The moral actions of men, said Buckle, are the product of their antecedents. In other words, when an action is performed, it is performed in consequence of certain motives; those motives are the results of some antecedents; “therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents and with all the laws of their movements we could with certainty foretell the whole of their immediate results. This great social law is liable to disturbances which trouble its operation, without affecting its truth.”
Ergo, given any set of circumstances, and nothing could have happened, save that which did happen; and under exactly the same conditions, the conduct of men must ever issue in the same results. The past should be dismissed without regrets. Our position, at any time, should be judged as it really is, and not for what we vainly suppose it might have been; “for nothing is more certain than that we could not have acted differently in any act of our lives, with the state of mind and circumstances then existing.”
Statistics, likewise, are daily making it evident that the same fixed calculable laws exist in the departments of life and mind as in physics. “In individual cases, or in a limited circle, apparent uncertainty may exist. Within a given number of cases, however, and a large field, invariable results may be looked for.”
In the 12th annual report of William Farr, Esq., to the Registrar General of England, we are told “it may be broadly stated that 27 in 1000 men of the population of the age of 20 and under 60, are suffering from one kind of disease or another; that several are of long duration, that others are recurrent, and that some are hereditary.” We are informed in a subsequent report of the Registrar himself, that it seems to be a “law” one person out of every 45, living at the commencement of any year, will die within that year. (The entire system of insurance—life, fire, and marine—is erected on the principle contended for in this chapter. Not only do a certain relative number of men die in each class annually, but the law extends to the number of policies lapsed each year. There seems also to be a periodicity in the number of fires and marine disasters.)
According to Porter and Buckle, even “marriage is not determined by the temper and wishes of the individual, but by large general facts over which individuals can exercise no authority. It is now known that marriages bear a fixed and definite relation to the price of corn.” A century’s experience in England demonstrates that marriages are regulated by the average earnings of the great mass of people. Cheapness of provision and not love regulates the number of nuptials. Combe affirms the same striking coincidence in the ratio of births in Great Britain.
Another singular fact has been deduced from the official reports of England and France. “Even forgetfulness is under a constant law.” Buckle is an authority for the statement that “year after year, the same proportion of letter-writers forget to direct their letters, in some part; so that for each successive period we can actually foretell the number of persons whose memory will fail them in regard to this trifling occurrence.”
By the same witness we prove “the uniform reproduction of crime is more clearly marked, and more capable of being predicted than are the physical laws connected with the disease and destruction of our bodies.” Before this, Combe had observed a similar uniformity, under similar circumstances, of the recurrence of crimes. He perceived in human conduct the same striking indications of constancy in results, as in the prevalence of disease and the endurance of life. Combe said, in 1854, in writing by way of comment on a certain report to the House of Commons: “During the five years, ending with the last year of an execution, there were committed for the crimes enumerated, 7276 persons, of whom 196 were executed. During the five years immediately following the last execution, there were committed for the same offense 7120. Does not this show that these crimes arose from causes in themselves permanent, and which punishment does not remove?” Rawson also remarked that the greatest variation which had taken place during three years, in the proportion of any class of criminals, at the same period of life, had not exceeded a half per cent.
And Dr. Brown states (Vol. 8 of the Assurance Magazine), that “in twenty years, 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 proportional per cent under each age with the totals.” M. Quatelet deduced from the statistical returns of government in the same country, that for 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829 and 1830, in each year, there was one person accused out of every 4463 inhabitants, and 61 condemned out of every 100 accused. “In everything which concerns crime,” observed this greatest of statisticians, “the same numbers re-occur with a constancy which cannot be mistaken, and that this is the case, even with those crimes which seem quite independent of human foresight, such, for instance, as murders, which are generally committed after quarrels arising from circumstances apparently casual. Nevertheless, we know from experience, that every year there not only take place the same number of murders, but even the instruments by which they are committed, are employed in the same proportion.” Murder, then, “occurs with as much regularity as the movements of the tides and the rotation of the seasons.”
“Self-murder,” Buckle observes, “seems to be not only capricious and uncontrollable, but also very obscure in regard to proof.” Yet, in different countries, for which we have returns, we find, year by year, the same proportion of persons putting an end to their own existence. In London, for example, about 240 persons make away with themselves every year; the annual suicides oscillating, from the pressure of temporary causes, between 266, the highest, and 213, the lowest. In 1846, which was the great year of excitement—caused by the railroad panic—the suicides in London were 266; in 1847 began a slight improvement, and they fell to 256; in 1848 they were 247; in 1849 they were 213; in 1850 they were 229.
In the “Journey through India,” Heber mentions the vain attempt of the English government to check the frequent suicides by drowning, committed at Benares; and August Comte has exposed the folly of thinking that suicide can be diminished by the enactments of law-givers.