Euclid’s eleventh axiom may deserve perhaps to be called an ingenious man, but will contribute nothing to the extension of science that he might not have done as well without any such demonstration. “But,” say they, “this is done to refute sceptics.” You will not refute sceptics like this, I promise you ; for what argument in the world will convince a man who can bring himself to believe an absurdity? And does everyone deserve to be refuted who desires to be refuted? Even the greatest of combatants won’t fight with anyone who cares to challenge him.
Even if suicides could give their reasons for their act in set terms, not much more light would be thrown on the matter. But this is what everyone who hears of a suicide does—reduces the case to his own language, not so much weakening it by so doing as making it something entirely different. Properly to understand a man, it would be requisite occasionally to be that man. Whoever knows what a system of thought is will agree with me here. To be frequently alone, to think about oneself, and make a world of one’s own, may afford us great pleasure; but to indulge in that pleasure leads us imperceptibly into a philosophy according to which suicide is right and permissible. It is a good thing, then, so as not to fall off the world altogether, to grapple oneself to it again by means of some companion or fair friend.
Already when I was at school I entertained ideas about suicide diametrically opposed to those commonly accepted in the world; and I remember that I once
