LITMIR.BIZ

20

Dufau, Traité de Statistique, pp. 75, 148.

21

Some moralists have also established a third class of actions, which they call indifferent, as belonging neither to virtue nor to vice; and hence there arose the famous doctrine of probability, set up by several eminent Romish casuists, and hotly attacked by Pascal. But this, if we put aside its worst feature, namely its practical bearings, is merely a question of definition; inasmuch as every indifferent act must lean on the side either of evil or of good, and may therefore be referred to the category to which it inclines; and certainly every increase of vice diminishes virtue relatively, though not always absolutely. Among the Greek philosophers there was a schism on this point: Ἁρέσκει δὲ αὐτοὶς (i.e. the Stoics) μηδὲν μέσον εἶναι ἀρετῆς και κακίας⋅ τῶν περιπατητκῶν μεταξὺ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας εἶναι λεγόντων τὴν προκοπήν. Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philosophorum, lib. vii. segm. 127, vol. i. p. 445.

22

I say this advisedly: and whoever has examined these subjects must be aware of the way in which writers on morals repeat the commonplace and hackneyed notions of their predecessors; so that a man, after reading everything that has been written on moral conduct and moral philosophy, will find himself nearly as much in the dark as when his studies first began. The most accurate investigators of the human mind have hitherto been the poets, particularly Homer and Shakespeare; but these extraordinary observers mainly occupied themselves with the concrete phenomena of life; and if they analyzed, as they probably did, they have concealed the steps of the process, so that now we can only verify their conclusions empirically. The great advance made by the statisticians consists in applying to these inquiries the doctrine of averages, which no one thought of doing before the eighteenth century.

23

‘Dans tout ce qui se rapporte aux crimes, les mêmes nombres se reproduisent avec une constance telle, qu'il serait impossible de la méconnaître, même pour ceux des crimes qui sembleraient devoir échapper le plus à toute prévision humaine, tels que les meurtres, puisqu'ils se commettent, en général, à la suite de rixes qui naissent sans motifs, et dans les circonstances, en apparence, les plus fortuites. Cependant l'expérience prouve que non-seulement les meurtres sont annuellement à peu près en même nombre, mais encore que les instrumens qui servent à les commettre sont employés dans les mêmes proportions.’ Quetelet sur l'Homme, Paris, 1835, vol. i. p. 7; see also vol. ii. pp. 164, 247.

24

‘Thus in twenty years' observations, the number of persons accused of various crimes in France, and registered under their respective ages, scarcely varies at any age from year to year, comparing the proportion per cent. under each age with the totals. The number of persons accused in all France, in the years 1826 to 1844, was about equal to the deaths of males registered in Paris; but singularly enough, the former results are more regular than the latter, notwithstanding the accidental causes which might affect them; – notwithstanding even a revolution in Paris, which convulsed society and brought in a new dynasty.’ Brown on the Uniform Action of the Human Will, in The Assurance Magazine, no. viii., July 1852, pp. 349, 350. That the variations in crime are less than those of mortality, is also noticed in Statistique Morale, pp. 18, 34, in Mémoires de l'Académie de Belgique, vol. xxi., Bruxelles, 1848, 4to.

25

The folly of lawgivers thinking that by their enactments they can diminish suicide, is exposed by M. C. Comte in his Traité de Législation, vol. i. p. 486. See also some good remarks by Jefferson, in his observations on criminal law in Appendix to Jefferson's Memoirs, by Randolph, vol. i. pp. 126, 127. Heber (Journey through India, vol. i. pp. 389, 390) found that the English Government had vainly attempted to check the suicides frequently committed at Benares by drowning: and in our country the interference of legislators is met by the perjury of jurors, since, as Bentham says, English juries do not hesitate to violate their oaths by declaring the suicide to be non compos. Principles of Penal Law, in Bentham's Works, edit. Bowring, 1843, vol. i. pp. 479, 480. In regard to the determination of the individual, and the impossibility of baffling his intention, there are cases recorded of persons who, being deprived of the ordinary means of destruction, put an end to life by holding their breath; while others effected their purpose by turning back the tongue so as to exclude air from the larynx. Elliotson's Human Physiology, pp. 491, 492.

26

This also applies to other cases besides those of drowning. See Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, 1846, pp. 587, 597; and on the difficulty of always distinguishing a real suicide from an apparent one, see Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. i. p. 575. From a third to a half of all suicides are by drowning. Compare Dufau, Traité de Statistique, p. 304; Winslow's Anatomy of Suicide, 1840, p. 277; Quetelet, Statistique Morale, p. 66. But among these, many are no doubt involuntary; and it is certain that popular opinion grossly exaggerates the length of time during which it is possible to remain under water. Brodie's Surgery, 1846, pp. 89–92.

27

‘Tout semble dépendre de causes déterminées. Ainsi, nous trouvons annuellement à peu près le même nombre de suicides, non-seulement en général, mais encore en faisant la distinction des sexes, celle des âges, ou même celle des instruments employés pour se détruire. Une année reproduit si fidèlement les chiffres de l'année qui a précédé, qu'on peut prévoir ce qui doit arriver dans l'année qui va suivre.’ Quetelet, Statistique Morale, 1848, p. 35; see also p. 40.

28

On the causes of suicides, see Burdach's Traité de Physiologie, vol. v. pp. 476–478; and Forry's Climate and its Endemic Influences, p. 329. The latest researches of M. Casper confirm the statement of earlier statisticians, that suicide is more frequent among Protestants than among Catholics. Casper, Denkwürdigkeiten zur medicinischen Statistik, Berlin, 1846, p. 139.

29

See the tables in the Assurance Magazine, no. iv. p. 309, no. v. p. 34, no. viii. p. 350. These are the only complete consecutive returns of London suicides yet published; those issued by the police being imperfect. Assurance Magazine, no. v. p. 53. From inquiries made for me at the General Register Office, in January 1856, I learnt that there was an intention of completing the yearly returns, but I do not know if this has since been done.

30

‘L'expérience démontre en effet, avec toute l'évidence possible, cette opinion, qui pourra sembler paradoxale au premier abord, que c'est la société qui prépare le crime, et que le coupable n'est que l'instrument qui l'exécute.’ Quetelet sur l'Homme, vol. ii. p. 325.

31

The diagonal always giving the resultant when each side represents a force; and if we look on the resultant as a compound force, a comparison of diagonals becomes a comparison of compounds.

32

A law of nature being merely a generalization of relations, and having no existence except in the mind, is essentially intangible; and therefore, however small the law may be, it can never admit of exceptions, though its operation may admit of innumerable exceptions. Hence, as Dugald Stewart (Philosophy of the Mind, vol. ii. p. 211) rightly says, we can only refer to the laws of nature ‘by a sort of figure or metaphor.’ This is constantly lost sight of even by authors of repute; some of whom speak of laws as if they were causes, and therefore liable to interruption by larger causes; while other writers pronounce them to be ‘delegated agencies’ from the Deity. Compare Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 318, 435, 495; Sadler's Law of Population, vol. ii. p. 67; Burdach's Physiologie,

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