184 



HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



another direction ; but very often the kick is so forcible that the 

 individual who delivered it cannot stop the baU again, and the 

 latter may run along a path which he did not foresee ; it will 

 continue its career until it encounters an obstacle, which it will 

 either, by its momentum, dislodge, or which will stop its course, 

 and compel it to find another. Thus, while the role of the 

 individual in history cannot be overlooked, neither must it be 

 forgotten that the social organism possesses forces which are 

 inherent in it ; and which not only are capable of acting 

 independently of the individual will, but which often bear the 

 individual in their sweep ; while the latter fondly imagines that 

 he is determining the course of social evolution. 



I. 



To turn now to the subject before us, namely, the increase 

 in the rate of suicide, we shall find that this increase is not only 

 very marked since the middle of the nineteenth century, but 

 that it is a constant feature of the social evolution of all the 

 countries included in the category of Western civiHsation. All 

 statisticians are in agreement on this point. According to 

 Durkheim the increase has been on the following scale ■?■ 



We may add that the figures given by the Registrar-General 

 in his Annual Report for 1900 show that during twenty years, 

 from 1880-1900, the increase in the rate of suicide in England 

 and Wales was 45 per cent. 



^ E. Durkheim, Le Suicide, p. 420. 



