4p20sc.md (1141B)
1 No one, therefore, neglects seeking his own good, or 2 preserving his own being, unless he be overcome by causes 3 external and foreign to his nature. No one, I say, from the 4 necessity of his own nature, or otherwise than under compulsion 5 from external causes, shrinks from food, or kills himself: which 6 latter may be done in a variety of ways. A man, for instance, 7 kills himself under the compulsion of another man, who twists 8 round his right hand, wherewith he happened to have taken up a 9 sword, and forces him to turn the blade against his own heart; 10 or, again, he may be compelled, like Seneca, by a tyrant's 11 command, to open his own veins–that is, to escape a greater evil 12 by incurring, a lesser; or, lastly, latent external causes may 13 so disorder his imagination, and so affect his body, that it may 14 assume a nature contrary to its former one, and whereof the idea 15 cannot exist in the mind (III. x.) But that a man, from the 16 necessity of his own nature, should endeavour to become 17 non–existent, is as impossible as that something should be made 18 out of nothing, as everyone will see for himself, after a little 19 reflection. 20 21