(4) THIS apology for the commission, arising from man's insignificance in the moral world, from the reciprocation of social duty being dissolved, or from the benefit resulting from the voluntary dismission of being, is contrary to the soundest principles of jurisprudence, to the condition of human nature, and to the general establishment of things.
THAT a man who retires from life ad libitum, does no harm to society, is a proposition peculiarly absurd and erroneous. What is lawful for one, may be lawful for all, and no society can subsist in the conviction of a principle thus hostile to its being.
IT seems to be a maxim in human existence, that no creature has a right to decide peremptorily on the importance, utility, or necessity of his own being. There are an infinite variety of secret connections and associations in the vast system of things, which the eye of created wisdom cannot explore.
MAN is not, perhaps, so ignorant of anything, or any creature, as of himself. His own system, after all the art and inquisition of human ingenuity, is still to him the profoundest mystery in nature. His knowledge and faculties are adequate to the sphere of his duty. Beyond this, his researches are impertinent, and all his acquisitions useless. He has no adequate notions what the laws of the universe are with respect to any species of existence whatever. A cloud rests on the complicated movements of this great machine, which baffles all the penetration of mortals: and it will for ever remain impossible for man, from the most complete analysis of his present situation, to judge, with any degree of precision, of his own consequence, either as a citizen of the world at large, or as a member of any particular society. {47}
FINAL causes form a system of knowledge too wonderful for man. It is the perrogative of nature alone to decide upon them. In the fulness of time, her creative hand brought him into existence, and it belongs to her alone, in consequence of an arrangement equally wonderful and mysterious to dismiss him from his present mode of being.
This is an authority with which she alone is invested, and which, according to our apprehensions, it is impossible fro her to delegate. Dissolution, as well as creation, is hers. and he who would attempt to infringe her sovereignty in this instance, would usurp a prerogative which does not belong to him, and become a traitor to the laws of his being. Nay, on this extravagant and licentious hypothesis, the right of assuming and relinquishing existence is made reciprocal.
For he who arrogates the liberty of destroying himself, were he possessed of the power, might also be his own creator; his imaginary insignificance to society being as inconclusive in the one case, as any chimerical advantage that may accidentally strike him can be in the other. It is a strange doctrine, which cannot be established, but at the obvious expence of what seem the plainest dictates of common sense.
INDEED, the absurdities of this daring and paradoxical doctrine are endless and infinite. When we come to pronounce on the condition of human infancy, and to separate childhood, or non-age, from a state of maturity, we can scarce trace one useful or salutary consequence it is calculated to produce in society. In this view children seem less adapted to serve any special or important end, than even beetles, gnats, or flies. Experience, however, has long convinced the world of their present inestimable value from their future destination. And were a legislator, from the plausible pretext of their being a burden to the state, to exterminate the race of mankind in the insignificant stage of infancy, his decree, like that of a certain monster recorded in the gospel, would shock the sentiments of every nation under heaven, in whom there remained only the dregs of humanity.
