Now, whenever this view of corporal punishment becomes general
(as inevitably it will, under the influence of advancing civilization), I
say, that Donne's principle will then become applicable to this case, and
it will be the duty of a man to die rather than to suffer his own nature
to be dishonored in that way. But so long as a man is not fully sensible
of the dishonor, to him the dishonor, except as a personal one, does not
wholly exist. In general, whenever a paramount interest of human nature is
at stake, a suicide which maintains that interest is self-homicide: but,
for a personal interest, it becomes self-murder. And into this principle
Donne's may be resolved.
* * * * *
A doubt has been raised--whether brute animals ever commit suicide: to me
it is obvious that they do not, and cannot. Some years ago, however, there
was a case reported in all the newspapers of an old ram who committed
suicide (as it was alleged) in the presence of many witnesses. Not having
any pistols or razors, he ran for a short distance, in order to aid the
impetus of his descent, and leaped over a precipice, at the foot of which
he was dashed to pieces. His motive to the 'rash act,' as the papers
called it, was supposed to be mere taedium vitae. But, for my part, I
doubted the accuracy of the report. Not long after a case occurred in
Westmoreland which strengthened my doubts.
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