Note 123 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.
Oswald J. (Oswald Joseph) Reichel translation
In these cases suicide appears not only as a way of escape, possible under circumstances, but absolutely as the highest expression of moral freedom. Whilst all are far from being advised to adopt this course,123 everyone is required to embrace the opportunity of dying with glory, when no higher duties bind him to life.124 Everyone is urged, in case of need, to receive death at his own hand, as a pledge of his independence. Nor are cases of need decided by what really makes a man unhappy—moral vice or folly. Vice and folly must be met by other means. Death is no deliverance from them, since it makes the bad no better. The one satisfactory reason which the Stoics recognised for taking leave of life is, when circumstances over which we have no control make continuance in life no longer desirable.125