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PRINCPL MORAL POL PHIL (British philosophers and theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries)
PRINCPL MORAL POL PHIL - British philosophers and theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries Author:Paley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. HI. SUICIDE. THERE is no fubje3 in morality, in which the confideration of general confe- qucnces is more neceflary than in this of fuicide. Particul... more »ar and extreme cafes of fuicide may be imagined, and may arife, of which it would be difficult to aflign the particular mifchief, or from, that confideration alone to demonftrate the guilt; and thefe cafes have been the chief occafion of confufion and doubtfulnefs in the quefti n: albeit this is no more than what is fometimes true of the moft acknowledged vices. I could propofe many poffible cafes even of murder, which, if they were detached from the general rule, and, governed by their own particular confequences alone, it would be no eafy undertaking to prove criminal. The true queftion in the argument is no other than this—May every man who chuies to deftroy bis life, innocently do fo ? Limit, and difMn- n. G guifoguifh the fubject as you can, it will come at laft to this queftion. For, fhall we fay that we are then at liberty to commit filicide, when we find our continuance in life become ufelefs to mankind ? Any one, who pleafes, may make himfelf ufelefs; and melancholy minds are prone to think them- felves ufelefs, when they really are not fo. Sup- pofe a law were promulged, allowing each private perfon to deftroy every man he met, whofc longer continuance in the world he judged to be ufelefs ; who would got condemn the latitude of fuch a rule ? Who does not perceive that it amounts to a permiffion to commit murder at pleafure ? A limilar rule, regulating the rights over our own lives, would be capable of the fame cxteniion. Bi fide which, no one is ufehft for the purpofe of this plea, but be who has loft every capacity and opportunity of being ufeful, together with the poffibility of recovering any degree of e...« less