8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tary termination of life ; and the voluntary termination of life is 

 suicide. 



If, then, the fact that death is near and inevitable does not make 

 the voluntary termination of life anything less than suicide, may not 

 the applicability of that word depend upon the motive which prompts 

 such voluntary termination ? Here, again, the answer must be in the 

 negative. Keeping in mind the definition, let us suppose that two 

 persons, shipwrecked at sea, find themselves clinging to the same frag- 

 ment of the wreck, which is not buoyant enough to support both. 

 Either both must drown, or one must push off the other and live by 

 his death, or one must of his own will surrender the entire possession 

 of the floating support to the other and seek death. In the first case 

 death is accidental to both— they retain their grasp on life as long as 

 possible ; in the second case death is accidental to the one who is thrust 

 from the support, and his companion is guilty of murder ; and in the 

 thu-d case the one who surrenders possession commits suicide. " Greater 

 love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend "; 

 but he who displays this great love is literally guilty of suicide. Have 

 not many, whose memory the world honors, been guilty of this so- 

 called crime ? What was the act of the legendary Curtius, of the 

 three hundred at Thermopyte, of Arnold von Winkelried ? What is 

 the act of the engineer, who rides to death on his engine to save the 

 lives of the passengers ? What is the act of the cashier who, with the 

 promise of death as a penalty for refusal to open the safe, jjref ers 

 death to dishonor ? Are not all these acts suicidal ? It can not alter 

 the character of the act that the voluntary termination of life is not 

 brought about by one's own hand. Did not Saul commit suicide, 

 when, at his request, the young Amalekite slew him? If a man, 

 placed on a railroad track by enemies, but released a few moments 

 before the approach of a train, refuses to leave the track and is killed 

 by the train, will it be claimed that he is innocent of suicide ? It is 

 evident that, whether a person takes his own life without the interven- 

 tion of any other agency than the person himself, or places himself 

 voluntarily in a position where death is inevitable, or, being involun- 

 tarily placed in a position where death is inevitable, and a way of 

 escape being provided, refuses to take advantage of it — in each and 

 all of these cases the termination of life is voluntary and constitutes 

 suicide. 



This interpretation is too stern and hard ; and people recognize the 

 fact by refusing to call things by their right names. They do not say 

 that Arnold von Winkelried committed suicide, but that he " sacrificed 

 himself for his country." They do not suggest that John Maynard 

 should be buried at cross-roads with a stake through his body, but 

 assert that he has evinced the most sublime self-abnegation. If John 

 Brown had been promised the freedom of four million slaves, on con- 

 dition that he should voluntarily submit to death on the gallows, his 



