There is a very much deeper meaning than some people suppose, to what Paul said to the Romans, "None liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." In inflicting a wound upon himself, the suicide wounds all there is, and his death shocks every living thing. That is so because of the oneness, the solidarity, the interdependence of all that is. Hence it is that the atom is as necessary to the universe as a world. It is a very old philosophy, but it is a demonstrable cosmological and psychological fact, for we know that man necessarily lives and moves and has his being under the same law of growth and maintenance that supports and sustains every other entity, even from the atom subdivided into a million parts away to the mightiest god. It is just as incumbent upon the bowlder that it fulfill its destiny as it is that man should fulfill his. Hence, it is a violation of the law of being to purposely or unnecessarily retard the unfoldment of one's self or any other thing. The wrong done to the thing hindered reflects back upon the doer in force, in addition to the injury done to that which was wronged.

The divinity which shapes the course of a man's journey through the worlds of existence is his own thoughts and acts, and, furthermore, every thought and act exerts an influence for good or for evil everywhere. It is true, altogether true, that every man is more or less his brother's keeper, and that no one can escape the consequences of his acts and thoughts upon his own life, nor of the influence they exert upon the lives of others. The interdependence of all things and the universality of being is seen in all things. This is a principle of existence which to know the full meaning of, one must know one's self.

Existence as a personality and individuality, with power to reason and understand, is at once the most sublime and most fearful stage of unfoldment. It is sublime when considered as evidence of individual possibilities, and fearful when, in the presence of God in manifestation, the responsibility which the realization of the universality of being and the interdependence of all things imposed upon the individual is felt. The law of being makes a relationship to exist between individuals as a whole which transcends the ties of consanguinity. You may call it universal brotherhood, if you like, but any way, the relationship imposes tasks of toil and burdens of duty upon everyone, and to wilfully make the burden of duty or the task of toil harder for one's self or for another is to defy the power of the universe and invite the wrath of the source and maintainer of being.

But somehow or some way the average man and woman finds in the so-called philosophy of suicide a most bewitching theme for conversation and discussion, and it is just possible that not a few are persuaded to try the realities of it by letting their minds dwell upon the subject too much. That there is a certain fascination in the problem of life and death, no one will deny, but the thoughtful person would not seek its solution in self-destruction. The better a man understands the law of his being the clearer he sees that in ratio to his obedience to the laws of nature is he in harmonious relation with all things, and that when in such harmony, existence in the body is altogether desirable, whether he be sick or well, rich or poor.

But what constitutes suicide or self-murder? We are accustomed to call that an act of suicide which hurls one into death at once, when death follows the act instantly. Now, as a matter of fact, we all are almost sure to occupy a suicide's grave. There is a difference between the man who burns out his stomach in twenty seconds with prussic acid and the man who burns out his stomach in twenty years with whisky, but can you tell me just what the difference is? That thought might be carried into the conduct of our life throughout. The natural end of a man's pilgrimage in each incarnation is when the spiritual man has so spiritualized his physical body that the spirit can no longer function in it.

Death, then, is surely the spirit walking out of the body by its own free will, just as we lay aside a garment when it is worn out. All other deaths come of violation of nature's laws, and they are premature. It is because we indirectly, at least, commit what is almost the equivalent of what we are wont to call suicide that, in my opinion, we have to come back so often. It is impossible for disease and death, as we understand and feel them, to lay hold upon one who lives in harmony with nature's laws. So as a matter of fact, practically all deaths are the penalty for wrong living. We come back time and again because we need certain other experiences, but the purpose of experience is to teach us to live right, and the reason why we need new experiences is because we have not hitherto, or are not now, living in harmony with nature's laws. Karma makes us go to school until we have mastered the lesson. It is for us to say how many lives we will devote to it, but every moment we turn away from the lesson we drink down poison which kills.

To seek death by one's own hand is not a new method to overcome the ills that relentlessly chase their victims through briar patch and over flint hill. It is a right that has been claimed by very many in all ages, and some of the world's most distinguished personages committed self-murder to escape impending trouble. The crime—for it is a crime—has been defended by such famous writers as Gibbon, Hume, Von Hartman and Schopenhauer. Strangely enough, as civilization advances and universities multiply, the roll of self-murderers seems to increase. It can not be said, therefore, that the spread of culture and knowledge, of discoveries in the field of science, and the adoption of higher codes of commercial and social ethics, educate or influence the world away from the old-time philosophy that a man's highest right is to quit living by his own hand when he is tired of life. Indeed, it would seem that the wider the range of personal liberty, and the more extended the opportunities for intellectual expansion and experiment, the incentive to self-destruction is intensified.

At a recent meeting of the American Medico-Legal congress it was held by not a few members that not only was suicide justifiable in cases where there appeared to be no other way for one to relieve one's misery, but that a physician would be justifiable in ending the life of his patient under certain circumstances. I think we all will agree that such a sentiment is unworthy of a manly man.

When a man assumes to be a law unto himself he is certain to come in contact with forces which will sweep him out of the current of the river of individual progress into whirls and eddies, which agitate the waters fearfully but do not move onward. He will realize, too, that God, the universe and himself are one stupendous whole—absolutely inseparable—and that when he quits any sphere of existence by his own act in violation of the law of his being he is still a necessary part of the whole, and that in severing the cord of earthly life he not only fails of his purpose, but he himself will feel the jar more severely than any other entity in all the worlds of God, and not only so, but he shall continue to live amid distracting discord until he voluntarily readjusts himself to that system of law and harmony from which he essayed unlawfully to break away. Certainly he will find pain and sorrow in returning, but not to return is to be without rest eternally. Nevertheless, all men appoint their time to die by their conduct of life, which in nearly all cases is a form of suicide.

There are those who advocate suicide as a proper means of escape from tiresome environment who deny that any unpleasant consequences could follow, because there is no consciousness after death, but it is incumbent upon them to prove that there is such a state as "death" in the sense they speak of it. It would seem that if there is no consciousness in what is called the state of the dead—if the memory of man is annihilated by what is called death—it should be annihilated by sleep or trance, for they are states in which the body is dead for the time. Of course, the advocate of suicide fortifies his position by denying that there is memory where there is no brain life and action, and that when the brain ceases to be active, memory perishes, but that theory is untenable, because the brain is entirely renewed every seven years or such a matter. A man remembers incidents in his childhood, although meanwhile his brain has changed completely a dozen times. It must be, therefore, that there is something in man which is impervious to the influences which time exerts over the physical body. The "tablets of the memory" continue throughout. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

The advocate of suicide as the better way to rid one's self of trials and tribulations is necessarily a materialist. He preaches the doctrine of immortality of matter and the mortality of spirit, which is a ridiculous absurdity. But he will discourse learnedly about the milliards of bacilli—separate, distinct, individual, living entities—which float about, live, move and have their being nearly everywhere, but if he were asked to catch a few that they might be seen and handled he would promptly say they were altogether invisible to the naked eye, that they are almost sub-microscopic. He would admit that these invisible creatures have existence under the same law that peoples the forest with trees, the earth with animals, and the channels of commerce with men, but he would not admit that any living thing could have life separate from its visible organism; hence, when the physical organism becomes ill, or is subjected to any other uncomfortable conditions of existence, it is its right to escape by quitting life.

But materialists are too few and far between to bother with; besides, there never was a materialist who did not hope that his philosophy was in error, and that he should continue to live as an individual, retaining memory and affections after what he calls death. Having that hope he is deprived of the right to advocate suicide, because if he is to live after the death of the body he must admit that he will be a substantial, thinking being, for it is impossible to think of substance without form, and of either without ascribing power to it.

But there is a phase of the philosophy of suicide which can be seen only from the occult or metaphysical side of life. It has been said that it is the cowardly and unmanly man who wilfully destroys his own life, but for all that a great deal of mental strength and bravery may be required to become too great a coward to combat even little annoyances. And again, the psychological influences which gradually prepare a man during the long days of a protracted illness to calmly, gladly no doubt, welcome death as a friend come in the hour of need, may come with such force upon the man contemplating self-slaughter that he is as much nerved to meet death as he whose mental acquiescence came after weeks or months of bodily pain and wasting away. The stoics knew of this occult force which nerves a man to destroy his life, and they called it a "sympathetic friend," but science has never been able to analyze or define it, and hence we can know nothing of it except what we gather from the lesson its effects upon the soul of man teaches. It is not true, though, that the suicide leaps from darkness of despair here into the bright light of peace and joy "over there."

The occult force which nerves a man to murder himself, the would-be suicides should bear in mind, is not spent when the man dies. It is a force which is also an immutable law, albeit the influence of its operation is confined to the spiritual man. If it nerves a man to deal with himself harshly it is because the free will of the man cannot be disputed. Were it to paralyze his mind and cripple his purpose the man would be little more than a human machine subject to the whims or caprice of a force or power higher than he. It is the recognition of his free agency by the eternal cause that makes a man a free moral agent, but the same force that sustains him in the exercise of his rights as a free agent follows him beyond the grave and all through the process of unfoldment if he elects to progress, or through the process of retrogression if he inclines to travel to the left.

In quitting this sphere or plane of existence the suicide by no means escapes duty. The environment from which he fled must be met and overcome, and in trying to escape he only strengthens the opposing forces and weakens his own powers of resistance. Nevertheless, the battle must be fought and the victory must be won if he would be free from the hurtful influences which prompted him to avoid learning the lesson of life, and whatever the environment is, it is to be overcome for the good to him there is in the victory. This is the law of compensation, and it is the law of all laws, for it commands that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

The suicide, therefore, not only fails to escape the ills he flees from—but he intensifies the distress which burdens him. Moreover, no occult or spiritual force ever influenced him to burden himself with the consequences of hateful environment, but it aided in the exercise of his free will. And, again, whatever a man's burden may be it is the harvest of his own sowing. If it be of love and sweet memories it is his by natural right, so also it is his by natural right if it be greed and cowardice. The suicide runs from the presence of trouble to the arms of many troubles, and the occult force that aids him in the exercise of his free will holds him to account for committing self-murder with the same firm hand of justice that it would had he murdered his neighbor instead of himself. There is no escape from the consequences of one's acts. The grave is no hiding place. It is the door rather which opens into a court of justice beyond—into a place where the ethical debits and credits of the individual await him that a balance may be struck. Those things which he planted in the field of life will be there as debits and credits. Nothing will be omitted, be they the fruit of omission or of commission, and that which he owes he must come again into the field of the activities of physical environment and pay to the uttermost farthing. This, too, the law of Karma demands, and this it exacts.