The great legislator of the Jews seems to have been convinced, that no law or argument against suicide could have any influence on the minds of people who were ignorant of the soul’s immortality; and therefore, as he did not think it necessary to instruct them in the one (for reasons which the Bishop of Gloucester has unfolded in his treatise on the Divine Legation of Moses), he also thought it superfluous to give them any express law against the other. Those philosophers, therefore, who have endeavoured to shake this great and important conviction from the minds of men, have thereby opened a door to suicide as well as to other crimes.—For, whoever reasons against that, without founding upon the doctrine of a future state, will soon see all his arguments overturned. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that in many cases this question is decided by men’s feelings, independent of reasonings of any kind. Nature has not trusted a matter of so great importance entirely to the fallible reason of man; but has planted in the human breast such a love of life, and horror of death, as seldom can be overcome even by the greatest misfortunes. But there is a disease which sometimes affects the body, and afterwards communicates its baneful influence to the mind, over which it hangs such a cloud of horrors as renders life absolutely insupportable. In this dreadful state, every pleasing idea is banished, and all the sources of comfort in life are poisoned.—Neither fortune, honours, friends, nor family, can afford the smallest satisfaction.—Hope, the last pillar of the wretched, falls to the ground—Despair lays hold of the abandoned sufferer—Then all reasoning becomes vain—Even arguments of religion have no weight, and the poor creature embraces death as his only friend, which, as he thinks, may terminate, but cannot augment, his misery. I am, &c. _P. S._ You need not write till you hear from me again, as I think it is probable that we shall have left this place before your letter could arrive. LETTER XXXIII. Lausanne. The D—— of H—— having a desire to visit some of the German Courts, we bade adieu to our friends at Geneva, and are thus far on our intended journey. It is of peculiar advantage in Germany, above all other countries, to be in company with a man of rank and high title, because it facilitates your reception every where, and supersedes the necessity of recommendatory letters. I have met here with my friend B——n, whose company and conversation have retarded our journey, by supplying the chief objects of travelling, if amusement and instruction are to be ranked among them. He is here with the M——s of L——y, a lively, spirited young man;—one of those easy, careless characters, so much beloved by their intimates, and so regardless of the opinion of the rest of mankind.