109 A sketch of his life, which was rather curious, is given by Cromaziano, pp. 148-151. There is a long note on the early literature in defence of suicide, in Dumas, _Traité du Suicide_ (Amsterdam, 1723), pp. 148-149. Dumas was a Protestant minister who wrote against suicide. Among the English apologists for suicide (which he himself committed) was Blount, the translator of the _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, and Creech, an editor of Lucretius. Concerning the former there is a note in Bayle’s _Dict._ art. “Apollonius.” The latter is noticed by Voltaire in his _Lettres Philos._ He wrote as a memorandum on the margin of his “Lucretius,” “N.B. When I have finished my Commentary I must kill myself;” which he accordingly did—Voltaire says to imitate his favourite author. (Voltaire, _Dict. phil._ art. “Caton.”) _ 110 Essais_, liv. ii. ch. xiii. _ 111 Lettres persanes_, lxxvi. _ 112 Nouvelle Héloïse_, partie iii. let. 21-22. Esquirol gives a curious illustration of the way the influence of Rousseau penetrated through all classes. A little child of thirteen committed suicide, leaving a writing beginning: “Je lègue mon âme a Rousseau, mon corps à la terre.”—_Maladies mentales_, tome i. p. 588. 113 In general, however, Voltaire was extremely opposed to the philosophy of despair, but he certainly approved of some forms of suicide. See the articles “Caton” and “Suicide,” in his _Dict. philos._ 114 Lisle, _Du Suicide_, pp. 411, 412. 115 “Le monde est vide depuis les Romains.”—St.-Just, _Procés de Danton_. 116 This fact has been often noticed. The reader may find many statistics on the subject in Lisle, _Du Suicide_, and Winslow’s _Anatomy of Suicide_. 117 “There seems good reason to believe, that with the progress of mental development through the ages, there is, as in the case with other forms of organic development, a correlative degeneration going on, and that an increase of insanity is a penalty which an increase of our present civilisation necessarily pays.”—Maudsley’s _Physiology of Mind_, p. 201. _ 118 Cod. Theod._ lib. ix. tit. 12. 119 Some commentators imagine (see Muratori, _Antich. Ital. Diss._ xiv.) that among the Pagans the murder of a man’s own slave was only assimilated to the crime of murdering the slave of another man, while in the Christian law it was defined as homicide, equivalent to the murder of a freeman. I confess, however, this point does not appear to me at all clear. 120 See Godefroy’s _Commentary_ on these laws. 121 Exodus xxi. 21 122 “Quas vilitates vitæ dignas legum observatione non credidit.”—_Cod. Theod._ lib. ix. tit. 7. See on this law, Wallon, tome iii. pp. 417, 418.