„ XIX. Suicide compared to Crime in General; Attempted Suicide, its relative amount 154 „ XX. Suicide in British India 161 „ XXI. The Prevention, and Treatment of the Suicidal tendency 166 „ XXII. The Suicide of Animals 174 Appendix, Rules of Assurance Companies 180 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 182 GENERAL INDEX 187 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. In every age of the world, and in the history of almost every country, we find instances more or less numerous of men and women who, preferring the dim uncertainty of the future to the painful realities of the present, have sought relief from all their troubles by suddenly terminating their own existence. Misery and pain have been the lot of the human race ever since the dawn of history, and these causes have from the earliest times induced persons to destroy themselves, and even the fear of eternal punishment has not sufficed to deter them. Sorrow, suffering, and mental disease are practically the only causes of Modern Suicide; but in the ancient world, suicides from these causes were either much more rare than they are at the present time, or else were passed over as unworthy of record, in the presence of suicides of a more honourable nature. Hundreds of instances have come down to us in which death has been self-sought and inflicted from an idea or conviction that such self-destruction was to be of obvious advantage to the state, or to the sufferer’s family; or again, the fatal act was frequently committed as a point of honour to obviate the disgrace and ignominy of falling into the hands of a conqueror; or, again, to avoid pollution and shame at the hands of unscrupulous and debased tyrants. The history of the Jews as narrated in the Old Testament probably shows fewer instances of Suicide than the records of any other nation (nine only in 4,000 years); but whether or no there has been any special interposition of Providence on their behalf, or whether the result has been due to the inherent virtues of the laws of Moses, this is not the proper place to discuss or decide. It cannot be denied that the influence of religion has caused thousands to make a voluntary sacrifice of their lives, as offerings to their deities; and thousands more have voluntarily courted death to prove the sincerity of their faith. Madame de Stael has, with questionable propriety, pointed out that all the “martyr throng” were really instances of self-destruction instigated by devotion to faith, and that all suicides to avoid the stain of guilt are deaths of duty.