These statements tended to one of two results: either they unsanctified
the characters of those who founded and nursed the Christian church; or
they sanctified suicide. By way of meeting them, Donne wrote his book: and
as the whole argument of his opponents turned upon a false definition of
suicide (not explicitly stated, but assumed), he endeavored to
reconstitute the notion of what is essential to create an act of suicide.
Simply to kill a man is not murder: _prima facie_, therefore, there
is some sort of presumption that simply for a man to kill himself--may not
always be so: there is such a thing as simple homicide distinct from
murder: there may, therefore, possibly be such a thing as self-homicide
distinct from self-murder. There _may_ be a ground for such a distinction,
_ex analogia_. But, secondly, on examination, _is_ there any ground for
such a distinction? Donne affirms that there is; and, reviewing several
eminent cases of spontaneous martyrdom, he endeavors to show that acts so
motived and so circumstantiated will not come within the notion of suicide
properly defined. Meantime, may not this tend to the encouragement of
suicide in general, and without discrimination of its species? No: Donne's
arguments have no prospective reference or application; they are purely
retrospective. The circumstances necessary to create an act of mere self-
homicide can rarely concur, except in a state of disordered society, and
during the _cardinal_ revolutions of human history: where, however, they
_do_ concur, there it will not be suicide.
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