SUICIDE.
WHEN suicides like that of the Commissary-General lend their startling and painful interest to the ordinary news, we fall to mo- ralizing on the predisposing causes ; but it is remarkable how little experience redeems us from presumptions on the one side or from vague inert generalizations on the other. We ascribe such "rash acts" to specific causes, without much application of the diagnosis to any cure ; or we set them down to the depravity of human nature at large, and helplessly presume that they must be. We have but lately outgrown the notion that November, whose fogs make some persons feel dull, was the month of suicides ; whereas it yields about the minimum in suicidal statistics, and we discover the maximum in the bright months of summer. But the worst of our faults is, that presuming the causes, we do so little to remove them. The first presumption generally is pecuniary embarrassments : yet the whole tenour of social teach- ing inclines to make men spend their utmost, by attaching respect to the outward appearance of means. Hence, as a general rule, if any save, it is those who are well to do. It is not luxury but " appearances" that are the great motive to over-spending ; and even luxury is chiefly active as one form of " appearances "—the man who is content with cold mutton alone must place every dainty before his visiters, though he has less genuine hospitality in his soul than the Arab who shares tent and dates with the pass- ing stranger. But pecuniary embarrassments were not the cause of Mr. Knowles's unhappy end. Oh, then it may be "temporary in- sanity," or the want of correct religious principles. "He had not," said a lady who was a witness at the inquest, "the usual notions on religious affairs latterly. In talking of religious matters, he doubted whether there was any Devil. It was on the Sunday be fore last he expressed that opinion. Had only heard him say so once. She thought his mind was not quite correct." It is noto- rious, however, that doubts such as Mr. Knowles expressed have been entertained by the profoundest and most pious theologians. One cause of suicide is want of motive to live. This want does not belong to "insanity," though it does to an unsound state of the understanding. The Romans recognized it as a rational mo- tive : in their decline, they also adopted the Japanese custom of committing suicide by order—as in the case of Seneca. In France, which offers so much opportunity for the study of the morbid crime, a love of the dramatic is one of the exciting causes. Dread of degradation incited Watts ; physical agony exhausted the en- durance of Mr. Spence. Mr. Knowles, however, appears to have been simply wearied with chagrin at losses felt by the affections'. He had no motive to survive.
Unquestionably, religious feelings will check the inclination to suicide ; but the gloomier dogmas of any creed will not have that influence. Religious mania, indeed, is one of the causes of sui- cide. But an enlightened view of man's transitory career will have many influences against self-destruction. Whatever sorrow a human being may suffer, he still can find some good to do. If once he set himself to the contemplation of that side of things, he will perceive how much there is in the world to console the most disheartened. The Roman Catholic has a manifest refuge of this kind which our institutions do not suggest to the Protestant : by becoming a monk, the pious man may truly dedicate the remainder of his life to the service of God and of God's creatures • the Pro- testant has no means of extricating himself from mundane affairs. But in any condition, a pious trust will debar the most wretched from undertaking, with his erring hand, to alter the dispensations of Providence.
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