Suicide and Faith in God

Abstract

On the previous pages we have studied and examined all the causes of the suicide tendency with the exception of the conditions of spiritual culture, and we have found that they do not provide a sufficient explanation of the phenomenon in question. The true causes of suicide must lie in the conditions of spiritual culture. We have seen again and again that most conditions in fact have merely a disposing and little determining effect, but that in both cases their effectiveness is relatively weak. Now it is time to ask what is disposed and what is determined? Man.

This text consists of excerpts from two translated chapters (The Causes of Suicidal Tendency’ and ‘Civilisation, and the Tendency to Suicide’) and the complete closing chapter of the book Der Selbstmord als sociale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation, published in 1881. The work is based on Masaryk’s second thesis, submitted to the University of Vienna in November 1878. A Czech version of the book, published for the first time in 1904, was a translation by Antonín žáček. The English translation appeared in 1970 under the title Suicide and the Meaning of Civilisation. Masaryk accorded this early work a key importance among his writings, declaring toward the end of his life: ‘Today I could say it better, but in essence I could not add anything.’