190 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



We must, therefore, beware of following any tempting analogies 

 between the determining causes of insanity and the determin- 

 ing causes of suicide. Not only is the female sex, which is 

 most prone to insanity, less prone to suicide than the male 

 sex ; but also those countries which betray a higher rate of 

 insanity occupy a lower place in the rate of suicide, and vice 

 versa. 



It may be objected, nevertheless, that suicide is a phenomenon 

 determined by heredity ; and numerous instances may be cited 

 of families in which suicide appears to possess the hereditary 

 constancy of a physiological character. Indeed, there are cases 

 in which not only the phenomenon of suicide itself is a constant 

 feature throughout successive generations, but also suicide at a 

 given age. Thus Moreau, the eminent French alienist, cites the 

 case of a family in which the male members of two or three suc- 

 cessive generations committed suicide on attaining a certain age, 

 which was identical in all cases. ^ Esquirol relates the case of a 

 family in which three brothers committed suicide successively ; 

 and Moreau gives an account of another family in which three 

 brothers and a paternal uncle all put an end to themselves.^ 

 Nevertheless, it is to be remarked that almost all the observa- 

 tions which have been made of cases of alleged inherited tendency 

 to suicide have been made by psychiatrical specialists on subjects 

 sufEering from insanity. Now, insanity is perhaps the disease 

 which possesses the greatest tendency to propagate itself by 

 heredity ; and it may be legitimately supposed that the cases 

 reported by specialists in lunacy are cases of insanity. The 

 tendency to suicide which appears to be transmitted is but a 

 peculiar form of insanity : it is the outcome of the working of 

 an insane mind. In a word, insanity is transmitted, but not a 

 peculiar suicidal mania. If insanity manifests itself under the 



1 Th. Ribot, L'Heredite psychologique, p. 145. Paris, 7th edition, 

 1902. 



^ E. Durkheim, op. cit., p. 75. 



