ut
what is most provoking in Mr. Buckle is the heedlessness or wantonness
with which he is constantly insisting that the causes in question are
necessarily present and uniformly acting. What he calls the uniform
reproduction of crime is likened by him to the uniform recurrence of the
tides. According to him, it is a law that a certain number of suicides
shall take place annually, just as it is a law that there shall be high
and low water twice in every twenty-four hours. Now a law, as the word
is here used, means a record of invariable repetitions of phenomena. Has
it been observed, then, that suicides bear, we will not say an
invariable, but anything like a definite proportion to population? Mr.
Buckle thinks it has, and he adduces some facts in support of the
opinion; but his facts, properly understood, disprove instead of proving
what he asserts; and, even if they proved it, they would yet afford no
support to his main theory.

In London, for some years past--how many is not stated--about 240
persons annually have made away with themselves--sometimes a few more,
sometimes a few less--the highest number having been 266 in 1846, and
the lowest 213 in 1849. But, while the number of suicides has thus been
nearly stationary, population has been anything but stationary in the
metropolitan district, but has advanced with vast and unremitting
strides at an average rate of nearly 43,000 a year. In 1841 it was
1,948,369; in 1851, 2,361,640; and in 1861, 2,803,989. The proportion of
suicide to population has consequently been by no means uniform, but has
varied exceedingly, and on the whole has shown a constant tendency to
decrease. But even if it had continued uniform, it would simply have
shown that, during a certain number of years, the general character of
Londoners had, in certain particulars, undergone no material change. It
would not have proved that the regularity of suicide observable among
Londoners was in accordance with any general law. To prove this it would
have been necessary to show that the proportion had been uniform, not
only in the same but in all societies; in Paris as well as in London,
among the Esquimaux of Labrador, and among the Negroes of Soudan. For,
if the proportion were found to vary by reason of the differing
circumstances of different societies, it would plainly be seen to be at
least susceptible of variation in the same society, inasmuch as in no
society do circumstances remain the same from ge