[Footnote 3: 3 Valerius Maximus; hist. Lib. ii., c. 6, § 7 et 8. Heraclides Ponticus; fragmenta de rebus publicis, ix. Aeliani variae historiae, iii., 37. Strabo; Lib. x., c. 5, 6.] [Footnote 4: _Eth. Nichom_., v. 15.] [Footnote 5: Stobaeus. _Ecl. Eth_.. ii., c. 7, pp. 286, 312] [Footnote 6: Traduit par St. Julien, 1834.] [Footnote 7: _Translator's Note_.--Palmira: a female slave in Goethe's play of _Mahomet_. Mortimer: a would-be lover and rescuer of Mary in Schiller's _Maria Stuart_. Countess Terzky: a leading character in Schiller's _Wallenstein's Tod_.] The reasons advanced against suicide by the clergy of monotheistic, that is to say, Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves thereto, are weak sophisms which can easily be refuted.[1] The most thorough-going refutation of them is given by Hume in his _Essay on Suicide_. This did not appear until after his death, when it was immediately suppressed, owing to the scandalous bigotry and outrageous ecclesiastical tyranny that prevailed in England; and hence only a very few copies of it were sold under cover of secrecy and at a high price. This and another treatise by that great man have come to us from Basle, and we may be thankful for the reprint.[2] It is a great disgrace to the English nation that a purely philosophical treatise, which, proceeding from one of the first thinkers and writers in England, aimed at refuting the current arguments against suicide by the light of cold reason, should be forced to sneak about in that country, as though it were some rascally production, until at last it found refuge on the Continent. At the same time it shows what a good conscience the Church has in such matters. [Footnote 1: See my treatise on the _Foundation of Morals_, § 5.] [Footnote 2: _Essays on Suicide_ and the _Immortality of the Soul_, by the late David Hume, Basle, 1799, sold by James Decker.] In my chief work I have explained the only valid reason existing against suicide on the score of mortality. It is this: that suicide thwarts the attainment of the highest moral aim by the fact that, for a real release from this world of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent. But from a _mistake_ to a _crime_ is a far cry; and it is as a crime that the clergy of Christendom wish us to regard suicide.