Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/485

 SUICIDE IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT STUDIES 47 '

2. The "altruistic " suicide produced by a violent predominance of society on individuals to the degree of destroying the consciousness of their own personality. Under this head Durkheim studies ( I ) the suicides committed in primitive societies by old or sickly men, by women on the tombs of their husbands, by clients and depend- ents on the tombs of their masters; (2) the suicides of savages for futile motives; (3) the suicides committed through religious fanaticism, so common in India, this latter form being termed the 11 acute" altruistic suicide, which finds its most perfect expression in the mystic suicide; (4) the suicides committed by soldiers in modern armies (military suicide). In all these cases Durkheim explains suicide by the brutal submission of the individual to the social group, whereby he loses the consciousness of a destiny of his own and, therefore, every interest in life. 1

3. The " anomic " suicide, caused by perturbations of the collect- ive organization through which social control gives way, while indi- vidual desires lose every limit. In fact, the limit imposed by society to the otherwise indefinite expansion of individual desires is a strong obstacle to suicidal tendency, in so far as it gives rise to that moral equilibrium which makes men satisfied with their lot and compels them to desire only that which they can reason- ably expect to attain. Commercial and industrial crises do not favor an increase of suicide through impoverishment or econom- ical uneasiness (this is the vulgar explanation), but merely by bringing about a disturbance in the collective control of indi- vidual wants which, therefore, go beyond the possibility of satis- faction. 2 The same reasons account for the high rate of suicide revealed in business and professional classes as compared to the agricultural. 3 Divorce gives rise to what Durkheim terms " con- jugal anomia," by which he explains the high suicidal tendency of the divorced. 4 Here we see the intimate connection between the two forms of suicide, the "egoistic" and the "anomic." Practically, they can be considered as two aspects of an iden- tical fact, viewed from two different standpoints.

It Suieidt, pp. 233-63. ' Ibid., pp. 282-8.


 * Ibid., pp. 264-71. /**/., pp. 289