Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/483

 SUICIDE IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT STUDIES

ism; (2) the increase of suicide with age, which proves that the cause of suicide is not a congenital and organic impulse. In this hypothesis, being governed by the rhythm of life, the suicidal tendency should pass through the successive phases of growth, immobility, and regression. 1

5. Cosmical factors. The influence of climate on suicide is emphatically denied by Durkheim. As to the influence of temperature in the different seasons, he refutes the seductive theory of Morselli by which the increase of suicide in the can- icular months is explained by the mechanical action of heat on the nervous system. Durkheim remarks that such a theory pre- supposes suicide to be necessarily the outcome of a state of nervous excitement, while it, very often, results from great depression. Heat cannot act in the identical manner on the two forms of suicide. If temperature be the cause of the variations in the suicidal rate, then the changes in the two series should be par- allel. Statistics prove the contrary. In general, and in all countries, suicide increases regularly from the beginning of the year and reaches a maximum in June, i. e. t not in the hottest months. It then decreases, reaching a minimum in December (Table XII). Besides, Morselli's explanation is unable to account for the low rate of suicide in southern Europe. Accord- ing to Durkheim, the monthly oscillations of suicide are the result of "social " causes, as proved by their parallelism with the increasing length of days (Table XIII), and by the fact that suicides are generally committed in daytime, i. e., when col- lective life is most intense. Thus for the action of cosmico- natural causes, as identified by Morselli with the changes of temperature, Durkheim substitutes the influence of the collective life, which undoubtedly increases in intensity with the lengthen- ing of the days. 1

III.

What are now the social causes of suicide? We find tin- question answered in Book II of Durkheim's work, that which

' Lt SHI. t./f. pp. 69-81. Ibid., pp. 82-106.