Dead Frogs and Poetic Princes

So here we were discussing suicide at this forum and the dead frog kept asserting that the founding fathers had no inkling of the 17th century debate about suicide. Since he's dead, I thought it might not be particurarly enlightening to explain to him why his position was without foundation. But, like Lazarus, he keeps returning from the dead with dead ideas, I thought it pertinent to set him straight.

So, here goes.

The claim is that the founding fathers were not aware of or exposed to ideas about suicide -- and that the modern idea about assisted suicide having any kind of moral justification had not been discussed in 17th or 18th century America.

We start with John Donne. Biantanatos [1644] a qualified apology for suicide, which is available (huhummm) from the Matrix Book Store.

Next, we move on to Thomas Morus.

The first recommendation of euthanasia came in the 16th century by Thomas Morus; he said "when there is no cure and a patient suffers too much, the patient should be convinced to die. The patient should realize that his illness is incurable, he is a burden to others and his suffering causes pity for people around him."

"Moreover, the famous French surgeon Ambroise Pare was one of the pioneers of the Renaissance in the 16th century. According to him "Every individual has the right to live; only God creates human beings and death is the wish of God." (Source)

Later, the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1621) had some ideas about this theme and he defended euthanasia in the 17th century. The first legal source that reduced the punishment of a person who killed the patient with an incurable disease, was seen in Prussia in the XVIIIth century. This law was passed on 1st June 1794, and a person who killed a patient with an incurable terminal illness with a good intention, was punished as a guilty man. The physician, Paradys, emphasized the characteristics of euthanasia in the same century. Afterwards, academics such as, Reil, Marx and Ruhlfs described euthanasia as the birth of soul and explained that this subject must be investigated as an independent scientific branch, contrary to the ideas of some authors.

Then there is this observation:

"The concentration on "sense" during the 17th century, following from the work of Newton and others, led to the balanced, rational, decorous forms we have just been reading. The poetics of "sensibility" involve a move inward - writers are more introspective, thinking of their own thoughts and feelings as possible subject matter for their work. Contrast this with, say, Pope, who writes about others, and adds the further detachment of satire. The middle of the century saw writers become fascinated by the morbid, the macabre, and the Gothic: death, suicide, melancholia, and graves become popular motifs."

Not sufficient? Okay, we will then proceed to a link concerning early 17th century writers:

As early as the 17th century, writers identified a link between depression or melancholy and suicide. The Anatomy of Melancholy, written in 1621 by Richard Burton, identified melancholy as a medical and psychological phenomenon. The author argued that suicide "is the result of melancholy that desires self-destruction: 'In other diseases there is some hope likely, but these unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, invariably sick, the longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them."' T. L. Beauchamp, "Suicide in the Age of Reason," in Suicide and Euthanasia: Historical and Contemporary Themes, ed. B. A. Brody (Dordrecht: Kulwer Academic Publishers, 1999)

Proof conclusive? No doubt the dead frog will disagree. His roots, you see, are in the Dark Ages and his propensity is to look for dark reasons to dispel anything modern, anything reeking of scientific validation. Nevertheless, dead frog, the facts are simply overwhelming.

Benjamin Rush: Considerations on the Injustice and Impolicy of Punishing Murder by Death. An argument against capital punishment, which contends that the death penalty increases criminal behavior and amounts to state-assisted suicide. Rush also asserts that crime stems from a mental disease. First outlined in an essay in the July 1788 American Museum, Rush's beliefs had received harsh criticism and prompted him to add material and publish it in book form in 1792 and then again in a book of his essays in 1798, under the title "An Enquiry Into the Consistency of the Punishment of Murder by Death." Rush's writings had won support from Benjamin Franklin and Philadelphia attorney general William Bradford.

And the writings of Shakespeare, of course.

So what we have here is a good indication that suicide and euthenasia were indeed topics of discussion and had been widely discussed by the late 18th century.

Okay, dead frog, are you prepared to admit defeat? Hey, we're prepared to award you the "nice try, deadbeat, trophy" for wasted effort. Just stop trying that resurection thing. It doesn't become you.



File under: Suicide, Founding_Fathers, Dark_Ages, Euthenasia