Chapter 32
Part 32
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.]
CHAPTER 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.