THE UNIFORMITY OF SOCIAL PHENOMENA. 8og 



prcTails, nevertheless each land has its peculiar, apparently constant 

 characteristic sexual composition. In Europe there anciently and still 

 is a greater excess of women in the north than in the states of middle 

 Europe and the east, in some of which the women are in the minority. 

 Through Europe as a whole the number of women is very definitely in 

 excess of that of the men, and the excess appears to be increasing. It 

 was very great after the Napoleonic wars; then the numbers gradually 

 tended toward equality and nearly reached it (1847 to 1850, 1,009 to 

 1,000); then they diverged again, and stood, in 1870, 1,037 to 1,000. 

 The phases of increased difference are generally observable after wars, 

 and latterly appear to be the result partly of the enormous emigration 

 which has taken place to other quarters of the earth. In America as 

 a whole, and in Australia and Africa, on the other hand, whither this 

 emigration with its preponderance of males is tending, the men are 

 in excess, and the excess is increasing with the constant arrival of 

 new parties of immigrants. Nevertheless, a near approach to equality 

 prevails over the earth as a whole, and this Avhether we regard the 

 white, black, or red races, or their mixtures. 



Another instance of typical regularity of structure is seen in the 

 constitution of society by ages. Each country has its characteristic 

 peculiarities in this resj^ect. In France, for example, the percentage 

 of children is the smallest, and that of men of from forty to sixty 

 years, and of old men, is the greatest ; while in the United States 

 the exact contrary rules. European states generally lie between the 

 two extremes, and present constant normal figures. The age-con- 

 stitution of each country might be represented by a pyramid, the base 

 of which should be made up of the class of the youngest, and the 

 summit of that of the highest age. Such pyramids would have their 

 particular proportions for each country, which would suffer only grad- 

 ual changes through the continual operation of social and political 

 influences. The pyramids standing for the United States and Hun- 

 gary would have very broad bases, and rise by much sharper angles to 

 their tops than those for France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, where 

 children are relatively less, and middle-aged and old men more nu- 

 merous. 



A similar constancy is observed in respect to civil condition. Ex- 

 cept in France — where the proportion of the married is greater and 

 that of the single is less — of the whole population of all ages in the 

 several European states, and with but little variation in any single 

 state, sixty -two per cent of the male and fifty-nine per cent of the 

 female inhabitants are single, thirty- four and thirty-three per cent 

 are married, and six and eight per cent are widowed. Taking only 

 that part of the population between forty-one and fifty years of age, 

 with similar constancy, seventy to eighty-four per cent of them are 

 married. Similar constants have been established with reference 

 to religious confession, nationality, the choice of occupations, and 



