Suicide appears to me to be the climax of a moral disorder, as natural death is the climax of a physical one. Inasmuch, however, as the moral faculties are subjected to the laws of volition, should not their cessation coincide with the manifestations of the intelligence? It is the thought, therefore, and not the pistol, that kills. Besides, the fact that an accident may destroy us at the moment when life is most enjoyable should absolve the voluntary termination of an unhappy existence.... Suicide is the effect of a sentiment which may be termed self-esteem, in contradistinction to that of honor. When a man no longer respects himself and finds himself no longer respected, when the actuality of existence is at variance with his hopes, he kills himself, and thereby offers homage to the world in refusing to remain before it divested of his virtues or of his splendors.... Suicide is of three distinct classes: first, there is the suicide which is but the crisis of a long illness, and undoubtedly belongs to pathology; then, there is the suicide which is caused by despair; and lastly, the suicide from ratiocination. Of these three, the first alone is irrevocable. Sometimes the three classes unite, as in the case of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.... Suicide was permitted by Epicurus. It was the finishing touch to his philosophy. Where there was no enjoyment to the senses it was right and proper for the animated being to seek repose in inanimate nature. Man’s only aim consisting in happiness, or in the hope of happiness, death became a benefit to him who suffered, and who suffered hopelessly. He did not recommend suicide, nor did he blame it; he was content to say, “Death is not a subject for laughter, nor is it a subject for tears.” More moral and more imbued with the sentiment of duty, Zeno in certain cases forbade suicide to the stoic. Man, he taught, differs from the brute in that he disposes sovereignly of his person; divested of the right of life and death over himself, he becomes the slave of men and events. To man, therefore, freedom in all things should belong: freedom from passions, which should be sacrificed to duties; freedom from fellow creatures in exhibiting the steel or the poison which disarms attack; freedom from destiny in setting a limit beyond which it can have no effect.... Among the atheists of to-day, the coward alone accepts a dishonored life. CHAPTER VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY. “Habent sua fati libelli.”—MARTIAL. The following catalogue is a list of the works which are contained in the “Comédie Humaine,” together with those with which it was to have been completed. The titles in italics are those of the latter class.