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real proportion, therefore, exists between the number of the 
male deaths in Paris and the tendencies of the French police 
and others to accuse people of crime — unless they are pos- 
sessed in France of the most desirable secret of knowing how 
to avoid accusing any one but the guilty party. If Mr. Buckle 
is right, the tendency in France to accuse people of crime 
follows a law as invariable as that which regulates the physical 
causes of death; and also, a similar ratio exists in the tendency 
to accuse others of each separate offence. I can only say that 
this is marvellous if true, and that he who can believe it need 
not sneer at the credulity of one who can believe a miracle. 
Mr. Buckle next adduces the uniformity which prevails in 
the number of suicides in proportion to the population of a 
country as another convincing proof of the soundness of his 
principles, and in the name of it we are invited to renounce 
our belief in our free agency. His words are worthy of quota- 
tion — “ Among public and recognized crimes, there are none so 
dependent on the individual as suicide.” I presume that by 
the evils dependent on the individual, he can only mean 
dependent on the action of the will of the individual. But 
this is made plain by what he says a little further on — “ Men,” 
says he, “ are not goaded to commit suicide by companions, 
nor are they interfered with by any external association which 
might hamper what is termed the freedom of the will.” 
The answer to Mr. Buckle is a simple one, and I am utterly 
at a loss to conceive how it could have escaped his observa- 
tion. The facts are exactly the contrary to what he conceives 
them to be. He says, “ Among public and recognized crimes, 
there are none so dependent on the individual as suicide.” 
The verdict of every jury tells us that there are none so little 
dependent on the individual or under the control of his will. 
Suicide in the vast majority of cases is a consequence of 
mental derangement, and in such cases the rational will is 
deposed from its supremacy, and allows impulse to reign 
supreme. Whatever theory we may hold respecting madness 
or its causes, it is not unfrequently the result of disease in the 
brain, which can be actually detected. Suicide, therefore, 
belongs to the order of physical phenomena, and not of moral 
ones. ■ 
Mr. Buckle seems to have fallen into the inconceivable 
mistake of having confounded will with impulse. 
I concede to him the fact that men are not usually goaded 
to commit suicide by companions — i.e., they are seldom directly 
tempted by them to do so. But what has this to do with the 
matter ? Are no actions voluntary which we are tempted to 
do at the suggestion of others ? But Mr. Buckle's assertion 
