Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/65

 wrote a Latin thesis on suicide, and sought to defend it. I must, however, confess that the inner conviction of the reasonableness of any course (as the attentive reader will himself have found) is often in the last resort rooted in something obscure. To explain this is, or at least seems, extremely difficult, because the contradiction observable between the clearly expressed principle and our own vague feelings makes us think that we cannot yet have found the true one. In reflecting on suicide, I have always come to the conclusion that a man in whom the instinct of self-preservation has been so weakened as to let itself be easily overcome might kill himself without guilt; for the fault, if any, lies much further back. In my own case what is to blame for my thinking in this way of suicide is perhaps a too vivid imagination of death, of its onset, and how easy it is in itself. The thought of death is a favourite one of mine, at times so engrossing me that I seem to feel rather than imagine, and half-hours pass like minutes. This is no full-blooded self-crucifixion to which, against my will, I am prone, but on the contrary a spiritual debauch in which also against my will I indulge sparingly, as I am afraid it might develop in me a melancholic, owlish love of brooding. What with our premature and often only too excessive reading, whereby we accumulate much information without digesting it, which results in our accustoming our memory to keep house for taste and sensibilitywhat with this, I say, it needs a profound philosophy to restore our feelings