Download Suicide; studies on its philosophy, causes, and prevention 1882 James O'Dea Public domain





It excludes deaths from acts or lines of conduct which, howsoever much opposed to self-preservation, are not intended to destroy life. Although in judging examples belonging to this class it is customary to declare them suicidal, yet such declaration is rather a moral estimate of conduct tending to death than a technical deliverance as to the character of the death itself. Fundamentally, suicide has a reference to the individual viewed in the two-fold aspect of his social and personal life. It presupposes two necessary conditions :The external or social order of causes is subdivisible into general and special causes of suicide. The general causes exist everywhere and under all circumstances. They have their source in extravagant religious and moral beliefs. The special causes comprise all those various circumstances and accidents which result from the relations of individuals to each other in society, — hereditary tendency, education, literature, financial losses and embarrassments, love troubles, and the rest. The personal causes include ill-health, insanity, and the important factor, temperament. These causes are set forth in the following pages, to which three chapters are added to the prevention of suicide.