186 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SUICIDE AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 



By ROBERT N. REEVES. 



IN the discussion of the increase of suicide in the United States, 

 a great deal has been said in the consideration of the act as a 

 crime, but little, comparatively, in reference to its causes or to 

 those preventives which society has power to enforce. Dr. D. R. 

 Dewey, who some years ago made a careful study of the ques- 

 tion as it related to the New England States, declared that since 

 the year 1860 suicide had increased in those States to the extent 

 of thirty-five per cent. This percentage, with but slight varia- 

 tions, will probably apply to all other States of the Union where 

 there is great industrial and commercial activity. 



Suicide is so violent a reversal of that strongest instinct of 

 Nature the instinct of self-preservation that its causes and 

 preventives will always be the subject of deep and careful in- 

 vestigation. If it is on the increase, there must be causes for its 

 increase, and these causes being ascertained, it is then our duty to 

 devise means for its prevention. Insanity, heredity, financial re- 

 verses, and domestic complications may be direct incentives to 

 suicide, but back of them all is the real cause the growth of a 

 nervous, disordered temperament in the American people. The 

 steady habits of our colonial ancestors no longer satisfy us, and, 

 as a consequence, those amusements, those ventures and schemes 

 which excite the mind and nervous system to the highest degree 

 are becoming more and more prominent. This, no doubt, is the 

 fundamental cause of all suicide. But it is only with the direct 

 incentive that society is capable of dealing, and these direct 

 causes are so numerous and varied that it is almost impossible 

 to classify them with any degree of accuracy. The individual 

 may be impelled to self-destruction by circumstances, by an 

 innate craving or instinct, by an uncontrollable impulse, by the 

 unhealthy reasoning of a disordered intellect, and by many 

 other influences. Suicides may therefore be divided into two 

 great classes those in which reason is called upon to decide 

 between life and death, and those which are due to impulse or 

 insanity. In the former class the self- destroyer has, after reason- 

 ing upon his condition, come to the conclusion that death is the 

 most acceptable of impending evils. In this class may be placed 

 all those suicides due to sickness, financial embarrassment, un- 

 gratified ambition, the desire to escape justice, and causes of a 

 like nature. 



Among the second class, or those self-murders which are the 

 direct or indirect outcome of insanity, may be included all cases 

 of persons who are impelled to destroy their lives when insane, of 



