196 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



much less than that of Protestant communities. And here we 

 have a clue to the meaning of those variations in the suicide - 

 rate of adjacent provinces. If Posen, surrounded as it is by 

 provinces having a high suicide-rate, nevertheless has itself an 

 exceptionally low suicide-rate ; this is due to the fact that Posen 

 has a population which is preponderatingly Catholic, whereas 

 Brandenburg and Silesia — especially the former — ^have a popu- 

 lation in greater part Protestant. Wiirtemberg's high suicide- 

 rate does not pass the Bavarian frontier ; and we may attribute 

 this phenomenon to the fact that Bavaria is one of the most 

 Catholic countries in Europe.^ The figures given will help 

 us to realise the respective influence of Catholicism and Protes- 

 tantism on the social rate of suicide.^ 



An examination of these figures shows us that the suicide-rate 

 in Protestant communities is, in every case, very considerably 

 higher than that in Catholic communities. Whatever coimtry 

 we take, and whatever period we take, the same fact is always 

 illustrated. And as the very basis of scientific observation is 

 that no phenomenon in this world of ours is unconditioned, but 

 that every effect has its cause, we must take for granted that so 

 persistent an effect as the one above noticed must have an 



* We may say at once that we have not, of course, the remotest intention 

 of discussing the religious dogmas of either the Catholic or the Protestant 

 Churches. We are not here concerned with the theological aspect of re- 

 ligion, but only with its social aspect. We are treating of Catholicism and 

 Protestantism simply as sociological forces. Auguste Comte said long ago 

 of the positive philosophy that its fundamental characteristic is "to con- 

 sider all phenomena as subjected to natural laws, invariable in their nature 

 . . . and to reject, as absolutely inaccessible and meaningless for us, the 

 search after what are called causes, either primordial or final " (Oours de 

 Philosophie positive, i. 12 ; Paris, 5th edition, 1892). We may say the same 

 of sociology. For this science regards the variations in the social rate of 

 suicide as phenomena subject to natural laws, as intimately bound up with 

 the greater or lesser integration of society. As far as religion is a force 

 determining such integration, it falls within the scope of sociology. But 

 with the metaphysical or suprasocial principles of any religion sociology 

 is, of course, incapable of dealing. 



2 E. Durkheim, op. cit., p. 152. 



