law was born of superstition, passed by thoughtlessness and
enforced by ignorance and cruelty.

When the house of life becomes a prison, when the horizon has shrunk
and narrowed to a cell, and when the convict longs for the liberty of
death, why should the effort to escape be regarded as a crime?

Of course, I regard life from a natural point of view. I do not take
gods, heavens or hells into account. My horizon is the known, and my
estimate of life is based upon what I know of life here in this world.
People should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or for
other worlds or the hopes and fears of some future state. Our joys,
our sufferings and our duties are here. The law of New York about the
attempt to commit suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal.
Both are idiotic. Law cannot prevent suicide. Those who have lost all
fear of death, care nothing for law and its penalties. Death is
liberty, absolute and eternal.

We should remember that nothing happens but the natural. Back of every
suicide and every attempt to commit suicide is the natural and
efficient cause. Nothing happens by chance. In this world the facts
touch each other. There is no space between--no room for chance.
Given a certain heart and brain, certain conditions, and suicide is the
necessary result. If we wish to prevent suicide we must change
conditions. We must, by education, by invention, by art, by
civilization, add to the value of the average life. We must cultivate
the brain and heart--do away with false pride and false modesty. We
must become generous enough to help our fellows without degrading them.
We must make industry useful work of all kinds--honorable. We must
mingle a little affection with our charity--a little fellowship. We
should allow those who have sinned to really reform. We should not
think only of what the wicked have done, but we should think of what we
have wanted to do. People do not hate the sick. Why should they
despise the mentally weak--the diseased in brain?

Our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances--of
conditions--and we do as we must. This great truth should till the
heart with pity for the failures of our race.

Sometimes I have wondered that Christians denounce the suicide; that in
old times they buried him where the roads crossed, and drove a stake
through his body. They took his property from his children and gave it
to the State.

If Christians would only