The ancients were also very far from looking at the matter in this light. Pliny says: "_Vitam quidem non adeo expetendam censemus, ut quoque modo trahenda sit. Quisquis es talis, aeque moriere, etiam cum obscoenus vixeris, aut nefandus. Quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi sui habeat: ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte: idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque praestare poterit_." He also says: "_Ne Deum quidem posse omnia. Namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscere, si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in taniis vitae poenis_," etc. In Massilia and on the island of Ceos a hemlock-potion was offered in public by the magistrate to those who could give valid reasons for quitting this life. And how many heroes and wise men of ancient times have not ended their lives by a voluntary death! To be sure, Aristotle says "Suicide is a wrong against the State, although not against the person;" Stobæus, however, in his treatise on the Peripatetic ethics uses this sentence: _φευκτον δε τον βιον γιγνεσθαι τοις μεν ἀγαθοις ἐν ταις ἀγαν ἀτυχιαις τοις δε κακοις και ἐν ταις ἀγαν εὐτυχιαις. (Vitam autem relinquendam esse bonis in nimiis quidem miseriis pravis vero in nimium quoque secundis_) And similarly: Διο και γαμησειν, και παιδοποιησεσθαι, και πολιτευσεσθαι, etc.; και καθολου την ἀρετην ἀοκουντα και μενειν ἐν τῳ βιῳ, και παλιν, εἰ δεοι, ποτε δἰ ἀναγκας ἀπαλλαγησεσθαι, ταφης προνοησαντα, etc. _(Ideoque et uxorem ducturum, et liberos procreaturum, et ad civitatem accessurum,_ etc.; _atque omnino virtutem colendo tum vitam servaturum, tum iterum, cogente necessitate, relicturum,_ etc.) And we find that suicide was actually praised by the Stoics as a noble and heroic act, this is corroborated by hundreds of passages, and especially in the works of Seneca. Further, it is well known that the Hindoos often look upon suicide as a religious act, as, for instance, the self-sacrifice of widows, throwing oneself under the wheels of the chariot of the god at Juggernaut, or giving oneself to the crocodiles in the Ganges or casting oneself in the holy tanks in the temples, and so on. It is the same on the stage--that mirror of life. For instance, in the famous Chinese play, _L'Orphelin de la Chine_,[19] almost all the noble characters end by suicide, without indicating anywhere or it striking the spectator that they were committing a crime. At bottom it is the same on our own stage; for instance, Palmira in _Mahomet_, Mortimer in _Maria Stuart_, Othello, Countess Terzky. Is Hamlet's monologue the meditation of a criminal? He merely states that considering the nature of the world, death would be certainly preferable, if we were sure that by it we should be annihilated. But _there lies the rub_! But the reasons brought to bear against suicide by the priests of monotheistic, that is of Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves to it, are weak sophisms easily