276 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and was largely drawn upon by Continental 

 and English periodicals in the discussions 

 that followed its publication. Dr. Morselli 

 has revised and abridged the original, ex- 

 pressly for the English version now issued 

 in London and New York ; and the work in 

 its present form supplies a long-recognized 

 want in our literature. 



There are, however, those who will ask : 

 " What has suicide to do with science ? or, 

 What place has such a work in the ' Inter- 

 national Scientific Series ' ? People commit 

 suicide," they will say, " because they are 

 tired of life ; it is a matter of morals ; an 

 act of volition originating in the will, which 

 is free, and therefore not amenable to the 

 methods of science." 



To this, the simple reply is, that it is the 

 office of science to investigate the regulari- 

 ties and the conditions, or, in other words, 

 the laws of phenomena. The voluntary de- 

 struction of life is a social phenomenon, the 

 investigation of w T hich falls just as much 

 within the scope of science as an inquiry 

 into the conditions of combustion, the clas- 

 sification of minerals, or the laws of plant- 

 growth. Dr. Morselli's book is a systematic 

 and comprehensive inquiry into the phe- 

 nomena, the conditions, and the laws of sui- 

 cide. It is, therefore, a legitimate and im- 

 portant contribution to the science of soci- 

 ology ; and is, moreover, the most practical 

 exemplification we have seen of the real 

 significance of law in what are called the 

 higher spheres of its application. In a no- 

 tice like this we can only give a few illustra- 

 tive results of his method. 



In the first place, it has been found, by 

 a long course of extensive and careful ob- 

 servation, as shown by statistics, which are 

 simply numerical records of facts, that the 

 phenomena of suicide occur with great reg- 

 ularity. The psychical laws, in fact, work 

 with more uniformity than the physiological 

 or organic laws. Suicides are more regu- 

 lar than births, deaths, and marriages ; and 

 it has also been established that it is on 

 the increase in the most enlightened coun- 

 tries, so as to compel the conclusion that 

 this result is due to advancing civilization. 

 Dr. Morselli states this general result in the 

 following form : " In the aggregate of the civ- 

 Uized states of Europe and America, the fre- 

 quency of suicide shows a growing and uni- 



form increase, so that generally voluntary 

 death since the beginning of the century has 

 increased and goes on increasing more rapidly 

 than the geometrical augmentation of the 

 population and of the general mortality.' 1 '' 

 Extensive tables are given, confirming this 

 statement in a large number of countries. 



But, though there is great regularity in 

 the phenomena of suicide, this regularity 

 is only under uniform conditions. Suicide 

 varies as the conditions vary. Moreover, a 

 large number of conditions are acting to- 

 gether, so that the result is a highly com- 

 plex one. It is the work of the investigator 

 to disentangle these conditions, so as to 

 show the proper value of each. The gen- 

 eral problem presents itself in this way. 

 Suicide is a phenomenon occurring in all 

 states of society. But in some countries its 

 rate falls as low as twenty or thirty to a 

 million inhabitants in a year, while in oth- 

 ers it rises to perhaps one hundred and 

 seventy to the million, and others show rates 

 that are intermediate. In some cases, the 

 figures from year to year are comparatively 

 stationary, but fluctuate at different times 

 of the year. In other instances, the annual 

 figures fluctuate ; and in all cases a variety 

 of causes are at work to determine the re- 

 sult. The task of the statistician is to find 

 out and express by numbers and averages 

 the relation of the rates of suicide to these 

 numerous accompanying conditions that are 

 found to influence voluntary death. The 

 task is an especially difficult one, but it has 

 been accomplished with such success as to 

 afford new and striking proof of the validity 

 of sociological science. Dr. Morselli first 

 considers the influence of the physical en- 

 vironment or the agencies of nature, as 

 they affect the practice of self-destruction. 



Men do not kill themselves in all cli- 

 mates alike. The influence of different re- 

 gions is not great, but it is real. It has 

 long been supposed that suicide is much 

 more frequent in the north of Europe than 

 in the south ; and it has been found that 

 it is more common in the northern than in 

 the southern parts of France and Italy. 

 But the old notion that Northern Europe is 

 the " classic ground " of suicide is modified 

 by later researches, which indicate that the 

 excess is rather in the central region. Dr. 

 Morselli says : " If of all the countries, dis- 



