RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 373 
of the relation of crime to mental defect, it is reasonable to expect 
that if the latter were to increase, it would tend to make crimes 
more common. Crime has a sociological as well as a biological 
and psychological basis, and the variations that occur in the 
amount of crime at different times and in different countries are 
correlated in large measure with social, economic, educational and 
other factors which fluctuate greatly at different times and places. 
Whether or not most crimes are increasing or decreasing is by no 
means easy to ascertain. This is especially the case in our own 
country, owing to the unreliable nature of our statistics. 
Homicide, according to the statistical data we possess, has 
been for several years on the increase in the United States, but 
it has decreased in most of the countries of Europe. Statistics 
for different crimes show varying trends, but the general situation 
in Europe has probably been on the whole improving. That 
there has been an increasing hereditary predisposition to crime 
in any country is a conclusion quite unwarranted by any data 
at present available. 
When we consider suicide, however, the evidence points 
unequivocably to the increase of this crime, if we may call suicide 
a crime, in nearly all countries of the civilized world. In the 
United States Mr. Hoffman has found that in 100 of our largest 
cities the suicide rate had increased from 11.7 per 100,000 in 1890 
to 20.3 per 100,000 in 1915. In France the suicide rate has more 
than trebled since 1830, and in Prussia it has more than doubled. 
In England and Wales it increased from 77 per million in 1890 to 
104 in 1905. There is much variation in the suicide rate in the 
different countries of Europe, but its increase has been so general 
and so marked in most countries as to give rise to much specula- 
tion as to its probable cause. The growing frequency of suicide is 
often regarded as connected with the alleged increase of insanity 
and nervous disorders, and hence as symptomatic of racial 
deterioration. It is also explained as the results of our changing 
environment which is commonly held to be productive of moré 
nervous strain than in previous years. Race, religion, economic 
pressure, health and various other circumstances profoundly 
