•EHTRAL PARK, 



MTU/ VARV 



SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The English journals contain an abstract of 

 an interesting paper read before the Statistical 

 society, on Feb. 17, by Dr. W. Ogle, on " Suicides 

 in England and Wales in relation to age, sex, sea- 

 son, and occupation." The proportion of suicides 

 is 72 annually per million persons living. The 

 suicide-rate increases rapidly until after middle 

 life, but, in the more advanced age periods, again 

 diminishes. The maximum rate is in the 55-65 

 years period, when it reaches 251 per million. 

 The male rate is far higher than the female, with 

 the exception of the period between 15 and 20 

 years of age, when the female rate is slightly in 

 advance. The occupations in which suicide-rates 

 are lowest are those which imply rough manual 

 labor, carried on mostly out of doors. The occu- 

 pations with the highest suicide-rates are those 

 which are sedentary, like the learned professions, 

 and also such as notoriously lead to intemperance. 

 As regards farmers, suicides nearly doubled in the 

 two years 1879-80, when agricultural distress was 

 most acute ; and simultaneously with this rise in 

 their suicide-rate there was a corresponding rise 

 in their registered bankruptcies. The amount of 

 suicides varies with the seasons, forming a regular 

 annual curve, of which the minimum is in Decem- 

 ber, and the maximum in June. The commonest 

 method of suicide is hanging ; then follow in order 

 drowning, cutting or stabbing, poisoning, shoot- 

 ing. Women, however, select drowning before 

 hanging, and poisoning before cutting or stabbing. 

 Women take any poison indifferently : men choose 

 painless and sure preparations. The choice of 

 method is also affected by age, the young showing 

 a comparative preference for drowning, poisoning, 

 and shooting ; by occupation, men preferring the 

 instruments of their trades ; by season, drowning 

 being avoided in cold months. 



Mr. W. A. Dun has contributed an article on < A 

 local weather bureau' to The present, a monthly 

 periodical published in Cincinnati. He contends 

 that the signal service needs more observers, more 

 stations, more frequent localized weather fore- 

 No. 162. — 1886. 



casts in less ambiguous language, and better 

 means of diffusing their predictions ; and, further, 

 that the predictions as received from Washington 

 should be open to amendment by competent ob- 

 servers in the various districts of the country, 

 who have the advantage of seeing the local con- 

 ditions, and being experienced in the peculiarities 

 of their region. The suggestions are worthy of 

 attention, as they come from a writer in sym- 

 pathy with the success of the weather bureau, and 

 not from one of the numerous irresponsible and 

 ignorant critics of the service. The attempt to 

 carry out some such plan as here suggested is to 

 be made by the meteorological department of the 

 Cincinnati society of natural history, that was or- 

 ganized last autumn. Its progress will be watched 

 with interest. 



Restrictions have recently been proposed, 

 limiting the hours of instruction in philosophy 

 for students in the Austrian gymnasia. Most of 

 the instruction in psychology, logic, and ethics, 

 in German gymnasia, where it is still retained, is 

 poor, traditional, and along the old-school ruts of 

 Herbartism, as an inspection of the many school 

 manuals shows. In the hands of many university 

 professors, philosophy is degenerating in Ger- 

 many. The historical methods so in vogue a 

 decade ago, are still attractive to many students, 

 but constantly less so ; while the interminable 

 changes rung on Kant's familiar problems have 

 well been called the pure survival in modern 

 form of scholasticism, till the cry is already heard 

 from extreme neologists, that, instead of going- 

 back to Kant, he must be forgotten, if academic 

 philosophy is ever to have a needed regeneration. 

 Many students have become so practical that they 

 cannot hear the word 1 philosophy ' without a 

 grin, so current have become caricatures of its 

 nature. The new scientific methods it has as- 

 sumed may yield gradual amelioration of this 

 state of affairs. ' Systems ' should be left to decay, 

 and metaphysics be seen to belong to science no 

 less than to philosophy. One special object or 

 result of philosophy is to make men uncertain 

 where they once thought they knew. If young 

 men are so taught that the great open questions 

 whence flow all intellectual interests are closed 



