What conclusion are we justified in drawing from the facts just related? Certainly, that there is in us all a disposition to destroy, which is in some wisely and providentially restrained. If this view of the matter be correct, we do not think that we should be wrong in concluding that by far the great majority of cases of suicide result from a morbid development of this natural feeling, consequent upon a primary or secondary affection of the brain. This subject is of great interest in a medico-legal point of view, and is well deserving of serious consideration.
Is the act of suicide an evidence of mental derangement? Before this question can be satisfactorily answered, it would be necessary for us to consider that _vexata questio_—what is insanity? Have we an unfailing standard to which to appeal; an infallible _test_ by which we can ascertain, with anything like a proximity to truth, the sanity of any mind? Perhaps, if we were to assert that we considered it impossible to point out the line of demarcation which separates the confines of a sane and insane condition of the mind, we might lay ourselves open to an attack. Again, were we bold enough to proclaim our non-adherence to what is considered as the orthodox faith in this matter, and assert that we viewed every departure from a healthy tone of mind, whether in its intellectual or moral manifestations, as an evidence of insanity, we might still more expose ourselves to the merciless lash of the critic; yet these are the opinions to which we should feel most disposed to give our assent. We must make a marked distinction between insanity considered as a _legal_ and as a _medical_ question; and it is greatly owing to our not keeping this essential difference in mind that so much useless reasoning and vituperation has arisen. The man who is daily exposed to the kind and cheering influence of friendship, and who fancies himself alone in the world, without one human being to sympathize with him in his afflictions, is as essentially mad as he is who imagines himself to be made of glass, and is fearful of sitting down lest he should injure his brittle glutei muscles. A poet of antiquity wrote a book describing the miseries of the world, and destroyed himself at the conclusion of the task.