Dec. 29, 1881] 
NATURE 
195 
the influence of religion. Protestantism, denying all 
materialism in external worship and encouraging free in- 
quiry into dogmas and creeds, is an eminently mystic 
religion, tending to develop the reflective powers of the 
mind and to exaggerate the inward struggles of the con- 
science. This exercise of the thinking organs which, 
when they are weak by nature, is always damaging, ren- 
ders them yet more sensible and susceptible of morbid 
impressions. Protestantism in the German States further 
exercises this exciting influence on the cerebral functions 
in yet another manner ; it originated those philosophical 
systems which are based on the naturalistic conception 
of human existence, and put forward the view that the 
life of the individual is but a simple function of a great 
whole. These philosophical ideas are harmless enough 
to strong minds and those stored with a fit provision of 
scientific culture, but in the democratic atmosphere of 
our times the heart is not educated farz passu. The re- 
ligious apathy with which the present generation is 
afflicted does not arise from a reasoned inquiry into the 
laws of nature ora scientific appreciation of its pheno- 
mena ; it is not in short a deep conviction of the mind, 
but springs from a physical inertia and from the little 
hold obtained by any ideas but such as are directed to 
material improvement and the gratification of ambition, 
Italy. 
Per Thousand, 
Men 
ON Ng 
Spain, where “fone woman commits suicide against only 
two and a half men.” This strong tendency towards suicide 
shown by the women of Spain our author attributes “to 
the force of their passions, which brings them nearer to 
the male sex.” 
In both sexes the suicidal tendency augments in direct 
ratio with age up to the fifth decennial period for men; 
and up to the fourth for women, beyond which they di- 
minish with as much uniformity. In England, however, 
the number of young women who commit suicide between 
fifteen and twenty years is so large as to exceed by more 
than a tenth the number of men. This “ precocity of 
suicide in English women lasts up to the thirtieth year, 
when the proportional relation between the two sexes be- 
comes nearly equal to the average. The masculine excess 
also seems to diminish in extreme old age, so that at 
above seventy the two sexes tend to draw near again.” 
But— 
“The diminution in the last period of life is much 
more irregular than in all the other conditions; strongest 
in Wirtemberg, less so in Sweden, Belgium, and Eng- 
To our mind therefore the great number of suicides is to 
be attributed to the state of compromise which the human 
mind occupies at the present time between the meta- 
physical and the positivist phase of civilisation, and as 
this transition is more active in countries of marked 
mystic and metaphysical tendencies, such as is the case 
with Protestantism, it is natural that in them suicide 
should have the greatest number of victims.” 
Another feature of interest which a comparison of the 
statistics of all countries brings out is that “it is those 
countries which possess a higher standard of general 
culture which furnish the larger contingent of voluntary 
deaths,’—a fact which finds its curious expression in the 
following :—‘‘ The scale of these countries according to 
suicide is nearly the same as that of the periodical 
press.” It is likewise higher in towns than amongst the 
more scattered inhabitants of the country. 
Concerning sex, “in every country the proportion is 
one woman to three or four men, as in crime it is also one 
to four or five’’—a proportion which the tables show to 
be everywhere maintained with wonderful constancy, save 
in a few cases, the most remarkable of which is that of 
France. 
1004 Pet Thousand, 
MC McsWeWcs MCMcsWcWcs 
land ; very weak in France, Bavaria, and Italy; failing 
almost entirely in Denmark (1835-44), Saxony, Austria, 
and perhaps Prussia. This diminution of suicide amongst 
the old belongs to the weakening of their character and 
to that want of energy natural to the last period of exist- 
ence, in which man returns almost to childhood, and not 
having a long future before him, and even if overtaken by 
misfortune, he prefers to await the natural end of his days. 
Moreover, the religious sentiment awakens and revives in 
old age, acting as a curb to the passionate emotions and 
as a supreme comfort in adversity.” 
The remarkable effects of marriage, widowhood, and 
presence or absence of children may be best appreciated 
by transcribing one of Dr. Morselli’s diagrams, where U. 
means unmarried, M. married, W. widowed, Mc. married 
with children, Mcs. married childless, We. widowed with 
children, and Wcs. widowed childless. 
A number of tables are given showing the effects on 
suicide of different occupations. ‘‘ First of all are the 
literary, scientific, journalists, engineers, geometricians, 
all those, in short, who make the greatest use of their 
brain power. Next come the military, of whose very high 
