaigne pictures classical cases of suicide with colours of unmistakable sympathy. "La plus volontaire mort," he {259} observes, "c'est la plus belle. La vie despend de la volonté d'aultruy; la mort, de la nostre."[218] The rationalism of the eighteenth century led to numerous attacks both upon the views of the Church and upon the laws of the State concerning suicide. Montesquieu advocated its legitimacy:--"La société est fondée sur un avantage mutuel; mais lorsqu'elle me devient onéreuse, qui m'empêche d'y renoncer? La vie m'a été donnée comme une faveur; je puis donc la rendre lorsqu'elle ne l'est plus: la cause cesse, l'effet doit donc cesser aussi."[219] Voltaire strongly opposed the cruel laws which subjected a suicide's body to outrage and deprived his children of their heritage.[220] If his act is a wrong against society, what is to be said of the voluntary homicides committed in war, which are permitted by the laws of all countries? Are they not much more harmful to the human race than self-murder, which nature prevents from ever being practised by any large number of men?[221] Beccaria pointed out that the State is more wronged by the emigrant than by the suicide, since the former takes his property with him, whereas the latter leaves his behind.[222] According to Holbach, he who kills himself is guilty of no outrage on nature or its author; on the contrary, he follows an indication given by nature when he parts from his sufferings through the only door which has been left open. Nor has his country or his family any right to complain of a member whom it has no means of rendering happy, and from whom it consequently has nothing more to hope.[223] Others eulogised suicide when committed for a noble end,[224] or recommended it on certain occasions. "Suppose," says Hume, "that it is no longer in my {260} power to promote the interest of society; suppose that I am a burthen to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable."[225] Hume also attacks the doctrine that suicide is a transgression of our duty to God. "If it would be no crime in me to divert the Nile from its course, were I able to do so, how could it be a crime to turn a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment on his right for men to dispose of their own lives, would it not be equally wrong of them to lengthen out their lives beyond the period which by the general laws of nature he had assigned to it? My death, however voluntary, does not happen without the consent of Providence; when I fall upon my own sword, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever."[226]

[Footnote 212: See Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 248; Gummere, Germanic Origins, p. 322.]

[Footnote 213: Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 253.]

[Footnote 214: Ibid. iv. 464. Morselli, op. cit. p. 35.]

[Footnote 215: Buonafede, op. cit. p. 148 sqq. Lecky, op. cit. ii. 55.]

[Footnote 216: More, Utopia, p. 122.]

[Footnote 217: Donne, Biathanatos, p. 45. Donne's book was first committed to the press in 1644, by his son.]

[Footnote 218: Montaigne, Essais, ii. 3 ([OE]uvres, p. 187).]

[Footnote 219: Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes, 76 ([OE]uvres, p. 53).]

[Footnote 220: Voltaire, Commentaire sur le livre Des délits et des peines, 19 ([OE]uvres complètes, v. 416). Idem, Prix de la justice et de l'humanité, 5 (ibid. v. 424).]

[Footnote 221: Idem, Note to Olympie acte v. scène 7 ([OE]uvres complètes, i. 826, n. b). Idem, _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, art. Suicide (ibid. viii. 236).]

[Footnote 222: Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, § 35 (Opere, i. 101).]

[Footnote 223: Holbach, Système de la nature, i. 369.]

[Footnote 224: In the early part of the nineteenth century this was done by Fries, Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft, iii. 197.]

[Footnote 225: Hume, 'Suicide,'in Philosophical Works, iv. 413.]

[Footnote 226: Ibid. p. 407 sqq.]

Thus the main arguments against suicide which had been set forth by pagan philosophers and Christian theologians were scrutinised and found unsatisfactory or at least insufficient to justify that severe and wholesale censure which was passed on it by the Church and the State. But a doctrine which has for ages been inculcated by the leading authorities on morals is not easily overthrown; and when the old arguments are found fault with new ones are invented. Kant maintained that a person who disposes of his own life degrades the humanity subsisting in his person and entrusted to him to the end that he might uphold it.[227] Fichte argued that it is our duty to preserve our life and to will to live, not for the sake of life, but because our life is the exclusive condition of the realisation of the moral law through us.[228] According to Hegel it is a contradiction to speak of a person's right over his life, since this would {261} imply a right of a person over himself, and no one can stand above and execute himself.[229] Paley, again, feared that if religion and morality allowed us to kill ourselves in any case, mankind would have to live in continual alarm for the fate of their friends and dearest relations[230]--just as if there were a very strong temptation for men to shorten their lives. But common sense is neither a metaphysician nor a sophist. When not restrained by the yoke of a narrow theology, it is inclined in most cases to regard the self-murderer as a proper object of compassion rather than of condemnation, and in some instances to admire him as a hero. The legislation on the subject therefore changed as soon as the religious influence was weakened. The laws against suicide were abolished in France by the Revolution,[231] and afterwards in various other continental countries;[232] whilst in England it became the custom of jurymen to presume absence of a sound mind in the self-murderer--perjury, as Bentham said, being the penance which prevented an outrage on humanity.[233] These measures undoubtedly indicate not only a greater regard for the innocent relatives of the self-murderer, but also a change in the moral ideas concerning the act itself**.

[Footnote 227: Kant, _Metaphysische Anfangungsgründe der Tugendlehre_, p. 73.]

[Footnote 228: Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, p. 339 sqq. See also ibid. pp. 360, 391.]

[Footnote 229: Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72.]

[Footnote 230: Paley, _Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_, iv. 3 (Complete Works, ii. 230).]

[Footnote 231: Legoyt, op. cit. p. 109.]

[Footnote 232: Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 475.]

[Footnote 233: Bentham, Principles of Penal Law, ii. 4. 4 (Works, i. 479 sq.).]

As appears from this survey of facts, the moral valuation of suicide varies to an extreme degree. It depends partly on the circumstances in which the act is committed, partly on the point of view from which it is regarded and the notions held about the future life. When a person sacrifices his life for the benefit of a fellow-man or for the sake of his country or to gratify the supposed desire of a god, his deed may be an object of the highest praise. It may, further, call forth approval or admiration as indicating a keen sense of honour or as a test of courage; in Japan, says Professor Chamberlain, "the courage to take {262} life--be it one's own or that of others--ranks extraordinarily high in public esteem."[234] In other cases suicide is regarded with indifference as an act which concerns the agent alone. But for various reasons it is also apt to give rise to moral disapproval. The injury which the person committing it inflicts upon himself may excite sympathetic resentment towards him; he may be looked upon as injurer and injured at the same time. Plato asks in his 'Laws':--"What ought he to suffer who murders his nearest and so-called dearest friend? I mean, he who kills himself."[235] And the same point of view is conspicuous in St. Augustine's argument, that the more innocent the self-murderer was before he committed his deed the greater is his guilt in taking his life[236]--an argument of particular force in connection with a theology which condemns suicides to everlasting torments and which regards it as a man's first duty to save his soul. The condemnation of killing others may by an association of ideas lead to a condemnation of killing one's self,[237] as is suggested by the Christian doctrine that suicide is prohibited in the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." The horror which the act inspires, the fear of the malignant ghost, and the defiling effect attributed to the shedding of blood, also tend to make suicide an object of moral reprobation or to increase the disapproval of it;[238] and the same is the case with the exceptional treatment to which the self-murderer's body is subject and his supposed annihilation or miserable existence after death, which easily come to be looked upon in the light of a punishment.[239] Suicide is, moreover, blamed as an act of moral cowardice,[240] and, especially, as an injury inflicted upon other persons, to whom the agent {263} owed duties from which he withdrew by shortening his life.[241] Even among savages we meet with the notion that a person is not entitled to treat himself just as he pleases. Among the Goajiro Indians of Colombia, if anybody accidentally cuts himself, say with his own knife, or breaks a limb, or otherwise does himself an injury, his family on the mother's side immediately demands blood-money, since, being of their blood, he is not allowed to spill it without paying for it; the father's relatives demand tear-money, and friends present claim compensation to repay their sorrow at seeing a friend in pain.[242] That a similar view is sometimes taken by savages with regard to suicide appears from a few statements quoted above.[243] The opinion that suicide is an offence against society at large is particularly likely to prevail in communities where the interests of the individual are considered entirely subordinate to the interests of the State. The religious argument, again, that suicide is a sin against the Creator, an illegitimate interference with his work and decrees, comes to prominence in proportion as the moral consciousness is influenced by theological considerations. In Europe this influence is certainly becoming less and less. And considering that the religious view of suicide has been the chief cause of the extreme severity with which it has been treated in Christian countries, I am unable to subscribe to the opinion expressed by Professor Durkheim, that the more lenient judgment passed on it by the public conscience of the present time is merely accidental and transient. The argument adduced in support of this opinion leaves out of account the real causes to which the valuation of suicide is due: it is said that the moral evolution is not likely to be retrogressive in this particular point after it has followed {264} a certain course for centuries.[244] It is true that moral progress has a tendency to increase our sense of duty towards our fellow-men. But at the same time it also makes us more considerate as regards the motives of conduct; and--not to speak of suicides committed for the benefit of others--the despair of the self-murderer will largely serve as a palliation of the wrong which he may possibly inflict upon his neighbour.

[Footnote 234: Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 221.]

[Footnote 235: Plato, Leges, ix. 873.]

[Footnote 236: St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 17.]

[Footnote 237: See Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, i. 187.]

[Footnote 238: Cf. supra, i. 377.]

[Footnote 239: See supra, ii. 237 sqq.; Josephus, De bello Judaico, iii. 8. 5; Plato, Leges, ix. 873; Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, v. 11. 2 sq.]

[Footnote 240: Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72; Fowler, Progressive Morality, p. 151; &c.]

[Footnote 241: English lawyers have represented suicide as an offence both against God and against the sovereign, who "has an interest in the preservation of all his subjects" (Plowden, Commentaries, i. 261; Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, iv. 190. Cf. Ives, op. cit. p. 40 sq.).]

[Footnote 242: Simons, 'Exploration of the Goajira Peninsula,' in Proceed. Roy. Geo. Soc. N. Ser. vii. 790.]

[Footnote 243: Supra, ii. 240 sq.]

[Footnote 244: Durkheim, Le suicide, p. 377.]

XXXVI. SELF-REGARDING DUTIES AND VIRTUES--INDUSTRY--REST

ACCORDING to current ideas men owe to themselves a variety of duties similar in kind to those which they owe to their fellow-creatures. They are not only forbidden to take their own lives, but are also in some measure considered to be under an obligation to support their existence, to take care of their bodies, to preserve a certain amount of personal freedom, not to waste their property, to exhibit self-respect, and, in general, to promote their own happiness. And closely related to these self-regarding duties there are self-regarding virtues, such as diligence, thrift, temperance. In all these cases, however, the moral judgment is greatly influenced by the question whether the act, forbearance, or omission, which increases the person's own welfare, conflicts or not with the interests of other people. If it does conflict, opinions vary as to the degree of selfishness which is recognised as allowable. But judgments containing moral praise or the inculcation of duty are most commonly passed upon conduct which involves some degree of self-sacrifice, not on such as involves self-indulgence.

Moreover, the duties which we owe to ourselves are generally much less emphasised than those which we owe to others. "Nature," says Butler, "has not given us so sensible a disapprobation of imprudence and folly, either in ourselves or others, as of falsehood, injustice, and {266} cruelty."[1] Nor does a prudential virtue receive the same praise as one springing from a desire to promote the happiness of a fellow-man. Many moralists even maintain that, properly speaking, there are no self-regarding duties and virtues at all; that useful action which is useful to ourselves alone is not matter for moral notice; that in every case duties towards one's self may be reduced into duties towards others; that intemperance and extravagant luxury, for instance, are blamable only because they tend to the public detriment, and that prudence is a virtue only in so far as it is employed in promoting public interest.[2] But this opinion is hardly in agreement with the ordinary moral consciousness.

[Footnote 1: Butler, 'Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue,' in Analogy of Religion, &c. p. 339.]

[Footnote 2: Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, pp. 133, 201. Grote, Treatise on the Moral Ideals, p. 77 sqq. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, pp. 298, 335. von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, ii. 225.]

It is undoubtedly true that no mode of conduct is exclusively self-regarding. No man is an entirely isolated being, hence anything which immediately affects a person's own welfare affects at the same time, in some degree, the welfare of other individuals. It is also true that the moral ideas concerning such conduct as is called self-regarding are more or less influenced by considerations as to its bearing upon others. But this is certainly not the only factor which determines the judgment passed on it. In the education of children various modes of self-regarding conduct are strenuously insisted upon by parents and teachers. What they censure or punish is regarded as wrong, what they praise or reward is regarded as good; for, as we have noticed above, men have a tendency to sympathise with the retributive emotions of persons for whom they feel regard.[3] Moreover, as in the case of suicide,[4] so also in other instances of self-inflicted harm, the injury committed may excite sympathetic resentment towards the agent, although the victim of it is his own self. Disinterested likes or dislikes often give rise to moral {267} approval or disapproval of conduct which is essentially self-regarding.[5] It has also been argued that no man has a right to trifle with his own well-being even where other persons interests are not visibly affected by it, for the reason that he is not entitled wantonly to waste "what is not at his unconditional disposal."[6] And in various other ways--as will be seen directly--religious, as well as magical, ideas have influenced moral opinions relating to self-regarding conduct. But at the same time it is not difficult to see why self-regarding duties and virtues only occupy a subordinate place in our moral consciousness. The influence they exercise upon other persons' welfare is generally too remote to attract much attention. In education there is no need to emphasise any other self-regarding duties and virtues but those which, for the sake of the individual's general welfare, require some sacrifice of his immediate comfort or happiness. The compassion which we are apt to feel for the victim of an injury is naturally lessened by the fact that it is self-inflicted. And, on the other hand, indignation against the offender is disarmed by pity, imprudence commonly carrying its own punishment along with it.[7]

[Footnote 3: Supra, i. 114 sq.]

[Footnote 4: Supra, ii. 262.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. supra, i. 116 sq.]

[Footnote 6: Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, ii. 126.]

[Footnote 7: Cf. Butler, op. cit. p. 339 sq.; Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man, ii. 346 sq.]

Being so little noticed by custom and public opinion, and still less by law, most self-regarding duties hardly admit of a detailed treatment. In a general way it may be said that progress in intellectual culture has, in some respects, been favourable to their evolution; Darwin even maintains that, with a few exceptions, self-regarding virtues are not esteemed by savages.[8] The less developed the intellect, the less apt it is to recognise the remoter consequences of men's behaviour; hence more reflection than that exercised by the savage may be needed to see that modes of conduct which immediately concern a person's own welfare at the same time affect the well-being {268} of his neighbours or the whole community of which he is a member. So also, owing to his want of foresight, the savage would often fail to notice how important it may be to subject one's self to some temporary deprivation or discomfort in order to attain greater happiness in the future. We have noticed above that many savages hardly ever correct their children,[9] and this means that one of the chief sources from which the notions of self-regarding duties spring is almost absent among them. But on the other hand it must also be remembered that disinterested antipathies, another cause of such notions, exercise more influence upon the unreflecting than upon the reflecting moral consciousness, and that many magical and religious ideas which at the lower stages of civilisation give rise to duties of a self-regarding character are no longer held by people more advanced in culture.

[Footnote 8: Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 118 sq.]

[Footnote 9: Supra, i. 513 sq.]

These general statements referring to the nature and origin of self-regarding duties and virtues I shall now illustrate by a short survey of moral ideas concerning some representative modes of self-regarding conduct:--industry and rest; temperance, fasting, and abstinence from certain kinds of food and drink; cleanliness and uncleanliness; and ascetic practices generally.

* * * * *

Man is naturally inclined to idleness, not because he is averse from muscular activity as such, but because he dislikes the monotony of regular labour and the mental exertion it implies.[10] In general he is induced to work only by some special motive which makes him think the trouble worth his while. Among savages, who have little care for the morrow,[11] who have few comforts of life to provide for, and whose property is often of such a kind as to prevent any great accumulation of it, almost the sole inducement to industry is either necessity or compulsion. Men are lazy or industrious according as the necessaries of life are easy {269} or difficult to procure, and they prefer being idle if they can compel other persons to work for them as their servants or slaves.

[Footnote 10: Cf. Ferrero, 'Les formes primitives du travail,' in Revue scientifique, ser. iv. vol. v. 331 sqq.]

[Footnote 11: Buecher, Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, p. 21 sqq.]

Australian natives "can exert themselves vigorously when hunting or fishing or fighting or dancing, or at any time when there is a prospect of an immediate reward; but prolonged labour with the object of securing ultimate gain is distasteful to them."[12] With reference to the Polynesians Mr. Hale observes that in those islands which are situated nearest the equator, where the heat with little or no aid from human labour calls into existence fruits serving to support human life, the inhabitants are an indolent and listless race; whilst "a severer clime and ruder soil are favourable to industry, foresight, and a hardy temperament. These opposite effects are manifested in the Samoans, Nukahivans, and Tahitians, on the one side, and the Sandwich Islanders and New Zealanders on the other."[13] Mr. Yate likewise contrasts the industry of the Maoris with the proverbial idleness of the Tonga Islanders: the former "are obliged to work, if they would eat," whereas "in the luxurious climate of the Friendly Islands, there is scarcely any need of labour, to obtain the necessaries, and even many of the luxuries, of life."[14] The Malays are described as fond of a life of slothful ease, because "persevering toil is unnecessary, or would bring them no additional enjoyments."[15] The natives of Sumatra, says Marsden, "are careless and improvident of the future, because their wants are few; for though poor {270} they are not necessitous, nature supplying, with extraordinary facility, whatever she has made requisite for their existence."[16] The Toda of the Neilgherry Hills will not "work one iota more than circumstances compel him to do";[17] and indolence seems to be a characteristic of most peoples of India,[18] though there are exceptions to the rule.[19] Burckhardt observes that it is not the southern sun, as Montesquieu imagined, but the luxuriance of the southern soil and the abundance of provisions that relax the exertions of the inhabitants and cause apathy:--"By the fertility of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, which yield their produce almost spontaneously, the people are lulled into indolence; while in neighbouring countries, of a temperature equally warm, as among the mountains of Yemen and Syria, where hard labour is necessary to ensure a good harvest, we find a race as superior in industry to the former as the inhabitants of Northern Europe are to those of Spain or Italy."[20] Indolence is a common,[21] though not universal,[22] trait of the African character. Of the Negroes on the Gold Coast Bosman says that "nothing {271} but the utmost necessity can force them to labour."[23] The Waganda are represented as excessively indolent, in consequence of the ease with which they can obtain all the necessaries of life.[24] Of the Namaquas we are told that "they may be seen basking in the sun for days together, in listless inactivity, frequently almost perishing from thirst or hunger, when with very little exertion they may have it in their power to satisfy the cravings of nature. If urged to work, they have been heard to say: 'Why should we resemble the worms of the ground?'"[25] Most of the American Indians are said to have a slothful disposition, because they can procure a livelihood with but little labour.[26] But the case is different with the Greenlanders and other Eskimo, who have to struggle hard for their existence.[27]

[Footnote 12: Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 29 sq. See also ibid. ii. 248; Collins, English Colony in New South Wales, i. 601; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 259 sq.]

[Footnote 13: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, p. 17. See also Williams, _Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 534 (Samoans); Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 130 sq. (Tahitians); Brenchley, Cruise of H.M.S. Curaçoa among the South Sea Islands, p. 58 (natives of Tutuila); Melville, Typee, p. 287 (some Marquesas Islanders); Anderson, _Notes of Travel in Fiji and New Caledonia_, p. 236 (New Caledonians); Penny, _Ten Years in Melanesia_, p. 74 (Solomon Islanders).]

[Footnote 14: Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 105 sq.]

[Footnote 15: McNair, Perak and the Malays, p. 201. Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, p. 275. Raffles, History of Java, i. 251. St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East, ii. 323.]

[Footnote 16: Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 209. See also Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, pp. 76, 87 (Bataks).]

[Footnote 17: Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, p. 88. See also ibid. p. 86; Shortt, 'Hill Tribes of the Neilgherries,' in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. vii. 241; Mantegazza, 'Studii sull' etnologia dell' India,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xiii. 406.]

[Footnote 18: Cooper, Mishmee Hills, p. 100 (Assamese). Tickell, 'Memoir on the Hodésum,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 808 (Hos). Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 57 (Jyntias and Kasias), 101 (Lepchas). Burton, Sindh, p. 284. Moorcroft and Trebeck, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan, i. 321 (Ladakhis). Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 58.]

[Footnote 19: Man, Sonthalia, p. 19. Hodgson, _Miscellaneous Essays_, i. 152 (Bódo and Dhimáls). Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 81 (Kandhs).]

[Footnote 20: Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 219.]

[Footnote 21: Beltrame, Il Sénnaar, i. 166. Tuckey, Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, p. 369. Johnston, The River Congo, p. 402 (Bakongo). Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria, i. 85 (Abaka Negroes). Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, ii. 310 (Gowane people). Burton, Zanzibar, ii. 96 (Wanika). Bonfanti, 'L'incivilimento dei negri nell' Africa intertropicale,' in Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, xv. 133 (Bantu). Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 231 (Herero). Magyar, Reisen in Süd-Afrika, p. 290 (Kimbunda). Kropf, Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 89. Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, p. 194. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 140. Shaw, 'Betsileo Country and People,' in Antananarivo Annual, iii. 81.]

[Footnote 22: Baker, Ismailïa, p. 56 (Shilluk). Baumann, Usambara, p. 244 (Wapare). Bosman, Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 318 (Negroes of Fida). Andersson, Notes on Travel in South Africa, p. 235 (Ovambo). See also infra, p. 272.]

[Footnote 23: Bosman, op. cit. p. 101.]

[Footnote 24: Wilson and Felkin, op. cit. i. 225.]

[Footnote 25: Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 335. See also Kolben, Present State of the Cape of Good-Hope, i. 46, 324; Barrow, Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, i. 152; Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's, p. 324 (Hottentots).]

[Footnote 26: Bridges, 'Manners and Customs of the Firelanders,' in A Voice for South America, xiii. 203 (Fuegians). Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 151; but he praises the Abiponian women for their unwearied industry (ibid. ii. 151 sq.). Brett, Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 343; Kirke, Twenty-five Years in British Guiana, p. 150. Domenech, Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 190. Burton, City of the Saints, p. 126 (Sioux). Harmon, Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 285 (Tacullies). Meares, Voyages to the North-West Coast of America, p. 265 (Nootkas).]

[Footnote 27: Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 126. Armstrong, Narrative of the Discovery of the North-West Passage, p. 196 (Western Eskimo).]

We have seen that savages consider it a duty for a married man to support his family,[28] and this in most cases implies that he is under an obligation to do a certain amount of work. We have also seen that the various occupations of life are divided between the sexes according to rules fixed by custom,[29] and this means that absolute idleness is not generally tolerated in either men or women, though the drudgeries of life are often imposed upon the latter. Of some uncivilised peoples we are directly told that they enjoin work as a duty or regard industry as a virtue. The Greenlanders esteem addiction to labour as the chief of virtues and believe that the industrious man {272} will have a very happy existence after death.[30] The Atkha Aleuts prohibited laziness.[31] Mr. Batchelor relates an Ainu fable which encourages diligence and discourages idleness in young people.[32] The Karens of Burma have a traditional precept which runs, "Be not idle, but labour diligently, that you may not become slaves."[33] The Maoris say, "Let industry be rewarded, lest idleness gets the advantage."[34] The Malagasy likewise inculcate industry in many of their proverbs.[35] The Basutos have a saying that "perseverance always triumphs."[36] Among the Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe conspicuous for its activity, "a man's merit is estimated principally by his industry, and the words mún[)o]n[)a] usináach[)a] (an industrious man) are an expression of high approbation and praise; while he who is seldom seen to hunt, to prepare skins for clothing, or to sew koboes, is accounted a worthless and disgraceful member of society."[37] Among the Beni M'zab in the Sahara--an industrious people inhabiting a sterile country--boys are already at the age of six years compelled by law to begin to work, either in driving a camel or ass, or in drawing water for the gardens.[38] We may expect to find industry especially insisted upon by uncivilised peoples who are habitually addicted to it, partly because it is a necessity among them, partly owing to the influence of habit.

[Footnote 28: Supra, i. 526 sqq.]

[Footnote 29: Supra, i. 634 sqq.]

[Footnote 30: Cranz, op. cit. i. 186.]

[Footnote 31: Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 158.]

[Footnote 32: Batchelor, Ainu of Japan, p. 111.]

[Footnote 33: Smeaton, Loyal Karens of Burma, p. 255.]

[Footnote 34: Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 293. See also Johnston, Maoria, p. 43.]

[Footnote 35: Clemes, 'Malagasy Proverbs,' in _Antananarivo Annual_, iv. 29.]

[Footnote 36: Casalis, Basutos, p. 310.]

[Footnote 37: Burchell, _Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa_, ii. 557.]

[Footnote 38: Tristram, The Great Sahara, p. 207 sq.]

But instead of being regarded as a duty, industrial activity is not infrequently looked down upon as disreputable for a free man. This is especially the case among warlike nations, nomadic tribes, and peoples who have many slaves. In Uganda, for instance, the prevalence of slavery "causes all manual labour to be looked upon as derogatory to the dignity of a free man."[39] The {273} Masai[40] and Matabele[41] consider that the only occupation which becomes a man is warfare. The Arabs of the desert hold labour humiliating to anybody but a slave.[42] Speaking of the Turkomans, Vámbéry observes that "in his domestic circle, the nomad presents us a picture of the most absolute indolence. In his eyes it is the greatest shame for a man to apply his hand to any domestic occupation."[43] The Chippewas "have ever looked upon agricultural and mechanical labours as degrading," and "have regarded the use of the bow and arrow, the war-club and spear, as the noblest employments of man."[44] Among the Iroquois "the warrior despised the toil of husbandry, and held all labour beneath him."[45] Though an industrious race, the Maoris considered it more honourable, as well as more desirable, to acquire property by war and plunder than by labour.[46] Among the Line Islanders it is undignified for a landholder to do work of any kind, except to make weapons, hence he employs persons of the lower class to work for him.[47] In Nukahiva the people of distinction "suffer the nails on the fingers to grow very long, that it may be evident they are not accustomed to hard labour."[48] This contempt for industrial activity is easy to explain. A man who earns his livelihood by labour is considered to be lacking in those qualities which are alone admired--courage and strength;--or work is associated with the idea of servile subjection. It is also universally held degrading for a man to engage in any occupation which belongs to the women.[49] Thus among hunting and pastoral peoples it would be quite out of place for him to supply the household with vegetable food.[50] On the other hand, when agriculture became an {274} indispensable means to maintenance of life it at the same time became respectable. But trade was scorned, probably, as Mr. Spencer suggests, because it was carried on chiefly by unsettled persons, who were detached, untrustworthy members of a community in which most men had fixed positions.[51] The Kandhs "consider it beneath their dignity to barter or traffic, and . . . . regard as base and plebeian all who are not either warriors or tillers of the soil."[52] The Javans "have a contempt for trade, and those of higher rank esteem it disgraceful to be engaged in it; but the common people are ever ready to engage in the labours of agriculture, and the chiefs to honour and encourage agricultural industry."[53]

[Footnote 39: Wilson and Felkin, op. cit. i. 186.]

[Footnote 40: Merker, Die Masai, p. 117.]

[Footnote 41: Holub, 'Die Ma-Atabele,' in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. xxv. 198.]

[Footnote 42: Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 43: Vámbéry, Travels in Central Asia, p. 320.]

[Footnote 44: Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, v. 150.]

[Footnote 45: Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 329.]

[Footnote 46: Travers, 'Life and Times of Te Rauparaha,' in Trans. New Zealand Inst. v. 29.]

[Footnote 47: Tutuila, 'Line Islanders,' in _Jour. Polynesian Soc._ i. 266.]

[Footnote 48: von Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels, i. 174.]

[Footnote 49: Supra, i. 636 sq.]

[Footnote 50: Supra, i. 634.]

[Footnote 51: Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 429.]

[Footnote 52: Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan, p. 50.]

[Footnote 53: Raffles, op. cit. i. 246 sq.]

Progress in civilisation implies an increase of industry. Both the necessities and the comforts of life grow more numerous; hence more labour is required to provide for them, and at the same time there is more inducement to accumulate wealth. The advantages, both private and public, accruing from diligence are more clearly recognised, and the government, in particular, is anxious that the people should work so as to be able to pay their taxes. All this leads to condemnation of idleness and approbation of industry; and the influence of habit must operate in the same direction among a nation whose industrial propensities have been the cause of its civilisation. But in the archaic State war is still regarded as a nobler occupation than labour; and whilst agriculture is held in honour, trade and handicraft are frequently despised.

In the kingdom of the Peruvian Incas there was a law that no one should be idle. "Children of five years old were employed at very light work, suitable to their age. Even the blind and lame, if they had no other infirmity, were provided with certain kinds of work. The rest of the people, while they were healthy, were occupied each at his own labour, and it was a most infamous and degrading {275} thing among these people to be chastised in public for idleness."[54] If any of them was slothful, or slept in the day, he was whipped or had to carry the stone.[55] The reason for these measures was that the whole duty of defraying the expenses of the government belonged to the people, and that, without money and with little property, they paid their taxes in labour; hence to be idle was, in a manner, to rob the exchequer.[56]

[Footnote 54: Blas Valera, quoted by Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, ii. 34. See also ibid. ii. 14; Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, ii. 413.]

[Footnote 55: Herrera, General History of the West Indies, iv. 339.]

[Footnote 56: Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, i. 57.]

One of the characteristics of Zoroastrianism is its appreciation of labour.[57] The faithful man must be vigilant, alert, and active; sleep itself is merely a concession to the demons, and should therefore be kept within the limits of necessity.[58] The lazy man is the most unworthy of men, because he eats his food through impropriety and injustice.[59] And of all kinds of labour the most necessary is husbandry.[60] Man has been placed upon earth to preserve Ahura Mazda's good creation, and this can only be done by careful tilling of the soil, eradication of thorns and weeds, and reclamation of the tracks over which Angra Mainyu has spread the curse of barrenness. Zoroaster asked, "What is the food that fills the Religion of Mazda?" and Ahura Mazda answered, "It is sowing corn again and again, O Spitama Zarathustra! He who sows corn sows righteousness."[61] According to Xenophon, the king of the Persians considered the art of agriculture and that of war to be the most honourable and necessary occupations, and paid the greatest attention to both.[62] He appointed officers to overlook the tillers of the ground, as well as to collect tribute from them; for "those who {276} cultivate the ground inefficiently will neither maintain the garrisons, nor be able to pay their tribute."[63]

[Footnote 57: See Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxvii.; Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Ir[=a]nians, i. 70; Rawlinson, Religions of the Ancient World, p. 108; Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, ii. 29, xxxvi. 15, xxxvii. 14, &c.]

[Footnote 58: Vendîdâd, xviii. 16.]

[Footnote 59: Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xxi. 27.]

[Footnote 60: See Vendîdâd, iii. 23 sqq.]

[Footnote 61: Ibid. iii. 30 sq.]

[Footnote 62: Xenophon, [OE]conomicus, iv. 4, 8 sqq.]

[Footnote 63: Xenophon, [OE]conomicus, iv. 9, 11.]

In his description of ancient Egypt Herodotus tells us that one of its kings made a law to the effect that every Egyptian should annually declare to the governor of his district by what means he maintained himself, and that, if he failed to do this, or did not show that he lived by honest means, he should be punished with death.[64] Whether this statement be correct or not,[65] it seems certain that the Egyptians were anxious to encourage industry.[66] An ostracon which has often been quoted contains the maxim, "Do not spare thy body whilst thou art young, for food cometh by the arms and provisions by the legs."[67]

[Footnote 64: Herodotus, ii. 177. Cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, i. 77. 5.]

[Footnote 65: Cf. Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, p. 605.]

[Footnote 66: See Amélineau, Essai sur l'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypte Ancienne, p. 329.]

[Footnote 67: Gardiner, 'Egyptian Ethics,' in Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, v. 484.]

A law against idleness resembling that which is reported to have existed in Egypt was established at Athens, according to some writers by Draco or Pisistratus,[68] according to others by Solon, who is said to have borrowed it from the Egyptians.[69] Plutarch states that, as the city was filled with persons who assembled from all parts on account of the great security which prevailed in Attica and the country withal was poor and barren, Solon turned the attention of the citizens to manufactures. For this purpose he ordered that trades should be accounted honourable, that the council of the Areopagus should examine into every man's means of subsisting and chastise the idle, and that no son should be obliged to maintain his father if the father had not taught him a trade.[70] Thucydides puts the following words in the mouth of Pericles:--"To avow poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes care of his own household;{277} and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics."[71] In Xenophon's 'Memorabilia' Socrates recommends industry as a means of supporting life, of maintaining the health and strength of the body, of promoting temperance and honesty.[72] According to Plato idleness is the mother of wantonness, whereas by labour the aliment of passion is diverted into other parts of the body.[73] Agriculture was highly praised. It is the best of all the occupations and arts by which men procure the means of living.[74] Where it flourishes all other pursuits are in full vigour, but when the ground is allowed to lie barren other occupations are almost stopped.[75] It is an exercise for the body, and strengthens it for discharging the duties that become a man of honourable birth.[76] It requires people to accustom themselves to endure the colds of winter and the heats of summer.[77] It renders them fit for running, throwing, leaping.[78] It gives them the greatest gratification for their labour, it is the most attractive of all employments.[79] It receives strangers with the richest hospitality.[80] It offers the most pleasing first-fruits to the gods, and the richest banquets on festival days.[81] It teaches men justice, for it is those who treat the earth best that she recompenses with the most numerous benefits.[82] It instructs people to assist one another, for it cannot be conducted without the aid of other men.[83] It does not give such constant occupation to a person's mind as to prevent him from attending to the interests of his friends or his native land.[84] The possession of an estate stimulates men to defend their country in arms.[85] In short, agriculture renders citizens most useful, most virtuous, and best affected towards the commonwealth.[86]

[Footnote 68: Pollux, Onomasticum, viii. 42. Diogenes Laertius, Vitæ philosophorum, i. 55. Plutarch, Solon, xxxi. 6.]

[Footnote 69: Herodotus, ii. 177. Diodorus Siculus, i. 77. 5.]

[Footnote 70: Plutarch, Solon, xxii. 1, 3 sq.]

[Footnote 71: Thucydides, Historia belli Peloponnesiaci, ii. 40. 1 sq.]

[Footnote 72: Xenophon, Memorabilia, ii. 7. 7 sq.]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Leges, viii. 835, 841.]

[Footnote 74: Xenophon, [OE]conomicus, vi. 8.]

[Footnote 75: Ibid. v. 17.]

[Footnote 76: Ibid. v. 1; vi. 9.]

[Footnote 77: Ibid. v. 4.]

[Footnote 78: Ibid. v. 8.]

[Footnote 79: Ibid. v. 8, 11.]

[Footnote 80: Ibid. v. 8.]

[Footnote 81: Ibid. v. 10.]

[Footnote 82: Ibid. v. 12.]

[Footnote 83: Ibid. v. 14.]

[Footnote 84: Ibid. vi. 9.]

[Footnote 85: Ibid. v. 7.]

[Footnote 86: Ibid. vi. 10.]

{278} The argumentative manner in which these views were expressed by the philosophers indicates, however, that industrial occupations were deficient in public appreciation.[87] Herodotus says that not only among most barbarians but also throughout Greece those who are given wholly to war are honoured above others.[88] This was especially the case at Sparta, where a freeman was forbidden to engage in any industrial occupation.[89] Contrasting Lycurgus' legislation with that of Solon, Plutarch observes that in a state where the earth was sufficient to support twice the number of inhabitants and where there were a multitude of Helots to be worn out by servitude, it was right to set the citizens free from laborious and mechanic arts and to employ them in arms as the only art fit for them to learn and exercise.[90] At Thebes there was a law that no man could hold office who had not retired from business for ten years, because it was looked upon as a mean employment.[91] Even at Athens, in spite of its democratic institutions and its laws against idleness, trade and handicrafts were despised, both by the general public and by the philosophers. Xenophon's Socrates said that the industrial arts are objectionable and justly held in little repute in communities, because they weaken the bodies of those who work at them by compelling them to sit and to live indoors and in some cases to pass whole days by the fire; for when the body becomes effeminate the mind loses its strength.[92] Moreover, mechanical occupations leave those who practise them no leisure to attend to the interests of their friends or the commonwealth, hence men of that class seem unsuited alike to be of advantage to their connections and to be defenders of their country.[93] Plato maintains that manual arts are a reproach because they "imply a natural weakness of the higher principle";[94] by {279} their meanness they maim and disfigure the souls as well as the bodies of those who are employed in them.[95] When Hesiod said that "work is no disgrace,"[96] he could certainly not have meant that there was no disgrace for example in the manufacture of shoes or in selling pickles.[97] And in his 'Laws' Plato lays down the regulation that no citizen or servant of a citizen should be occupied in handicraft arts; "for he who is to secure and preserve the public order of the State has an art which requires much study and many kinds of knowledge, and does not admit of being made a secondary occupation."[98] Aristotle, again, observes that in a community which has an aristocratic form of government the mechanic and the labourer will not be citizens, because honours are there given according to virtue and merit, and "no man can practise virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or labourer."[99] Corinth was the place in Greece where the mechanic's occupation was least despised[100]--no doubt because its situation naturally led to extensive trade and thence to that splendour of living by which the useful and ornamental arts are most encouraged.[101]

[Footnote 87: Cf. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 435 sqq.]

[Footnote 88: Herodotus, ii. 167.]

[Footnote 89: Ibid. ii. 167. Xenophon, Lacedæmoniorum respublica, vii. 2. Plutarch, Lycurgus, xxiv. 2. Idem, Agesilaus, xxvi. 6. Aelian, Varia historia, vi. 6.]

[Footnote 90: Plutarch, Solon, xxii. 2.]

[Footnote 91: Aristotle, Politica, iii. 5. 7, p. 1278 a; vi. 7. 4, p. 1321 a.]

[Footnote 92: Xenophon, [OE]conomicus, iv. 2.]

[Footnote 93: Ibid. iv. 3.]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Respublica, ix. 590.]

[Footnote 95: Ibid. vi. 495.]

[Footnote 96: Hesiod, Opera et dies, 311.]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Charmides, p. 163.]

[Footnote 98: Idem, Leges, viii. 846.]

[Footnote 99: Aristotle, Politica, iii. 5. 5, p. 1278 a. See also ibid. vi. 4. 12, p. 1319 a; vii. 8. 3, p. 1328 b; viii. 2. 4 sq. p. 1337 b.]

[Footnote 100: Herodotus, ii. 167.]

[Footnote 101: See Rawlinson's note in his translation of Herodotus, ii. 252, n. 7.]

The Roman views on the subject were very similar to those of the Greeks. With regard to what arts and means of acquiring wealth are to be regarded as worthy and what disreputable, says Cicero, we have been taught as follows. In the first place, those sources of emolument which incur public hatred, such as those of tax-gatherers and usurers, are condemned. We are likewise to account as mean the gains of hired workmen, whose source of profit is not their art but their labour; for their very wages are the consideration of their servitude. We are further to despise all who retail from merchants goods for prompt sale; for they never can succeed unless they lie most abominably, {280} and nothing is more disgraceful than insincerity. All mechanical labourers are by their profession mean; for a workshop can contain nothing befitting a gentleman. Least of all are those trades to be approved that serve the purposes of sensuality, such as the occupations of butchers, cooks, and fishermen. But those professions that involve a higher degree of intelligence or a greater amount of utility, such as medicine, architecture, and the teaching of the liberal arts, are honourable in those to whose rank in life they are suited. As to merchandising, if on a small scale it is mean, but if it is extensive and rich, if it brings numerous commodities from all parts of the world, and gives bread to a multitude of people without fraud, it is not so despicable. However, if a merchant, satisfied with his profits, steps from the harbour into an estate, such a man seems most justly deserving of praise. For of all gainful professions nothing is better, nothing is more pleasing and more delightful, nothing is more befitting a well-bred man than agriculture.[102]

[Footnote 102: Cicero, De officiis, i. 42. See also Idem, Cato Major, ch. 15 sqq.]

The contempt in which manual labour was held by the ancient pagans could hardly be shared by early Christianity. Christ had been born in a carpenter's family, his apostles belonged to the working class, and so did originally most of his followers. Origen accepts with pride the reproach of Celsus, when he accuses Christians of worshipping the son of a poor workwoman, who had earned her bread by spinning,[103] and contrasts with the wisdom of Plato that of Paul, the tent-maker, of Peter, the fisherman, of John, who had abandoned his father's nets.[104] St. Paul presses on the Thessalonians the duty of personal industry; "if any one would not work, neither should he eat."[105] But at the same time the spirit of Christianity was not consistent with much anxiety about earthly matters. The aim of a true disciple of Christ was not to prosper in the world but {281} to seek the kingdom of God, not to lay up for himself treasures upon earth but to lay up for himself treasures in heaven.[106] Poverty became an ideal, in conformity with both the example and teachings of Christ. It was associated with godliness, whilst wealth was associated with godlessness.[107] "The love of money," says St. Paul, "is the root of all evil";[108] and the same idea was over and again expressed by Christian moralists.[109] In the original sinless state of mankind property was unknown, and so was labour. It was to punish man for his disobedience that God caused him to eat daily bread in the sweat of his face.[110] Since then work is a necessity; but the contemplative life is better than the active life.[111] Bonaventura points out that Jesus preferred the meditating Mary to the busy Martha,[112] and that he himself seems to have done no work till his thirtieth year.[113] Work is of no value by itself; its highest object is to further contemplation, to macerate the body, to curb concupiscence.[114] For this purpose, indeed, it was strongly insisted upon by several founders of religious orders. According to St. Benedict, "idleness is an enemy to the soul; and hence at certain seasons the brethren ought to occupy themselves in the labour of their hands, and at others in holy reading."[115] St. Bernard writes:--"The handmaid of Christ ought always to pray, to read, to work, lest haply the spirit of uncleanness should lead astray the slothful mind. The delight of the flesh is overcome by labour. . . . The body tired by work is less delighted with vice."[116] But the active life must not be pursued to such an extent as to hinder what it is intended to promote; {282} for it is impossible for any man to be at once occupied with exterior actions and at the same time apply himself to divine contemplation.[117] And whilst he who has nothing else to live upon is bound to work, it is a sin to try to acquire riches beyond the limit which necessity has fixed.[118]

[Footnote 103: Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 28 sq. (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Graeca, xi. 714 sq.).]

[Footnote 104: Ibid. vi. 7 (Migne, Ser. Gr. xi. 1298 sq.).]

[Footnote 105: 1 Thessalonians, iv. 11; 2 <Thessalonians, iii. 10.]

[Footnote 106: St. Luke, xii. 22 sqq. St. Matthew, vi. 19 sq.]

[Footnote 107: St. Luke, xvi. 19 sqq. St. Matthew, xix. 24.]

[Footnote 108: 1 Timothy, vi. 10.]

[Footnote 109: von Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, p. 498 sqq. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 186. 3.]

[Footnote 110: Genesis, iii. 19.]

[Footnote 111: Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 182. 1 sq. von Eicken, op. cit. p. 488 sqq.]

[Footnote 112: Bonaventura, Meditationes vitæ Christi, ch. 45 (Opera, xii. 452).]

[Footnote 113: Ibid. ch. 15 (Opera, xii. 405).]

[Footnote 114: Guigo, Epistola ad Fratres de Monte-Dei, i. 8 (in St. Bernard, Opera omnia, ii. 214):--"Non spiritualia exercitia sunt propter corporalia, sed corporalia propter spiritualia." von Eicken, op. cit. p. 491 sqq.]

[Footnote 115: St. Benedict, Regula Monachorum, 48.]

[Footnote 116: St. Bernard, De modo bene vivendi, ch. 51 (Opera omnia, ii. 883 sq.).]

[Footnote 117: Speculum Monachorum, in St. Bernard, Opera omnia, ii. 818. von Eicken, op. cit. p. 494 sq. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 182. 3.]

[Footnote 118: Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 187. 3; 118. 1.]

This doctrine was more or less realised in the monastic life, but was hardly held applicable to laymen. The mediæval baron and knight resembled the Teutonic warrior described by Tacitus, who regarded it as "a dull and stupid thing to accumulate painfully by the sweat of the brow what might be won by a little blood."[119] In England, after the Conquest, the aristocracy in general lived a life of idleness but indulged eagerly in hunting, and its members continually sallied forth in parties to plunder.[120] For a long time the lower classes, constituting the mass of society, existed only for the benefit of the upper class. It was considered honourable to live in sloth supported by the exertions of others, it was held degrading to depend on the gains of industry. The degradation really attached to the gains of labour rather than labour itself; for labour ceased to be degrading if not prosecuted for gain. "Louis XVI. may make locks, the ladies of his court may make butter and cheese, provided it is only for amusement. Lord Rosse may build a telescope as an amateur in the interest of science, and still be noble. But if the locks, the butter, or the telescope are sold, the makers are degraded to the level of the tradesman."[121] However, as Mr. Spencer observes, trade, while at first relatively unessential (since essential things were mostly made at home) and consequently lacking the sanction of necessity and of ancestral custom, ceased to be despised when it grew in importance.[122] Among ourselves the respect in which a certain occupation is held is {283} largely determined by the degree of mental power implied in it; hence manual labour, and especially unskilled labour, is still in some degree looked down upon. But we do not regard as dishonourable any kind of work which is not opposed to the ordinary rules of morality. We distinguish more clearly than the ancients did between social and moral inferiority. Our moral judgments are less influenced by class antipathies. We recognise that a high standard of duty is compatible even with the humblest station in life. And when we duly reflect upon the matter, we admit that the moral value of industry depends, not on the occupation in which it is displayed, but on the purpose of the labourer.

[Footnote 119: Tacitus, Germania, 14.]

[Footnote 120: Wright, _Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages_, p. 102.]

[Footnote 121: Harris, 'The Christian Doctrine of Labor,' in New Englander, xxiv. 245.]

[Footnote 122: Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 429.]

* * * * *

But though industry is applauded or insisted on, rest is also in certain circumstances regarded as a duty. By doing too much work a person may injure himself and indirectly other persons as well. In early society there is little inducement to overwork, but the case is very different in modern civilisation. This accounts for the persistence and general popularity of an institution which originally sprang from quite different sources, namely, the Sunday rest.

Among various peoples it is the custom to abstain from work, or from some special kind of work, on certain occasions or days which are regarded as defiling or inauspicious. Work is often suspended after a death, partly perhaps because inactivity is a natural accompaniment of sorrow,[123] or because a mourner is supposed to be in a delicate state requiring rest,[124] but chiefly, I presume, from fear lest the work done should be contaminated by the pollution of death. Among the Arabs of Morocco no work must be performed in the village till the dead is buried. In Greenland everyone who had lived in the same house with the deceased was obliged to be idle for a certain period, according to the directions of the priests or wizards.[125] Among the Eskimo of Behring Strait none of the relatives of the dead must do any work during the time in which the shade is {284} believed to remain with the body, that is, for four or five days.[126] Among the Seminole Indians of Florida the relatives remained at home and refrained from work during the day of the burial and for three days thereafter, when the dead was supposed to stay in his grave.[127] The Kar Nicobarese abstain from work as a sign of mourning.[128] In Samoa all labour was suspended in the settlement on the death of a chief.[129] So also the Basutos do no work on the day when an influential person dies. They, moreover, refrain from going to their fields, or hasten to leave them, at the approach of clouds which give promise of rain, "in order quietly to await the desired benediction, fearing to disturb Nature in her operations. This idea is carried to such an extent, that most of the natives believe that, if they obstinately persist in their labour at such a moment, the clouds are irritated and retire, or send hail instead of rain. Days of sacrifice, or great purification, are also holidays. Hence it is that the law relative to the repose of the seventh day, so far from finding any objection in the minds of the natives, appears to them very natural, and perhaps even more fundamental, than it seems to certain Christians."[130]

[Footnote 123: Cf. infra, p. 308.]

[Footnote 124: Cf. infra, p. 307.]

[Footnote 125: Egede, Description of Greenland, p. 149 sq.]

[Footnote 126: Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 319.]

[Footnote 127: Maccauley, 'Seminole Indians of Florida,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ v. 52.]

[Footnote 128: Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 305.]

[Footnote 129: Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 229. Idem, Samoa, p. 146.]

[Footnote 130: Casalis, Basutos, p. 260 sq.]

Changes in the moon are frequently considered unfavourable for work. Among the Bechuanas, "when the new moon appears, all must cease from work, and keep what is called in England a holiday."[131] The people of Thermia, in the Cyclades, maintain that all work, so far as possible, should be suspended on the days immediately preceding the full moon.[132] In the Vishnu Purana it is said that one who attends to secular affairs on the days of the full or new moon goes to the Rudhirándha hell, whose wells are blood.[133] In Northern India it is considered bad to undertake any business of importance at the new moon {285} or at an eclipse.[134] According to the 'Laws of Manu,' a Brâhmana is not allowed to study "on the new-moon day, nor on the fourteenth and the eighth days of each half-month, nor on the full-moon day." It is said that "the new-moon day destroys the teacher, the fourteenth day the pupil, the eighth and the full-moon days destroy all remembrance of the Veda; let him therefore avoid reading on those days."[135] The Buddhists have their Sabbath, or Uposatha, which occurs four times in the month, namely, on the day of full moon, on the day when there is no moon, and on the two days which are eighth from the full and new moon. On these days selling and buying, work and business, hunting and fishing, are forbidden, and all schools and law-courts are closed.[136] In Ashantee and neighbouring districts, where the people reckon time by moons, there is a weekly "fetish-day" or sabbath, which seems to be of native origin. "In all the countries along the coast, the regular fetish-day is Tuesday, the day which is observed by the king of Ashantee. Other days in the week are held sacred in the bush. On this weekly sabbath, or fetish-day, the people generally dress themselves in white garments, and mark their faces, and sometimes their arms, with white clay. They also rest from labour. The fishermen would expect, that were they to go out on that day, the fetish would be angry, and spoil their fishing."[137] The natives of Coomassie, on the Gold Coast, have a law according to which no agricultural work may be done on a Thursday.[138] In Hawaii, where each month contained thirty nights and the different days and nights derived their names from the varying aspects of the moon according to her age, there were during every month four periods lasting from two to four nights in which the nights were consecrated or made taboo. So also there were tabooed seasons on certain other {286} occasions, as when a high chief was ill, or preparations were made for war, or on the approach of important religious ceremonies. These taboos were either "common" or "strict." In the case of the former men were only required to abstain from their common pursuits and to attend prayers morning and evening, whereas when the season of strict taboo was in force a general gloom and silence pervaded the whole district or island. "Not a fire or light was to be seen, or canoe launched; none bathed; the mouths of dogs were tied up, and fowls put under calabashes, or their heads enveloped in cloth; for no noise of man or animal must be heard. No persons, excepting those who officiated at the temple, were allowed to leave the shelter of their roofs. Were but one of these rules broken, the taboo would fail and the gods be displeased."[139]

[Footnote 131: Campbell, Second Journey in the Interior of South Africa, ii. 205.]

[Footnote 132: Bent, Cyclades, p. 438.]

[Footnote 133: Vish['n]u Purá['n]a, p. 209.]

[Footnote 134: Crooke, Popular Religion of Northern India, i. 23.]

[Footnote 135: Laws of Manu, iv. 113 sq.]

[Footnote 136: Childers, Dictionary of the Pali Language, p. 535. Kern, Der Buddhismus, ii. 258.]

[Footnote 137: Beecham, Ashantee, p. 185 sq. Cf. Bosman, op. cit. p. 131 (Gold Coast natives).]

[Footnote 138: Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 304.]

[Footnote 139: Jarves, History of the Hawaiian Islands, pp. 40, 28. The word tapua'i means "to abstain from all work, games, &c." (Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Dictionary, p. 472).]

The peoples of Semitic stock or with Semitic culture also have their tabooed days. In Morocco work, or certain kinds of work, are avoided on holy days or in holy periods, as being unsuccessful or, in some cases, even dangerous to him who performs it; there is a saying that "work at a feast are like the stab of a dagger." Nobody likes to start on a journey on a Friday before the midday prayer has been said, and it is considered bad to commence any work on that day.[140] I was also told that clothes will not remain clean if they are washed on a Saturday. Among the modern Egyptians Saturday is held to be the most unfortunate of days, and particularly unfavourable for shaving, cutting the nails, and starting on a journey.[141] At Kheybar, in Arabia, again, Sunday is considered an unlucky day for beginning any kind of work.[142] There can be little doubt that the Jewish Sabbath originated in the belief that it was inauspicious or dangerous to work on the seventh day, and that the reason for this belief was the mystic connection which in {287} the opinion of the ancient Hebrews, as of so many other peoples, existed between human activity and the changes in the moon.[143] It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the Sabbath originally depended upon the new moon, and this carries with it the assumption that the Hebrews must at one time have observed a Sabbath at intervals of seven days corresponding with the moon's phases.[144] In the Old Testament the new moon and Sabbath are repeatedly mentioned side by side;[145] thus the oppressors of the poor are represented as saying, "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?"[146] Among modern Jews, at the feast of the New Moon, which is held every month on the first or on the first and second days of the month, the women are obliged to suspend all servile work, though the men are not required to interrupt their secular employments.[147] That the superstitious fear of doing work on the seventh day developed into a religious prohibition, is only another instance of a tendency which we have noticed often before--the tendency of magic forces to be transformed into divine volitions.[148] Like the ancient Hebrews, the Assyrians and Babylonians looked upon the seventh day as an "evil day"; and though they do not seem generally to have abstained from work on that day, there were various royal taboos connected with it. The {288} King was not to show himself in his chariot, not to hold court, not to bring sacrifices, not to change his clothes, not to eat a good dinner, and not even to curse his enemies.[149]

[Footnote 140: See Westermarck, _The Moorish Conception of Holiness (Baraka)_, p. 140 sqq.]

[Footnote 141: Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 272.]

[Footnote 142: Doughty, Arabia Deserta, ii. 197 sq.]

[Footnote 143: See Jastrow, 'Original Character of the Hebrew Sabbath,' in American Journal of Theology, ii. 321 sqq.]

[Footnote 144: Wellhausen, _Prolegomena to the History of Israel_, p. 112 sqq. Jastrow, loc. cit. pp. 314, 327.]

[Footnote 145: 2 Kings, iv. 23. Isaiah, i. 13. Hosea, ii. 11.]

[Footnote 146: Amos, viii. 5.]

[Footnote 147: Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 390 sq.]

[Footnote 148: Prof. Jastrow seems to have failed to see this when he says (loc. cit. p. 323) that "if the Sabbath was originally an 'unfavourable' day on which one must avoid showing one's self before Yahwe, it would naturally be regarded as dangerous to provoke his anger by endeavouring to secure on that day personal benefits through the usual forms of activity." Wellhausen, again, suggests (op. cit. p. 114) that the rest on the Sabbath was originally the consequence of that day being the festal and sacrificial day of the week, and only gradually became its essential attribute on account of the regularity with which it every eighth day interrupted the round of everyday work. He argues that the Sabbath as a day of rest cannot be very primitive, because such a day "presupposes agriculture and a tolerably hard-pressed working-day life." But this argument appears very futile when we consider how commonly changes in the moon are believed to exercise an unfavourable influence upon work of any kind. See infra, Additional Notes.]

[Footnote 149: Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 592 sq. Hirschfeld, 'Remarks on the Etymology of [vS]abb[)a]th,' in Jour. Roy. Asiatic Soc. 1896, p. 358. Jastrow, loc. cit. pp. 320, 328.]

The Jewish Sabbath was abolished by Christ. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath";[150] "My father worketh [on it] hitherto, and I work."[151] Jewish converts no doubt continued to observe the Sabbath, but this met with disapproval. In one of the Epistles of Ignatius we find the exhortation not to "sabbatise," which was expanded by the subsequent paraphraser of these compositions into a warning against keeping the Sabbath, after the manner of the Jews, "as if delighting in idleness."[152] And in the fourth century a Council of the Church enacted "that the Christians ought not to judaise, and rest on the Sabbath, but ought to work on that day."[153] On the other hand, it was from early times a recognised custom among the Christians to celebrate the first day of the week in memory of Christ's resurrection, by holding a form of religious service; but there was no sabbatic regard for it, and it was chiefly looked upon as a day of rejoicing.[154] Tertullian is the first writer who speaks of abstinence from secular care and labour on Sunday as a duty incumbent upon Christians, lest they should "give place to the devil."[155] But it is extremely doubtful whether the earliest Sunday law really had a Christian origin. In 321 the Emperor Constantine issued an edict to the effect that all judges and all city people and tradesmen should rest on "the venerable Day of the Sun," whereas those living in the country should have full liberty to attend to the culture of their fields, "since it frequently happens {289} that no other day is so fit for the sowing of grain or the planting of vines."[156] In this rescript nothing is said of any relation to Christianity, nor do we know that it in any way was due to Christian influence.[157] It seems that Constantine, in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, only added the day of the sun--whose worship was the characteristic of the new paganism--to those inauspicious days, religiosi dies, which the Romans of old regarded as unsuitable for worldly business and especially for judicial proceedings.[158] But though the obligatory Sunday rest in no case was a continuance of the Jewish Sabbath, it gradually was confounded with it, owing to the recognition of the decalogue, with its injunction of a weekly day of rest, as the code of divine morality. From the sixth century upwards vexatious restrictions were made by civil rulers, councils, and ecclesiastical writers;[159] until in Puritanism the Christian Sunday became a perfect image of the pharisaic Sabbath, or even excelled it in the rigour with which abstinence from every kind of worldly activity was insisted upon. The theory that the keeping holy of one day out of seven is the essence of the Fourth Commandment reconciled people to the fact that the Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day and Sunday the first. In England, in the seventeenth century, persons were punished for carrying coal on Sunday, for hanging out clothes to dry, for travelling on horseback, for rural strolls and walking about.[160] And Scotch clergymen taught their congregations that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in distress, and that it was proof of religion to leave ship and crew to perish.[161]

[Footnote 150: St. Mark, ii. 27.]

[Footnote 151: St. John, v. 17.]

[Footnote 152: Ignatius, Epistola ad Magnesios, 9 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, v. 768). Neale, Feasts and Fasts, p. 89.]

[Footnote 153: Concilium Laodicenum, can. 29 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio, ii. 580).]

[Footnote 154: Justin Martyr, Apologia I. pro Christianis, 67 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, vi. 429). Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 'Ante-Nicene Christianity,' p. 202 sqq. Hessey, Sunday, p. 29 sqq.]

[Footnote 155: Tertullian, De oratione, 23 (Migne, op. cit. i. 1191).]

[Footnote 156: Codex Justinianus, iii. 12. 2 (3).]

[Footnote 157: Cf. Lewis, Critical History of Sunday Legislation, p. 18 sqq.; Milman, History of Christianity, ii. 291 sq.]

[Footnote 158: Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, iv. 9. 5; vi. 9. 10. Varro, De lingua Latina, vi. 30. Neale, op. cit. pp. 5, 6, 86, 87, 206. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, p. 8 sq. The Greeks, also, had "unblest and inauspicious" days, when no court or assembly was to be held, and work was to be abstained from (Plato, Leges, vii. 800; Karsten, Studies in Primitive Greek Religion, p. 90).]

[Footnote 159: Hessey, op. cit. p. 87 sqq.]

[Footnote 160: Roberts, _Social History of the People of the Southern Counties of England_, p. 244 sqq.]

[Footnote 161: Buckle, History of Civilization in England, iii. 76.]