mples, and so on.
The same thing occurs on the stage--that mirror of life. For example,
in _L'Orphelin de la Chine_[6] a celebrated Chinese play, almost
all the noble characters end by suicide; without the slightest hint
anywhere, or any impression being produced on the spectator, that
they are committing a crime. And in our own theatre it is much the
same--Palmira, for instance, in _Mahomet_, or Mortimer in _Maria
Stuart_, Othello, Countess Terzky.[7] Is Hamlet's monologue the
meditation of a criminal? He merely declares that if we had any
certainty of being annihilated by it, death would be infinitely
preferable to the world as it is. But _there lies the rub_!

[Footnote 1: Hist. Nat. Lib. xxviii., 1.]

[Footnote 2: Loc. cit. Lib. ii. c. 7.]

[Footnote 3: 3 Valerius Maximus; hist. Lib. ii., c. 6, sec. 7 et 8.
Heraclides Ponticus; fragmenta de rebus publicis, ix. Aeliani variae
historiae, iii., 37. Strabo; Lib. x., c. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 4: _Eth. Nichom_., v. 15.]

[Footnote 5: Stobaeus. _Ecl. Eth_.. ii., c. 7, pp. 286, 312]

[Footnote 6: Traduit par St. Julien, 1834.]

[Footnote 7: _Translator's Note_.--Palmira: a female slave in Goethe's
play of _Mahomet_. Mortimer: a would-be lover and rescuer of Mary in
Schiller's _Maria Stuart_. Countess Terzky: a leading character in
Schiller's _Wallenstein's Tod_.]

The reasons advanced against suicide by the clergy of monotheistic,
that is to say, Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt
themselves thereto, are weak sophisms which can easily be refuted.[1]
The most thorough-going refutation of them is given by Hume in his
_Essay on Suicide_. This did not appeal until after his death, when
it was immediately suppressed, owing to the scandalous bigotry and
outrageous ecclesiastical tyranny that prevailed in England; and hence
only a very few copies of it were sold under cover of secrecy and at a
high price. This and another treatise by that great man have come to
us from Basle, and we may be thankful for the reprint.[2] It is a
great disgrace to the English nation that a purely philosophical
treatise, which, proceeding from one of the first thinkers and writers
in England, aimed at refuting the current arguments against suicide
by the light of cold reason, should be forced to sneak about in that
country, as though it were some rascally production, until at last it
found refuge on the Continent. At the same time it shows what a good
conscience the Church has i