Understanding Suicide in Letters XXI and XXII of Part III of Rousseau's A Nova Heloísa
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Published in 1761, A Nova Heloísa was a publishing phenomenon and a moral event from the moment it appeared. It reached an extraordinary readership and had an impact beyond literature. Readers wrote to Rousseau as though they were addressing someone who had revealed something decisive to them about their own hearts. The novel has a characteristically eighteenth-century confidence in the dignity of feeling, in the idea that sensibility can be cultivated and raised to the status of a moral principle. I would say, personally, that there is a beauty peculiar to that century here. It may seem excessive to us now, but its intensity should hardly be mistaken for naivety. The hypertrophy of feeling may well be problematic (Nietzsche might have called it a symptom), but reading Rousseau requires a different disposition: a willingness to follow the effort to understand moral life through inner experience.
Rousseau wrote the novel at a pivotal moment in his career. He had already called civilization into question in the Discurso sobre a desigualdade, and would soon formulate the political theory of the Contrato Social and the pedagogy of Emílio. In A Nova Heloísa, these problems return in dramatic form. The tension between nature and society, between inclination and duty, between freedom and moral order is embodied by characters who argue, suffer and hesitate. The epistolary form allows truth to emerge as a process rather than as a conclusion imposed by a sovereign narrator. Each letter is an attempt to justify a position to oneself and to another.
In this context Letter XXI of Part III takes on particular importance. Saint-Preux, devastated by the loss of Julie, considers the possibility of suicide. What is surprising is the deliberative tone. He writes: “You wish me to reason. Come, then, let us reason. [...] Let us seek the truth calmly, then.” The sentence establishes a method of Socratic examination in place of blind impulse. Pain calls for argument. This is quite remarkable. He confesses the state in which he finds himself: “It has long been unbearable to me. I have lost all that could make it dear to me, and all I have left are the sorrows of life.” Life has ceased to be a good. But the decisive point comes when he formulates the principle that should guide the judgment: “For each to seek his own good and avoid evil without harming another is a duty of nature.” Morality appears here in almost elementary form: seek your own good and avoid evil, provided that others are not harmed. From this he concludes: “When our life is an evil to ourselves and a good to no one, anyone may quite lawfully rid himself of it.”
The legitimacy of suicide is established as a corollary of a natural principle. If life has become an evil for the person living it and benefits no one, renouncing it does no injustice. The problem shifts from the theological to the relational plane. The question becomes whether anyone is harmed, rather than whether God gives permission. Saint-Preux strengthens his position by questioning the Christian tradition: “Where in the whole Bible does one find a law against suicide, or even a simple expression of disapproval?” He recalls that Lactantius and Augustine “relied solely on the reasoning of Phaedo.” (The Phaedo, Plato's famous dialogue on the immortality of the soul, which I examined in Book 1 of História do Suicídio, “Variações Antigas e o Domínio do Cristianismo.”) The criticism is sharp: the traditional condemnation would have Platonic roots more than Gospel roots. By mentioning Samson, whose death occurs in the context of providential intervention, he suggests that Scripture offers no unequivocal condemnation. The argument weakens the authority of the absolute prohibition without asserting categorically that the act is permissible.
The medical analogy sharpens the argument: “If one is allowed to rid oneself of a passing ill by taking remedies, rather than of an incurable ill by taking one's life... why should it be lawful to cure oneself of gout but not of life?” Life here is treated as a condition that can become pathological. The argument is radical but coherent. If morality permits us to fight illness, why should we not fight existence itself when it has become suffering without remedy? (Notice that I say “without remedy,” in situations that are unbearable and impossible to overcome.) The parallel with certain modern formulations is clear, though Rousseau dramatizes the argument in place of presenting it systematically. This too is of interest.
Lord Edward's reply (Letter XXII) shifts the terms of the debate. He begins by interrogating the very conception of existence: “You who believe in the existence of God [...] surely you do not think that an intelligent being receives a body and is placed on earth by chance?” Life would be neither an accident nor gratuitous, but a situation endowed with moral purpose. The idea of a mission sets a limit to individual autonomy. When Saint-Preux claims that his death would harm no one, Lord Edward replies: “Your death harms no one! [...] It is to a friend that you dare say so.” The reply exposes the weak point in the earlier argument. The premise that one's life is a good to no one overlooks emotional and social bonds. Human existence is woven out of relationships. Voluntary death affects more than the person who dies. This may be the most modern point in the whole text. When we read the philosophers of the tradition, we almost never come across what we now call “suicide loss survivors,” or any mention of what this kind of death does to those left behind. Almost nothing is said about grief. Yet this reply seems to raise precisely that problem, if the reader agrees with me.
Lord Edward also introduces a distinction worth noting: “Violent bodily pains, when incurable, may give a man the right to dispose of himself.” This concession keeps his position from being simply dogmatic. He allows for extreme situations. What he rejects is the legitimacy of flight from moral suffering, since “the afflictions of the soul [...] fade imperceptibly.” One may question his trust in time, but the argument points to the formative dimension of suffering. Pain alone is insufficient to annul duty.
The strongest moment in the reply, as far as I can see, may be the claim that a death such as the one Saint-Preux is considering would be “a theft from humankind.” Life appears here as something that exceeds the individual and also belongs to the community (an argument already developed by Aristotle). Justice becomes the central category. Suicide ends suffering and also takes away something that was owed to others. There lies the core of what we might call the argument from belonging.
The confrontation between the two letters yields no simple synthesis. On one side, natural autonomy claims the right to avoid evil when no third party is harmed. On the other, life belongs to a moral and relational order that precludes reducing it to an individual calculation. Rousseau keeps the tension alive and imposes no solution. This is what we should discuss in person at Lysis, or what readers who have the opportunity to read both letters should debate in their own circles. The novel becomes a space where modern freedom and social duty confront one another under the pressure of concrete suffering.
Reading these letters today, I think, means recognizing that the problem remains open. Saint-Preux's reasoning has internal coherence and rational force. Lord Edward's reply reveals the ethical limits of that coherence. Between autonomy and responsibility, suffering and duty, Rousseau leaves the debate open. He dramatizes it with a seriousness that still compels us to think. Let us think, then!
Prof. Alexandre H. Reis.
(To read the letters, see Biblioteca Lysis on this site.)