Still another argument is often advanced against suicide, viz., that a man is obliged to love his own life, since it is the foundation, or the necessary condition, to him, of all good and every virtue, and this circumstance makes the destruction of that life unlawful. That argument has solid truth, but if it held absolutely it would prevent us from desiring death in any case, and no one denies that there are conditions in which a desire for death is fully legitimate. No desire for death, however, can give the slightest justification for the destruction of life.
Again, the argument that suicide is cowardice is not broad enough. Fortitude is a mean between fear and rashness, and this argument maintains that the suicide sins against fortitude by rashness. If we have good reason it is not rash to expose ourselves to death; the soldier may do so, the person struggling to save a neighbor's life, and so on; it may be the highest form of fortitude thus to expose oneself to death. If the suicide can persuade himself that by his act he is seeking greater good than the life he possesses he would have reason for his act, and at least be above cowardice. This argument is one that can be turned at times so as to cut the fingers of the man that uses it. The fundamental reason that suicide is not lawful is that man cannot be master of his own life, and therefore he may not dispose of it as he pleases.
Suicide is the direct killing of oneself on one's own authority. A killing is _direct_ when death is intended as an end, or chosen as a means to an end. Direct killing is positive by commission, or negative by omission. In such cases the will directly rests in the death as a voluntary and free act. A killing is _indirect_ when the act of which death is the effect by its nature and the intent of the agent is directed toward another end, but concomitantly, or as a consequence, results in death. In such case death is an accidental effect, and comes indirectly from the activity of the will--it is not necessarily voluntary. If one has a right to do that other deed, or if it is his duty to do it, and there is a proportion between it and his life, he may do the deed and permit the consequent death.