CHAPTER XVI.

CAN SUICIDE BE PREVENTED BY LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS?—INFLUENCE OF MORAL INSTRUCTION.—CONCLUSION.

The legitimate object of punishment—The argument of Beccaria—A legal solecism—A suicide not amenable to human tribunals—Evidence at coroners’ courts _ex-parte_—The old law of no advantage—No penal-law will restrain a man from the commission of suicide.—Verdict of _felo-de-se_ punishes the innocent, and therefore unjust—All suicides insane, and therefore not responsible agents—The man who reasons himself into suicide not of sound mind—Rational mode of preventing suicide by promoting religious education p. 335-340

ERRATA.

Page 46, for “mens conscia” &c. read _mens sana in corpore sano_, and for “Horace” read JUVENAL.

ANATOMY OF SUICIDE.