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 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 relations230—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. 

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 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 life236—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 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 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.

CHAPTER XXXVI

SELF-REGARDING DUTIES AND VIRTUES—INDUSTRY—REST

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 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.

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 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

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 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.

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 or difficult to procure, and they prefer being idle if they can compel other persons to work for them as their servants or slaves.

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 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 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

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 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 múnŏnă usináachă (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.