CHAPTER II 



INSAIJITY AS A SOCIAL FACTOR 

 I. 



Having considered suicide as a factor in social pathology, as a 

 socio-pathogenic phenomenon, we will turn our attention to 

 another phenomenon which is not of less sociological importance. 

 Even as the increase in the rate of suicide must be considered a 

 pathological symptom of our social life, so must also the increase 

 of insanity. For mental disease is undoubtedly increasing, 

 and its increase is one of the most alarming phenomena with 

 which sociology has to deal to-day. The increase of mental 

 disease imphes a biological deterioration of the race ; for its 

 increase is excessive in comparison with the rate of increase in 

 the population as a whole. 



It is well known that movement implies expenditure of 

 energy; and the greater the intensity of the movement, the 

 greater will be the expenditure. The organism can live only at 

 the expense of its reserves ; the muscle can enter into activity, 

 for instance, only at the expense of the glycogenous substance 

 which constitutes the reserve of the muscle. And it may be 

 urged that it is the same with the social organism ; the latter 

 .can exercise its activity only at the expense of the individuals 

 which compose it, and which constitute the social reserve ; just 

 as the biological organism can exercise its activity only at the 

 expense of the proteids, carbohydrates, and fats which it absorbs. 

 'This general law — that all movement implies expenditure of 



257 17 



