is afraid to refuse a challenge may generally be a man of elevated mind. He may be such; but his refusal is an exception to his general character. It is an instance in which he impeaches his consistency in excellence. If it were consistent, if the whole mind had attained to the rightful stature of a Christian man, he would assuredly contemn in his practice the conduct which he disapproved in his heart. If you would show us a man of courage, bring forward him who will say, I will not fight. Suppose a gentleman who, upon the principles which Gifford says should have actuated Pitt and all great minds, had thus refused to fight, and suppose him saying to his withdrawing friends-"I have acted with perfect deliberation: I knew all the consequences of the course I have pursued: but I was persuaded that I should act most like a man of intellect, as well as like a Christian, by declining the meeting; and therefore I declined it. I feel and deplore the consequences, though I do not deprecate them. I am not fearful, as I have not been fearful; for I appeal to yourselves whether I have not encountered the more appalling alternativewhether it does not require a greater effort to do what I have done, and what I am at this moment doing, than to have met my opponent."-Such a man's magnanimity might not procure for him the companionship of his acquaintance, but it would do much more; it would obtain the suffrages of their judgments and their hearts. Whilst they continued perhaps externally to neglect him, they would internally honour and admire. They would feel that his excellence was of an order to which they could make no pretensions; and they would feel, as they were practising this strange hypocrisy of vice, that they were the proper objects of contempt and pity.

The species of slavery to which a man is sometimes reduced by being, as he calls it, "obliged to fight," is really pitiable. A British officer writes of a petulant and profligate class of men, one of whom is sometimes found in a regiment, and says, "Sensible that an officer must accept a challenge, he does not hesitate to deal them in abundance, and shortly acquires the name of a fighting man; but as every one is not willing to throw away his life when called upon by one who is indifferent to his own, many become condescending, which this man immediately construes into fear; and, presuming upon this, he acts as if he imagined no one dare contradict him but all must yield obedience to his will." Here the servile bondage of which we speak is brought prominently out. Here is the crouching and unmanly fear. Here is the abject submission of sense and reason to the grossest vulgarity of insolence, folly, and guilt. The officer presently gives an account of an instance in which the whole mess were domineered over by one of these fighting men;—and a pitiably ludicrous account it is. The man had invited them to dinner at some distance. "On the day appointed, there came on a most violent snow storm, and in the morning we dispatched a servant with an apology." But alas! these poor men could not use their own judgments as to whether they should ride in a "most violent snow storm or not. The man sent back some rude message that he " expected them." They were afraid of what the fighting man would do next morning; and so the whole mess, against their wills, actually rode "near four miles in a heavy snow storm, and passed a day," says the officer, "that was, without exception, the most unpleasant I ever passed in my life !"* In the instance of these men, the motives to duelling as founded upon Fear,

Lieut. Auburey: Travels in North America.

operated so powerfully that the officers were absolutely enslaved-driven against their wills by Fear, as negroes are by a cart-whip.

We are shocked and disgusted at the immolation of women amongst the Hindoos, and think that, if such a sacrifice were attempted in England, it would excite feelings of the utmost repulsion and abhorrence. Of the custom of immolation, Duelling is the sister. Their parents are the same, and, like other sisters, their lineaments are similar. Why does a Hindoo mount the funeral pile? To vindicate and maintain her honour. Why does an Englishman go to the heath with his pistols? To vindicate and maintain his honour. What is the nature and character of the Hindoo's honour? Quite factitious. Of the duellist's? Quite factitious. How is the motive applied to the Hindoo? To her fears of reproach. To the duellist? To his fears of reproach. What then is the difference between the two customs? This That one is practised in the midst of pagan darkness, and the other in the midst of Christian light. And yet these very men give their guineas to the Missionary Society, lament the degradation of the Hindoos, and expatiate upon the sacred duty of enlightening them with Christianity! "Physician heal thyself."

One consideration connected with duelling is of unusual interest. "In the judgment of that religion which requires purity of heart, and of that Being to whom thought is action, he cannot be esteemed innocent of this crime, who lives in a settled, habitual, determination to commit it, when circumstances shall call upon him so to do. This is a consideration which places the crime of duelling on a different footing from almost any other; indeed there is perhaps NO other, which mankind habitually and deliberately resolve to practise whenever the temptation shall occur. It shows also that the crime of duelling is far more general in the higher classes than is commonly supposed, and that the whole sum of the guilt which the practice produces, is great beyond what has perhaps been ever conceived."

"It is the intention," says Seneca, "and not the effect which makes the wickedness:" and that Greater than Seneca who laid the axe to the root of our vices, who laid upon the mental disposition that guilt which had been laid upon the act, may be expected to regard this habitual willingness and intention to violate his laws, as an actual and great offence. The felon who plans and resolves to break into a house, is not the less a felon because a watchman happens to prevent him; nor is the offence of him who happens never to be challenged, necessarily at all less than that of him who takes the life of his friend.

CHAPTER XVI.

SUICIDE.

Unmanliness of Suicide-Forlidden in the Now TestamentIts folly--Legislation respecting suicide-Verdict of Felo de se.

THERE are few subjects upon which it is more difficult either to write or to legislate with effect, than that of Suicide. It is difficult to a writer, because a man does not resolve upon the act until he has first become steeled to some of the most powerful motives that can be urged upon the human mind; and to the legislator, because he can inflict no penalty upon the offending party.

• Wilberforce: Practical Viow, c. 4. s 3.

It is to be feared that there is little probability of diminishing the frequency of this miserable offence by urging the considerations which philosophy suggests. The voice of nature is louder and stronger than the voice of philosophy; and as nature speaks to the suicide in vain, what is the hope that philosophy will be regarded?-There appears to be but one efficient means by which the mind can be armed❘ against the temptations to suicide, because there is but one that can support it against every evil of life -practical religion-belief in the providence of God-confidence in his wisdom-hope in his good

ness.

The only anchor that can hold us in safety, is that which is fixed "within the vail." He upon whom religion possesses its proper influence, finds that it enables him to endure, with resigned patience, every calamity of life. When patience thus fulfils its perfect work, suicide, which is the result of impatience, cannot be committed. He who is surrounded, by whatever means, with pain or misery, should remember that the present existence is strictly probationary-a scene upon which we are to be exercised, and tried, and tempted; and in which we are to manifest whether we are willing firmly to endure. The good or evil of the present life is of importance chiefly as it influences our allotment in futurity: sufferings are permitted for our advantage: they are designed to purify and rectify the heart. The universal Father "scourgeth every son whom he receiveth;" and the suffering, the scourging, is of little account in comparison with the prospects of another world. It is not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall follow-that glory of which an exceeding and eternal weight is the reward of a patient continuance in well doing." To him who thus regards misery, not as an evil but as a good; not as the unrestrained assault of chance or malice, but as the beneficent discipline of a Father; to him who remembers that the time is approaching in which he will be able most feelingly to say, "For all I bless Thee-most for the severe,"-every affliction is accompanied with its proper alleviation: the present hour may distress but it does not overwhelm him; he may be perplexed but is not in despair: he sees the darkness and feels the storm, but he knows that light will again arise, and that the storm will eventually be hushed with an efficacious, Peace be still; so that there shall be a a great calm.

Compared with these motives to avoid the first promptings to suicide, others are likely to be of little effect; and yet they are neither inconsiderable nor few. It is more dignified, more worthy an enlightened and manly understanding, to meet and endure an inevitable evil than to sink beneath it. The case

of him who feels prompted to suicide, is something like that of the duellist as it was illustrated in the preceding chapter. Each sacrifices his life to his fears. The suicide balances between opposing objects of dread, (for dreadful self. destruction must be supposed to be,) and chooses the alternative which he fears least. If his courage, his firmness, his manliness, were greater, he who chooses the alternative of suicide, like him who chooses the duel, would endure the evil rather than avoid it in a manner which dignity and religion forbid. The lesson too which the self-destroyer teaches to his connexions, of sinking in despair under the evils of life, is one of the most pernicious which a man can bequeath. The power of the example is also great. Every act of suicide tacitly conveys the sanction of one more judgment in its favour: frequency of repetition diminishes the sensation of abhorrence, and makes succeeding sufferers resort to it with less reluctance. "Besides which general reasons, each case will be aggravated by its own proper and particular conse

quences; by the duties that are deserted; by the claims that are defrauded; by the loss, affliction, or disgrace which our death, or the manner of it, causes our family, kindred, or friends; by the occasion we give to many to suspect the sincerity of our moral religious professions, and, together with ours, those of all others;"* and lastly, by the scandal which we bring upon religion itself by declaring, practically, that it is not able to support man under the calamities of life.

Some men say that the New Testament contains no prohibition of suicide. If this were true, it would avail nothing, because there are many things which it does not forbid, but which every one knows to be wicked. But in reality it does forbid it. Every exhortation which it gives to be patient, every encouragement to trust in God, every consideration which it urges as a support under affliction and distress, is a virtual prohibition of suicide ;-because, if a man commits suicide, he rejects every such advice and encouragement, and disregards every such motive.

To him who believes either in revealed or natural religion, there is a certain folly in the commission of suicide; for from what does he fly? From his present sufferings; whilst death, for aught that he has reason to expect, or at any rate for aught that he knows, may only be the portal to sufferings more intense. Natural religion, I think, gives no countenance to the supposition that suicide can be approved by the Deity, because it proceeds upon the belief that, in another state of existence, he will compensate good men for the sufferings of the present. best, and under either religion, it is a desperate stake. He that commits murder may repent, and we hope, be forgiven; but he that destroys himself, whilst he incurs a load of guilt, cuts off, by the act, the power of repentance.

At the

Not every act of suicide is to be attributed to excess of misery. Some shoot themselves or throw themselves into a river in rage or revenge, in order to inflict pain and remorse upon those who have ill used them. Such, it is to be suspected, is sometimes a motive to self-destruction in disappointed love. The unhappy person leaves behind some message or letter, in the hope of exciting that affection and commiseration by the catastrophe, which he could not excite when alive. Perhaps such persons hope, too, that the world will sigh over their early fate, tell of the fidelity of their loves, and throw a romantic melancholy over their story. This needs not to be a subject of wonder: unnumbered multitudes have embraced death in other forms from kindred motives. We hear continually of those who die for the sake of glory. This is but another phantom, and the less amiable phantom of the two. It is just as reasonable to die in order that the world may admire our true love, as in order that it may admire our bravery. And the lover's hope is the better founded. There are too many aspirants for glory for each to get even his " peppercorn of praise." But the lover may hope for higher honours; a paragraph may record his fate through the existence of a weekly paper; he may be talked of through half a county; and some kindred spirit may inscribe a tributary sonnet in a lady's album.

To legislate efficiently upon the crime of suicide is difficult, if it is not impossible. As the legislator cannot inflict a penalty upon the offender, the act must pass with impunity unless the penalty is made to fall upon the innocent. I say the penalty; for

Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 4. c. 3.

such it would actually be, whatever were the provision of the law-whether, for instance, confiscation of property, or indignity to the remains of the dead. One would make a family poor, and the other perhaps unhappy. It does not appear just or reasonable that these should suffer for an offence which they could not prevent, and by which they, above all others, are already injured and distressed.

One thing appears to be clear, that it is vain for a Legislature to attempt any interference of which the people do not approve. This is evident from the experience in our own country, where coroner's juries prefer perjuring themselves to pronouncing a verdict of felo de se, by which the remains would be subjected to barbarous indignities. Coroners' inquests seem to proceed rather upon the pre-supposition that he who destroys himself is insane, than upon the evidence which is brought before them; and thus, whilst the law is evaded, perjury it is to be feared is very frequent. That the public mind disapproves the existing law is a good reason for altering it but it is not a good reason why coroners' juries should violate their oaths, and give encouragement to the suicide by telling him, that disgrace will be warded off from his memory and from his family by a generous verdict of insanity. It has been said that it is a common thing for a suicide's friends to fee the coroner in order to induce him to prevent a verdict of felo de se. If this be true, it is indeed time that the arm of the law should be vigorously extended. What punishment is due to the man who accepts a purse as a reward for inducing twelve persons to commit perjury? It is probable too, that half-a-dozen just verdicts, by which the law was allowed to take its course, would occasion the abolition of the disgusting statute; for the public would not bear that it should be acted upon.

The great object is to associate with the act of suicide ideas of guilt and horror in the public mind. This association would be likely to preclude, in individuals, that first complacent contemplation of the act which probably precedes, by a long interval, the act itself. The anxiety which the surviving friends manifest for a verdict of "insanity," is a proof how great is the power of imagination, and how much they are in dread of public opinion. They are anxious that the disgrace and reproach of conscious self-murder should not cling to their family. This is precisely that anxiety of which the legislator should avail himself, by enactments that would require satisfactory proof of insanity, and which, in default of such proof, would leave to its full force the stigma and the pain, and excite a sense of horror of the act, and a perception of its wickedness in the public mind. The point for the exercise of legislative wisdom is, to devise such an ultimate procedure as shall call forth these feelings, but as shall not become nugatory by being more dreadful than the public will endure. What that procedure should be, I pretend not to describe; but it may be observed that the simple circumstance of pronouncing a public verdict of conscious self-murder, would, amongst a people of good feelings, go far towards the production of the desired effect.-As the law now exists, and as it is now violated, the tendency is exactly the contrary of what it ought to be. By the almost universal custom which it generates, of declaring suicides to have been insane, it effectually diminishes that pain to individuals, and that horror in the public, which the crime itself would naturally occasion.

This statute has been repealed; and the law now simply requires, when a verdict of felo de se is returned, that the body shall be interred privately, at night, and without the funeral service. Ed.

CHAPTER XVII.

RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE.

These rights not absolute-Their limits-Personal attack Preservation of property-Much resistance lawful-Effects of forbearance-Sharpe Barclay-Ellwood.

THE right of defending ourselves against violence is easily deducible from the Law of Nature. There is however little need to deduce it, because mankind are at least sufficiently persuaded of its lawfulness. The great question, which the opinions and principles that now influence the world makes it needful to discuss is, Whether the right of self-defence is absolute and unconditional-Whether every action whatever is lawful, provided it is necessary to the preservation of life? They who maintain the affirmative, maintain a great deal; for they maintain that whenever life is endangered, all rules of morality are, as it respects the individual, suspended, annihilated every moral obligation is taken away by the single fact that life is threatened.

"If our

Yet the language that is ordinarily held upon the subject implies the supposition of all this. lives are threatened with assassination or open violence from the hands of robbers or enemies, any means of defence would be allowed, and laudable."* Again, "There is one case in which all extremities are justifiable, namely, when our life is assaulted, and assailant."+ it becomes necessary for our preservation to kill the

The reader may the more willingly enquire whether these propositions are true, because most of those who lay them down are at little pains to prove their truth. Men are extremely willing to acquiesce in it without proof, and writers and speakers think it unnecessary to adduce it. Thus perhaps it happens that fallacy is not detected because it is not sought. If the reader should think that some of

the instances which follow are remote from the ordinary affairs of life, he is requested to remember that we are discussing the soundness of an alleged absolute rule. If it be found that there are or have been cases in which it is not absolute-cases in which all extremities are not lawful in defence of lifethen the rule is not sound: then there are some limits to the Right of Self-Defence.

If he may,

If " any means of defence are laudable," if "all extremities are justifiable," then they are not confined to acts of resistance to the assailing party. There may be other conditions upon which life may be preserved than that of violence towards him. Some ruffians seize a man in the highway, and will kill him unless he will conduct them to his neighbour's property and assist them in carrying it off. May this man unite with them in the robbery in order to save his life, or may he not? what becomes of the law, Thou shalt not steal? If he may not, then not every means by which a man may preserve his life is "laudable" or allowed." We have found an exception to the rule. There are twenty other wicked things which violent men may make the sole condition of not taking our lives. Do all wicked things become lawful because life is at stake? If they do, Morality is surely at an end: if they do not, such propositions as those of Grotius and Paley are untrue.

A pagan has unalterably resolved to offer me up in sacrifice on the morrow, unless I will acknowledge the deity of his gods and worship them. I shall presume that the Christian will regard these acts as being, under every possible circumstance, unlawful. The night offers me an opportunity of assassinating

• Grotius: Rights o War and Peace. Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. p 3, b. iv. c. 1.

him. Now I am placed, so far as the argument is concerned, in precisely the same situation with respect to this man, as a traveller is with respect to a ruffian with a pistol. Life in both cases depends on killing the offender. Both are acts of self-defence. Am I at liberty to assassinate this man?

The heart

of the Christian surely answers, No. Here then is a case in which I may not take a violent man's life in order to save my own.-We have said that the heart of the Christian answers, No: and this we think is a just species of appeal. But if any one doubts whether the assassination would be unlawful, let him consider whether one of the Christian apostles would have committed it in such a case. Here, at any rate, the heart of every man answers, No. And mark the reason-because every man perceives that the act would have been palpably inconsistent with apostolic character and conduct; or, which is the same thing, with a Christian character and conduct.

Or put such a case in a somewhat different form. A furious Turk holds a scimitar over my head, and declares he will instantly dispatch me unless I abjure Christianity and acknowledge the divine legation of "the Prophet." Now there are two supposable ways in which I may save my life; one by contriving to stab the Turk, and one "by denying Christ before men." You say I am not at liberty to deny Christ, but I am at liberty to stab the man. Why am I not at liberty to deny Him? Because Christianity forbids it. Then we require you to show that Christianity does not forbid you to take his life. Our religion pronounces both actions to be wrong. You say that, under these circumstances, the killing is right. Where is your proof? What is the ground of your distinction ?-But, whether it can be adduced or not, our immediate argument is established-That there are some things which it is not lawful to do in order to preserve our lives. This conclusion has indeed been practically acted upon. A company of inquisitors and their agents are about to conduct a good man to the stake. If he could by any means destroy these men, he might save his life. It is a question therefore of self defence. Supposing these means to be within his power-supposing he could contrive a mine, and by suddenly firing it, blow his persecutors into the air-would it be lawful and Christian thus to act? No. The common judgments of mankind respecting the right temper and conduct of the martyr, pronounce it to be wrong. It is pronounced to be wrong by the language and example of the first teachers of Christianity. The conclusion therefore again is, that all extremities are not allow. able in order to preserve life;—that there is a limit to the right of self-defence.

It would be to no purpose to say that in some of the instances which have been proposed, religious duties interfere with and limit the rights of selfdefence. This is a common fallacy. Religious duties and moral duties are identical in point of obligation, for they are imposed by one authority. Religious duties are not obligatory for any other reason than that which attaches to moral duties also; namely, the Will of God. He who violates the Moral Law is as truly unfaithful in his allegiance to God, as he who denies Christ before men.

So that we come at last to one single and simple question, whether taking the life of a person who threatens ours, is or is not compatible with the Moral Law. We refer for an answer to the broad principles of Christian piety and Christian benevolence; that piety which reposes habitual confidence in the Divine Providence, and an habitual preference of futurity to the present time; and that benevolence which not only loves our neighbours as ourselves, but feels that the Samaritan or the enemy is a neighbour. There is no

conjecture in life in which the exercise of his benevolence may be suspended; none in which we are not required to maintain and to practise it. Whether Want implores our compassion, or Ingratitude returns ills for our kindness; whether a fellow creature is drowning in a river or assailing us on the highway; every where, and under all circumstances, the duty remains.

Is killing an assailant, then, within or without the limits of this Benevolence?-As to the man, it is evident that no good-will is exercised towards him by shooting him through the head. Who indeed will dispute that, before we can thus destroy him, benevolence towards him must be excluded from our minds? We not only exercise no benevolence ourselves, but preclude him from receiving it from any human heart; and, which is a serious item in the account, we cut him off from all possibility of reformation. To call sinners to repentance, was one of the great characteristics of the mission of Christ. Does it appear consistent with this characteristic for one of His followers to take away from a sinner the power of repentance? Is it an act that accords, and is congruous, with Christian love?

But an argument has been attempted here. That we may "kill the assailant is evident in a state of nature, unless it can be shown that we are bound to prefer the aggressor's life to our own; that is to say, to love our enemy better than ourselves, which can never be a debt of justice, nor any where appears to be a duty of charity."* The answer is this: That although we may not be required to love our enemy better than ourselves, we are required to love him as ourselves; and therefore, in the supposed case, it would still be a question equally balanced which life ought to be sacrificed; for it is quite clear that, if we kill the assailant, we love him less than ourselves, which does seem to militate against a duty of charity. But the truth is that he who, from motives of obedience to the will of God, spares the aggressor's life even to the endangering his own, does exercise love both to the aggressor and to himself, perfectly: to the aggressor, because by sparing his life we give him the opportunity of repentance and amendment: to himself, because every act of obedience to God is perfect benevolence towards ourselves; it is consulting and promoting our most valuable interests; it is propitiating the favour of him who is emphatically a rich rewarder."-So that the question remains as before, not whether we should love our enemy better than ourselves, but whether Christian principles are acted upon in destroying him; and if they are not, whether we should prefer Christianity to ourselves; whether we should be willing to lose our life for Christ's sake and the gospel's.

Perhaps it will be said that we should exercise benevolence to the public as well as to the offender, and that we may exercise more benevolence to them by killing than by sparing him. But very few persons, when they kill a man who attacks them, kill him out of benevolence to the public. That is not the motive which influences their conduct, or which they at all take into the account. Besides, it is by no means certain that the public would lose any thing by the forbearance. To be sure, a man can do no more mischief after he is killed; but then it is to be remembered, that robbers are more desperate and more murderous from the apprehension of swords and pistols than they would be without it. Men are desperate in proportion to their apprehensions of danger. The plunderer who feels a confidence that his own life will not be taken, may conduct his plunder with comparative gentleness; whilst he who

Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 3, b. 4, c. 1.