266 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



from whom we draw our statistics, likewise concludes that, 

 especially in cities and towns, " mental disease increases in an 

 alarming manner. Many causes contribute to this, principally 

 alcoholism, which is ever on the increase ; and also that functional 

 hyperactivity, that intellectual and physical excess, that ex- 

 aggerated tension of all the vital forces, which are called forth 

 by the keenness of the struggle for existence." ' Not to multiply 

 quotations, we shall only further cite Professor Fircks, who, 

 writing in 1898, remarks that " the increase in the number of 

 mentally diseased persons must be admitted as a fact which is 

 well proved." 2 



Coming now to the statistics of mental disease, we find 

 figures given in Table A concerning the number of persons de- 

 clared of unsound mind at the infirmary of the Prefecture of 

 Police in Paris during the triennial period 1886-89. 



It will be remarked that we choose our statistics from Paris. 

 And, in truth, no city could be better calculated to give us an 

 idea of the results produced by the hyperactivity of our modern 

 civilisation in their pathological aspects. The statistics of Paris 

 may be held to be applicable in their results to aU the other 

 great cities of civilisation. In the statistics before us we find 

 the number of persons admitted as insane to the infirmary of 

 the Prefecture to have risen from 2,597 in 1886 to 2,859 in 1888, 

 an increase of nearly 100 per annum. We find here the number 

 of women lower than that of men, and this may seem to be in 

 contradiction with previous statistics given in the last chapter. 

 But, as a matter of fact, we must remember that the inmates 

 of the infirmary of the Prefecture are mostly insane persons 

 who have committed some crime ; for this reason alone we must 

 expect to find the rate of men inmates greater than that of 

 women. 



1 P. Garnier, La Folie a Paris, p. 4. Paris : J. B. Bailliere, 1890. 

 ^ A. Fircks, Bevolkerungslehre und Bevolkerungspolitik, p. 16. Leipzig, 

 1898. 



