LIVY, CÆSAR, and TACITUS mention that the warlike, semi-savage races who peopled North and West Europe, the Iberians, Gauls, Cimri, and Germans, were all much addicted to self-slaughter, especially in order to avoid slavery, and the shame of defeat. LIVY also speaks of its prevalence among the people of Northern Africa, in the time of Scipio, a Roman general, who was engaged in the Punic wars, and who had ample opportunities of observation in those countries. PLUTARCH, in his Life of Alexander the Great, narrates the death of the Brahmin Calanus, who burned himself with much ceremony in the presence of the Macedonian army, and apparently without any particular reason. The Brahmin Sages of the Hindoo races taught the virtues of suicide, as a mode of escape from the pangs of disease and the weakness of old age. JOSEPHUS, in his “History of the Wars of the Jews,” Lib. vii., cap. 34, gives a full description of the frightful suicidal slaughter among them at the siege of Jerusalem, in which he himself was engaged, and in which self-destruction his faithful guard Simon begged him to participate, and after its capture, some thousands, under Eleazar, retired to the fortress of Massada, and there killed themselves to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans. The doctrines of Mohammed in respect to suicide are revealed in numerous parts of the Koran; it is spoken of as a crime which rouses all the anger of Allah, and warns believers that its commission will be punished in another life. See Koran, iv., v. 33. “Do not kill yourselves, for God is merciful, and whosoever killeth himself through malice and wickedness, shall assuredly be burned in hell fire.” A celebrated Ottoman says, “This crime is of a more grave nature than homicide.” The Koran, Surah iii. v. 149, says, “Man does not die but by the will of God, and at the end of his appointed time.” And the Mohammedan races have throughout history exhibited an avoidance of suicide, which is markedly seen where these dwell in apposition to the Brahmin races of India, who have always rejoiced in self-destruction; casting themselves into their sacred rivers, and leaving their old people on the banks to be drowned; throwing themselves beneath the wheels of their idol statues, and insisting on the self-sacrifice of the widows of their nation. Legoyt mentions that in Armenia, in ancient times, the house of a suicide was cursed and then burnt. The Tartar races of Central Asia avoid suicide. In the ancient kingdom of Persia, it was a rare occurrence, no doubt because it was forbidden by the Magian religion. The only Mohammedans who have approved of suicide have been dissenters from the pure faith of Islam; such sects as those of the Assassins under the leadership of the Sheik Al Djebal, the “Old Man of the Mountain,” and the disciples of Babek and Karmath, who massacred the inhabitants of Mecca in the tenth century.