Body and will : being an essay concerning will in its metaphysical, physiological and pathological aspects / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Maudsley, Henry, 1835-1918.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Body and will : being an essay concerning will in its metaphysical, physiological and pathological aspects / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    342/350 (page 330)
    And cleft the middle air, and dipped, and plunged Pull on the naked marble of his foot. Through high-arched instep, ankle, and the strings That bind the straining heel, it sped, and nailed The wolf-skin sandal to the crimson sand. Slow on one knee he sank, his strong, right hand Staying his fall, and watched with steady eye The full life draining from the wound, and spake,— * Mother, thy word was true. The end is come.' Nor ever spake again.* Consider again tlie fact of suicide, wHch is a sort of con- vulsive climax of pessimism. From a purely psychological point of view it must be acknowledged the most momentous example of freewill on human record. Convinced of a life after death, and of a life that will be a life of unspeakable joy or of unspeakable woe according to the deeds done in the flesh, assured that suicide will precipitate him into an abyss of endless suffering, the unhappy person nevertheless reck- lessly perpetrates it when his misery on earth is greater than that which he believes he is able to bear. Against it there is every motive that can influence a conscious being, so that the act is, qua consciousness, the most wonderfully illogical act of which any one can be guilty: either a stupen- dous example of freewill or a roductio ad absurdum of the doctrine. Manifestly there is a deeper and more powerful motive at work than any conscious motives; for certainly that which happens in nature cannot be illogical in the logic of nature ; and without doubt it would be perceived by con- sciousness to be logical enough could consciousness only survive to justify it. An instinct deeper and truer than any conscious belief declares the certainty of relief. The motive is irresistibly impellent, because it is the total outcome in consciousness of the failure of vital energies and of the there- from resulting sufferings of the individual elements of the tissues. When these energies have been exhausted gradually by the decay of age, the individual hopes and quietly waits for the release of death ; when they are deficient naturally, or are prematurely exhausted either by sudden and overwhehning prostration or slowly by steadily sapping causes, physical