Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/91

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 77

in condemning himself acts only as the interpreter, the translator, of the sentence of excommunication pronounced against him by the arrest of destiny, by this lack of social equilibrium whose violent oscillations to a certain degree hurl the individual beyond the limits of society into the empire of death ?

That which struck the first observers, like Quetelet, was the greater frequence of suicide in the most advanced civilizations, and within the same country in the urban centers. The explana- tion, like that in the case of insanity, was only the demonstration of a fact poorly analyzed the pretended parallelism of progress and suicide, as of progress and insanity.

In France the number of suicides has progressed more rapidly than the population.

TABLE OF SUICIDES IN FRANCE.

1827-30, i suicide for 18,268 inhabitants 100 per cent

1831-35. * " " 15.369 " 120

1835-40, i " " 13,033 " - 137

1841-45, i " " 11,598 " 149

1846-50, i " " 10,274 " 162

1851-55, i " " 9,557 " 170

1856-60, i " " 9,480 - 178.8 "

1861-65, i " " 8,021 " 171-7 "

1866-70, i " " 7,948 " 188

1871-75, i " " 6,716 " 206

1876-80, I " " 5,897 " - 220

I88I-85, I " " 5,133 " 235

1886-90, I " " 4,500 " 245 "

The growth of suicides has been continuous ; it is, then, determined by constant causes. It shows a pathological condi- tion coinciding with the lack of social equilibrium in France. This absence of equilibrium is manifested with greatest intensity in the centers. Thus from 1817 to 1825 the total number of suicides for the department of the Seine was 3,025, or an annual average of I for 2,400 inhabitants, while for France, as a whole, during the same period, the proportion was only I for 1,800 inhabitants. From 1827 to 1831 the total number of suicides in the same department was 9,040, or an annual average of 1,818. The increase in suicides has been much more rapid than that of the population.