In many cases of suicide, the act is preceded by a long train of perverted reasoning. These individuals become taciturn, morose, pusillanimous, and distrustful. The future presents itself to their view under the most unfavourable aspect, and despair becomes painted on their countenances. Their eyes become hollow; they complain of sleeplessness, and are disturbed by frightful dreams. The bowels are in an inactive state; the functions of the liver become to a certain extent suspended. It is in this state that they contemplate the idea of suicide; and the diaries which some have kept of their sensations and thoughts disclose the various kinds of death which they have contemplated and rejected, one after another, often for reasons the most preposterous and ridiculous. It is singular that in these journals they generally endeavour to hide their despondency and their mental aberration, while their moral and intellectual weakness is sure to be betrayed. They often accuse themselves of insanity, and bewail their unhappy lot; others argue most ingeniously in favour of their meditated suicide. Others again, subdued as it were by the force of the moral and religious principles which they have imbibed, represent to themselves that the act they contemplate is contrary to the moral end for which man was created—fatal to the welfare and happiness of their families. Then ensues a conflict in their breasts. If reason and religion prevail, the project is abandoned,—sometimes abandoned altogether. If otherwise, the suicide is committed. Falret knew the case of a woman who exhibited a tendency to suicide, but who was delivered for a period from the commission of the crime by the principles of religion in which her mind had been educated. A long period elapsed before she could reconcile herself to the act of suicide, and then she argued herself into it by the following piece of sophistry:—“There are no general rules without exceptions; and I am the precise exception in this case: therefore I may commit suicide without violating my religious principles.” Having once conceived the idea of suicide, the mind is often rendered so miserable in consequence of it, that the person rushes into the arms of death in order to escape from the terrible state of anticipation. Others meditate on the bloody deed for years. Rousseau, after drawing a piteous portrait of his proscribed and solitary condition, and of the state of his health, adds, “_Puisque mon corps n’est plus pour moi qu’un embarras, un obstacle à mon repos, cherchons donc à m’en degager le plus tôt que je pourrai_.”