date

1818 Jan y 7 Not Paul 87
1818 Jan y 7

Not Paul

87

III. Doctrine

Ch Asceticism

7

§ Other checks

6 Suicide

The mechanic / labourer / or manufacturer who for little wages engages in an

occupation under which it is known that no life ever lasted beyond a certain small

number of years is he a suicide?

If among all these men there be not so much as one suicide, surely there are some

who bear to that sort of name[?] no slight resemblance whose case compared with his

is at / which if measured with his will be seen to be at / no great distance.

If the sin of the suicide be as some will have it, be as not admitting of / being

the last / repentance the most sinful of all sins, at any rate / surely / the case of

these other men can not in any instance be wholly guiltless:―quære in each case the

place of it in the scale of sinfulness.
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  • Title: [1818 Jan y 7 Not Paul 85]
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    Grant to the ascetic that he who committ[s] suicide commits a sin: behold the

    perplexity that awaits him: behold a problem that he will as soon kill himself as

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    The officer who tends[?] the forlorn hope in the mounting of a breach―the soldier

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  • Title: [2 Sept 1811 Jug Util B.II.]
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    Merit consisting in repentance in the pain of repentance, (1) /the/ an occasion for repentance was to be made. That this merit might not be effaced by ordinary sins or the indifferent transitions of ordinary life, (2) the [...?] of the meritorious person was to be closed by it it was to fill up /the last act and/ the last scene of life. What then was the means to /be/ chosen for bringing life to /its close/ a termination at the exactly proper period. (3) A man was not to die /by/ with his own hand: that would have been suicide, suicide a crime and a sin that admitts of no repentance /atonement/, suicide the sin against the Holy Ghost excepted, the most unatoneable and most /unpardonable/ irremissionible of all sins. It was therefore to be the hand of another. (4) But what other hand so attainable, and at the same time so apt as that of the executioner of public justice? This was not suicide: no more than Jesus's death. Attainable? but by what means? (5) There was but one, and that was the comitting a crime, the /co-operating in the/ punishing of which would thus become a part of his public duty. (6) /What remained was/ There remained nothing but the /making/ choice of the crime: and in this choice the same religious and christian spirit by which the idea had been suggested still manifested itself /bore away/. A crime was thought of by which crime as it was more good than evil /would/ was to be done, since /the salvation of a soul/ the securing of a [...?] soul against all perils of damnation would be the fruit of it.

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    1. Make an occasion for repentance.

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    6. Which that Christianity more good than evil may be done by it. should be infanticide age earlier than that of sin.