194 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



We must deal in a similar manner, not only with the provinces 

 of one and the same country, but with difierent adjacent countries. 



If we examine the map of Central Europe, we find an excep- 

 tionally high rate of suicide in the kingdom of Saxony (311 per 

 million) and in Thuringia (303 per million). The wave of suicide 

 suddenly diminishes in intensity in the four adjacent provinces. 

 It is as if a wall were raised all round Saxony and Thuringia, 

 against which the suicide-wave vainly beats, and by means of 

 which it is held in check.^ In Silesia the rate falls to 158-4 per 

 million, in the Prussian province of Saxony to 227-6 per million, 

 in Hesse to 167 per miUion, and in the Franconian Palatinate 

 to 120 per million.^ In the north we find the city of Hamburg, 

 with its adjacent territory, marking a black spot ; the Hanseatic 

 domain has a suicide-rate of 300 per million. The province of 

 Schleswig-Holstein, adjoining Hamburg in the north, has like- 

 wise a high suicide-rate, although iuferior to that of Hamburg 

 (228'3 per million) ; but Hanover and Mecklenburg, which form 

 the eastern, western, and southern boundary, have suicide-rates 

 of 153-4 per million and 167 per million respectively. Branden- 

 burg, in Central Germany, has a suicide-rate of 204'7 per miUion ; 

 the frontier provinces of Pomerania and Posen, adjoining it in 

 the north and east, have suicide-rates of 128'1 per million and 

 70-4 per million respectively. 



Thus we see that imitation is not a determining factor of the 

 social rate of suicide. If it were, how could it be that the wave 

 of suicide, which rises with such tremendous force in Saxony 

 and Thuringia, suddenly diminishes in the west on reaching the 

 territory of Hesse, diminishes still further on reaching Nassau, 

 and practically dwindles away once the boundaries of West- 

 phalia and the Rhine province are crossed ? How comes it that 

 Wiirtemberg, with a suicide-rate of 170 per million, should be 



1 We have no figures for Bohemia, which bounds Saxony in the south. 



2 Figures given by MorseUi, reproduced by Durkheim in his chart of 

 Central Europe, op. cit., pp. 130, 131. 



