Note 131 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

In nearly all these cases, the things referred to belong to the class of things which were reckoned as indifferent by the Stoics; and hence arises the apparent paradox, with which their opponents immediately twitted them, that not absolute and moral evils, but only outward circumstances, are admitted as justifying suicide.131 The paradox, however, loses its point when it is remembered that, to the Stoics, life and death are quite as much indifferent as all other external things.132 To them, nothing really good appears to be involved in the question of suicide, but a choice between two things morally indifferent—one of which, life, is only preferable to the other, death, whilst the essential conditions for a life according to nature are satisfied.133 The philosopher, therefore, says Seneca,134 chooses his mode of death just as he chooses a ship for a journey or a house to live in. He leaves life as he would leave a banquet—when it is time. He lays aside his body when it no longer suits him, as he would lay aside worn-out clothes; and withdraws from life as he would withdraw from a house no longer weather-proof.135