information at our
disposal. It is not only among the savage or uncivilized tribes that
such ideas have prevailed, but from the earliest times they have had
their influence upon educated minds. In the East, particularly in
India, the doctrines of Buddhism, that the soul should be without fear,
that it could not be destroyed, and that the flesh was only its
resting-place, the soul several times being reincarnated, brought about
great indifference to bodily injuries and death. In the history of the
Brahmans there was a sect of philosophers called the Gymnosophists, who
had the extremest indifference to life. To them incarnation was a
positive fact, and death was simply a change of residence. One of these
philosophers, Calanus, was burned in the presence of Alexander; and,
according to Plutarch, three centuries later another Gymnosophist named
Jarmenochegra, was similarly burned before Augustus. Since this time,
according to Brierre de Boismont, the suicides from indifference to
life in this mystic country are counted by the thousands. Penetrating
Japan the same sentiment, according to report, made it common in the
earlier history of that country to see ships on its coasts, filled with
fanatics who, by voluntary dismantling, submerged the vessels little by
little, the whole multitude sinking into the sea while chanting praises
to their idols. The same doctrines produced the same result in China.
According to Brucker it is well known that among the 500 philosophers
of the college of Confucius, there were many who disdained to survive
the loss of their books (burned by order of the savage Emperor
Chi-Koung-ti), and throwing themselves into the sea, they disappeared
under the waves. According to Brierre de Boismont, voluntary mutilation
or death was very rare among the Chaldeans, the Persians, or the
Hebrews, their precepts being different from those mentioned. The
Hebrews in particular had an aversion to self-murder, and during a
period in their history of 4000 years there were only eight or ten
suicides recorded. Josephus shows what a marked influence on suicides
the invasion of the Romans among the Hebrews had.

In Africa, as in India, there were Gymnosophists. In Egypt Sesostris,
the grandest king of the country, having lost his eyesight in his old
age, calmly and deliberately killed himself. About the time of Mark
Anthony and Cleopatra, particularly after the battle of Actium, suicide
was in great favor in Egypt. In fa