But I should say that, if there ever was a Werther in Germany, he did not smoke.

Werther, as you very justly observe, was a poor creature.' 'And a very sinful one; I have heard my parents say that suicide is a great crime.' 'Broadly, and without qualification, to say that suicide is a crime, is speaking somewhat unphilosophically.

No doubt suicide, under many circumstances, is a crime, a very heinous one.

When the father of a family, for example, to escape from certain difficulties, commits suicide, he commits a crime; there are those around him who look to him for support, by the law of nature, and he has no right to withdraw himself from those who have a claim upon his exertions; he is a person who decamps with other people's goods as well as his own.

Indeed, there can be no crime which is not founded upon the depriving others of something which belongs to them.