Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/93

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

79

Female

Male

Total

General Increase

Increase for Females

l836 30. .

?

?

178

100

?

184049

IQ5

47

242

138

100

1850-60

225

51

276

195

1 08

186170

?

?

263

149

p

1871-80

373

68

441

248

143

1881-90

"^i

107

658

370

227

1891

648

120

760

432

255

1892

673

122

795

447

257

1803

74

119

825

483

25 1 ;

1804 ..

693

146

839

471

310

i89<;. .

660

152

812

456

325

1896

668

14!

809

454

309

1807..

607

145

751

422

310

1898

677

150

823

462

324

1800

643

118

781

439

308

1900..

658

128

786

447

272

18911900

613

136

778

449

293

INCREASE OF POPULATION IN BELGIUM.

1845-56 - - 192,364 4.44 per cent.

1856-66 298,273 6.50

1866-76 - 508,352 10.53

1876-80 183,824 3.44

1880-90 - 5493 ' 2 9-95

1890-1900 624,489 10.28

Thus in Belgium, while it has taken almost a century for the population to double, in the same time suicide has quintupled. The number of suicides of females tends to approach that of the males. Mental derangement then reaches the most con- servative element of the population, and woman is dragged into the machinery of social transformation. Quetelet has insisted especially on the regularity of suicides, and even of the methods of suicide, in regard to which he gives statistics from Dr. Casper for Berlin. This regularity, it is true, is fairly constant during certain limited periods and for certain countries. He recognizes this when he says : " However, society may be modified in a country, and so bring about changes in that which at first mani- fested a remarkable constancy for a limited period of time." But is there not proof here that the theory of averages can be applied to the conditions of civilization, that is to say, to social equi- librium, and is it not then capable of furnishing us with general and abstract social laws ?