Such circumstances may be found in the greatest variety of things. Cato committed suicide because of the downfall of the republic; Zeno, because of a slight injury received. According to Seneca, it is a sufficient reason for committing suicide to anticipate merely a considerable disturbance in our actions and peace of mind. [873] The infirmity of age, incurable disease, a weakening of the powers of the mind, a great degree of want, the tyranny of a despot from which there is no escape, justify us—and even, under circumstances, oblige us—to have recourse to this remedy. [874] Seneca, indeed, maintains that a philosopher should never commit suicide in order to escape suffering, but only to withdraw from restrictions in following out the aim of life; but he is nevertheless of opinion that anyone may rightly choose an easier mode of death instead of a more painful one in prospect, thus avoiding a freak of destiny and the cruelty of man. [875] Besides pain and sickness, Diogenes also mentions a case in which suicide becomes a duty, for the sake of others. [876] According to another authority, [877] five cases are enumerated by the Stoics in which it is allowed to put oneself to death; if, by so doing, a real service can be rendered to others, as in the case of sacrificing oneself for one’s country; to avoid being compelled to do an unlawful action; otherwise, on the ground of poverty, chronic illness, or incipient weakness of mind. In nearly all these cases, the things referred to belong to the class of things which were reckoned as indifferent by the Stoics; and hence arises the apparent paradox, with which their opponents immediately twitted them, that not absolute and moral evils, but only outward circumstances, are admitted as justifying suicide. [878] The paradox, however, loses its point when it is remembered that, to the Stoics, life and death are quite as much indifferent as all other external things. [879] To them, nothing really good appears to be involved in the question of suicide, but a choice between two things morally indifferent—one of which, life, is only preferable to the other, death, whilst the essential conditions for a life according to nature are satisfied. [880] The philosopher, therefore, says Seneca, [881] chooses his mode of death just as he chooses a ship for a journey or a house to live in. He leaves life as he would leave a banquet—when it is time. He lays aside his body when it no longer suits him, as he would lay aside worn-out clothes; and withdraws from life as he would withdraw from a house no longer weather-proof. [882]