Making all possible allowance for increased population in each of these countries throughout the space of twenty years, and for greater accuracy in the later records than in the earlier ones, it still remains incontestable that in civilized countries suicide is on the increase, and that this increase exceeds that of the population.

By taking the annual proportion to a million of inhabitants, we shall perceive that this crime is more frequent in some countries than in others. The following figures comprise the period from 1856 to 1866:

Yearly suicides to one million of inhabitants,

in France 111
in Belgium 47
in Denmark 276
in Austria 64
in Prussia 122
in Saxony 245
in Bavaria 72
in Hanover 137
in Würtemberg 85
in Baden 108
in Hesse 134
in Mecklenburg 162
in Nassau 102
in Portugal 7
in England and Wales 65
in Hungary 30
in Dalmatia 11
in Europe generally 84

Very notable differences may be observed in these figures. The degree of intellectual culture and social refinement is about the same in Saxony as in Belgium, yet these two countries stand widely apart on the record of suicides, even if it be allowed that the estimate for Belgium is somewhat too low. There can be no doubt that religion exercises a decided influence in this matter. Saxony is a Protestant country, whilst Belgium is Catholic. Similar divergences exist in favor of Austria when compared with Prussia, and of Bavaria compared with Hanover.

Suicides are far more frequent amongst Protestants than amongst Catholics. The latter possess in their faith far more remedies against temptation to suicide than the former are able to obtain from theirs. A Protestant despairs more readily than a Catholic.

These remarks apply only to countries at large. The great metropolises, which may properly be designated hot-beds of suicide, must be taken as exceptions, because in them practical religion easily dies out and cannot exercise its usual influence. In the year 1865, when Paris had a population of 1,863,000 inhabitants, there were 706 cases of suicide, that is, one to every 2638; in Vienna, with a population of 550,000 inhabitants, there were 110 cases, that is, one for every 5000; in London, with 3,000,000 inhabitants, there were 267, that is, one for every 11,715; and in New York, population 1,095,000, 36 cases of suicide, one to every 28,000 inhabitants. Accordingly, the greatest number of suicides is committed in Paris, where reign the highest degree of social culture and the most rigorous police surveillance, and the smallest number occurs in New York, the seat of the greatest social and political liberty.

We may here state, as a general rule, that high intellectual culture is not a preventive of suicide. Observation shows, on the contrary, that it is comparatively most frequent in countries where the enlightenment of the population has attained the highest point, and that it occurs far oftener in cities than in rural districts. This fact is unmistakable evidence that moral improvement is not keeping pace with intellectual progress, and that governments, whilst furthering the latter with increasing zeal, are not bestowing sufficient care on the former. From the year 1826 to the year 1860, suicides increased 130 per cent in France, whilst the population increased but 13 per cent. This astounding circumstance has been looked upon as attributable to the advancement of industry and the progress of science and popular education; and no doubt justly, if we consider how much more frequently suicide is committed in the enlightened northern and eastern departments of France than in the less progressive southern and western.

Something similar is noticeable in Germany. Saxony and its neighboring provinces rank undeniably as high in general education as any state in Germany; but it is also to be remarked that they furnish the largest number of cases of suicide; whilst in the Tyrol, Old Bavaria, and other provinces of a lower grade of general education, the number is considerably less. And if, in the Catholic parts of the Rhenish provinces and in Westphalia, which are not behind Saxony in general culture, suicides are of less frequent occurrence, we are only justified in attributing the difference to the happy influence of the Catholic religion.

Quite a peculiar discovery from statistics, and one that at first thought is rather astonishing, is the fact that the number of suicides increases with the advance of age, and that the proportion appears to be equal in the two sexes. It seems that indifference about life and recklessness about the dread future become greater as the years of life pass by. This, however, may be psychologically accounted for without inventing for the purpose a general law, according to which suicides are supposed to be apportioned to the various ages of human life.