22 sociology theory questions (Durkheim, Emile ).short answers

208 SUICIDE

cance. In France during the years 1870-71, suicide diminished only in the cities:

1866-69 1870-72

Suicides per Million Inhabitants Urban Population Rural Population

202 161

104 110

Recordings of suicides must, however, have been more difficult in the country than in the city. The true reason for this difference accordingly lies elsewhere. The war produced its full moral effect only on the urban population, more sensitive, impressionable and also better informed on current events than the rural population. Rhese facts are therefore susceptible of only one interpretation;

namely, that great social disturbances and great popular wars rouse collective sentiments, stimulate partisan spirit and patriotism, politi- cal and national faith, alike, and concentrating activity toward a single end, at least temporarily cause a stronger integration of society. The salutary influence which we have just shown to exist is due not to the crisis but to the struggles it occasions. As they force men to close ranks and confront the common danger, the individual thinks less of himself and more of the common causeJBesides, it is com- prehensible that this integration may not be purely momentary but may sometimes outlive its immediate causes, especially when it is intense.

VI We have thus successively set up the three following propositions:

\Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of religious society.

Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of domestic society.

Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of ,, political society. _j

This grouping shows that whereas these different societies have a moderating influence upon suicide, this is due not to special charac- teristics of each but to a characteristic common to all. Religion does not owe its efficacy to the special nature of religious sentiments, since domestic and political societies both produce the same effects when

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EGOISTIC SUICIDE 209

strongly integrated. This, moreover, we have already proved when studying directly the manner of action of different religions upon suicide.46 \J!.lversely, it is not the specific nature of the domestic or political tie which can explain the immunity they confer, since religious society has the same advantage. The cause can only be found in a single quality possessed by all these social groups, though per- haps to varying degrees. The only qua\ity satisfying this condition is that they are all strongly integrated social groups. So we reach the general conclusion: suicide varies inversely with the degree of inte- gration of the social groups of which the individual forms a parfJ

ffiut society cannot disintegrate without the individual simultane- ously detaching himself from social life, without his own goals be- coming preponderant over those of the community, in a word with- out his personality tending to surmount the collective personality. The more weakened the groups to which he belongs, the less he depends on them, the more he consequently depends only on himself and recognizes no other rules of conduct than what are founded on his private interests. Tf we agree to call this state egoism, in which the individual ego asserts itself to excess in the face of the social ego and at its expense, we may call egoistic the special type of suicide springing from excessive individualisrri.' r -But how can suicide have such an origin?

First of all,jt c:an be said that, as collective force is one of the obstacles best calculated to restrain suicide, its weakening involves a development of suicide. @hen society is strongly integrated, it holds individuals under its control, considers them at its service and thus forbids them to dispose wilfully of themselves. Accordingly it opposes their evading their duties to it through death. But how could society impose its supremacy upon them when they refuse to accept this subordination as legitimate? It no longer then possesses the requisite authority to retain them in their duty if they wish to desert; and conscious of its own weakness, it even recognizes their right to do freely what it can no longer prevent. So far as they are the admitted masters of their destinies, it is their privilege to end their lives. They, on their part, have no reason to endure life's suffer- ings patiently. For they cling to life more resolutely when belonging to a group they love, so as not to betray interests they put before their

46 See above, Book II, Ch. 2.

210 SUICIDE

own. The bond that unites them with the common cause attaches them to life and the lofty goal they envisage prevents their feeling personal troubles so deeply. There is, in short, in a cohesive and animated society a constant interchange of ideas and feelings from all to each and each to all, something like a mutual moral support, which instead of throwing the individual on his own resources, leads him to share in the collective energy and supports his own when ex- haustecQ

But these reasons are purely secondary. Excessive individualism not only results in favoring the action of suicidogenic causes, but it is itself such a cause. It not only frees man's inclination to do away with himself from a protective obstacle, but creates this inclination out of whole cloth and thus gives birth to a special suicide which bears its mark. This must be clearly understood for this is what con- stitutes the ~pecial character of the type of suicide just distinguished and justifies the name we have given it. What is there then in in- dividualism that explains this result? flt has been sometimes said that because of his psychological con-

stitution, man cannot live without attachment to some object which transcends and survives him, and that the reason for this necessity is a need we must have not to perish entirely. Life is said to be in- tolerable unless some reason for existing is involved, some purpose justifying life's trials. The individual alone is not a sufficient end for his activity. He is too little. He is not only hemmed in spatially; he is also strictly limited temporally. When, therefore, we have no other object than ourselves we cannot avoid the thought that our efforts will finally end in nothingness, since we ourselves disappear. But annihilation terrifies us. Under these conditions one would lose courage to live, that is, to act and struggle, since nothing will remain of our exertions. The state of egoism, in other words, is supposed to be contradictory to human nature and, consequently, too uncer- tain to have chances of permanence']

In this absolute formulation the proposition is vulnerable. If the thought of the end of our personality were really so hateful, we could consent to live only by blinding ourselves voluntarily as to life's value. For if we may in a measure avoid the prospect of an- nihilation we cannot extirpate it; it is inevitable, whatever we do. We may push back the frontier for some generations, force our name to

EGOISTIC SUICIDE 2II

endure for some years or centuries longer than our body; a moment, too soon for most men, always comes when it will be nothing. For the groups we join in order to prolong our existence by their means are themselves mortal; they too must dissolve, carrying with them all our deposit of ourselves. Those are few whose memories are closely enough bound to the very history of humanity to be assured of living until its death. So, if we really thus thirsted after immor- 'tality, no such brief perspectives could ever appease us. Besides, what of us is it that lives? A word, a sound, an imperceptible trace, most often anonymous, 47 therefore nothing comparable to the violence of our efforts or able to justify them to us. In actuality, though a child is naturally an egoist who feels not the slightest craving to survive himself, and the old man is very often a child in this and so many other respects, neither ceases to cling to life as much or more than the adult; indeed we have seen that suicide is very rare for the first fifteen years and tends to decrease at the other extreme of life. Such too is the case with animals, whose psychological constitution differs from that of men only in degree. It is therefore untrue that life is only possible by its possessing its rationale outside of itself. [!.ndeed, a whole range of functions concern only the individual;

tnese are the ones indispensable for physical life. Since they are made for this purpose only, they are perfected by its attainment. In every- thing concerning them, therefore, man can act reasonably without thought of transcendental purposes. These functions serve by merely serving him. In so far as he has no other needs, he is therefore self- sufficient and can live happily with no other objective than living. This is not the case, however, with the civilized adult. He has many ideas, feelings and practices unrelated to organic needs. The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supra-physical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment. The influence of society is what has aroused in us the sentiments of sympathy and solidarity drawing us toward

41 We say nothing of the ideal protraction of life involved in the belief in im- mortality of the soul, for ( r) this cannot explain why the family or attachment to political society preserves us from suicide; and ( 2) it is not even this belief which forms religion's prophylactic influence, as we have shown above.

212 SUICIDE

others; it is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions. To play our social role we have striven to extend our intelligence and it is still society that has supplied us with tools for this development by transmitting to us its trust fund of knowledgC:J

Through the very fact that these superior forms of h11roan activity haveacoliectivecrngm, they have a collective purpose. As they de- tive -from societytfiey-have reference to it; rather they are society itself incarnatedand ind1V1duahzed in each one of us. But for them t()~~_i:~I~n K~tndn_gJJ.r eyes~~ose they envisa~st be one not indifferent Jo us. w~~ . ..to. .. Jhes.~_S. of human activity only to the degree th~L~~-cliPg .. to .~o_ci~cy,)tsell.> Contrari- wise, in the. same-·measure as_w.e..ieel. detapied from societµrre.: -·-··--·- come detached from that li~se .. ~~-J!.ruLairojs socie~. For whafpurpose·ao~Hies~es of morality, these precepts of law bind- ing us to all sorts of sacrifices, these restrictive dogmas exist, if there is no being outside us whom they serve and in whom we participate? What is the purpos(! e>_f_ science itself? Uf its only use is to increase our chances for -survival;· iCdoes not· deserve the trouble it entails. Instinct acquits itself better ·of this role; animals prove this. Why substitute for it a more hesitant and uncertain reflection? What is the end of suffering, above all? If the value of things can only be esti- mated by their relation to this positive evil for the individual, it is without reward and incomprehensible. This problem does not exist for the believer firm in his faith or the man strongly bound by ties of domestic or political society. Instinctively and unreflectively they ascribe all that they are and do, the one to his Church or his God, the living symbol of the Church, the other to his family, the third to his country or party. Even in their sufferings they: see only. a means of glorifying the group to which they belong and thus do homage to it. So, the Christian ultimately desires and seeks suffering to testify more fully to his contempt for the flesh and more fully resemble his divine model. But the more the believer doubts, that is, the less he feels himself a real participant in the religious faith to which he belongs, and from which he is freeing himself; the more the family and community become foreign to the individual, so much the more does he become a mystery to himself, unable to escape the exasperat- ing and agonizing question: to what purpose?

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EGOISTIC SUICIDE 213

!If, in other words, as has often been said, man is double, that is because social man superimposes himself upon physical man. Social man necessarily presupposes a society which he expresses and serves. If this dissolves, if we no longer feel it in existence and action about and above us, whatever is social in us is deprived of all objec- tive foundation. All that remains is an artificial combination of illusory images, a phantasmagoria vanishing at the least reflection; that is, nothing which can be a goal for our action. Yet this social man is the essence of civilized man; he is the masterpiece of exist- ence. Thus we are bereft of reasons for existence; for the only life to which we could cling no longer corresponds to anything actual;, the only existence still based upon reality no longer meets our needs. j Because we have been initiated into a higher existence, the one which satisfies an animal or a child can satisfy us no more and the other itself fades and leaves us helpless. So there is nothing more for our efforts to lay hold of, and we feel them lose themselves in emptiness. In this sense it is true to say that our activity needs an object tran- scending it. We do not need it to maintain ourselves in the illusion of an impossible immortality; it is implicit in our moral constitution and cannot be even partially lost without this losing its raison d'etre in the same degree. No proof is needed that in such a state of con- fusion the least cause of discouragement may easily give birth to desperate resolutions. If life is not worth the trouble of being lived, everything becomes a pretext to rid ourselves of it.

But this is not all. This detachment occurs not only in single in- dividuals. One of the constitutive elements of every national tem- perament consists of a certain way of estimatin'g'-the · value of exist- ence·. There. is··a colle£ti.Ye as well as an individual humor inclining e::.~p1es to sadness ~~-c.~~erfu,1~e~~. ni~~!!,f th~l!i~~~e things in bright or somore·"tignl:s:-rn fact, only sodetycan pass a collective opinion ori.the vaJiie··oTTiurria~ -iif~-;--forthls- the .. in3iv1dual is incompetent. The iatter kriows-n-~thin'g' but himself and his own little horizon; thus his experience is too limited to serve as a basis for a general appraisal. He may indeed consider his own life to be aimless; he can say nothing applicable to others. On the contrary, without sophistry. society may generalize its own feeling as to itself, its state of health or lack of health. For individuals share too deeply in the life of society for it to be diseased without their suffering -in.Tecfion:--wliit

- -~~-~---~---~·-------" ----~- - ___ .....,........ __

214 SUICIDE

it suffers they necessarily suffer. Because it is the whole, its ills are -c~1!1?1:l!~lc.e!_~d to its eir~ Hence it cannot disintegrate without awareness that the regular conditions of general existence are equally disturbed. Because society is the end on which our better selves de- pe~~,_i!_can.:_~_<?1 feel us ~Cai;?mg l~~hout ~ulta1,1eous reaI§ati£.n fhat _ 01:1~--~~!ivi~~~.J:~Ee~~~!f:~s:._,§,i,~:=_~~,..!re_~~.!..~.~11?_~0~~, __ society cannot be -conscious of its own decadence without the Teelin1ftliat hencefoill1Hus workisc;f no value. Thence are formed currents of depress16n-ancfciisilfusionment~n"ifuigfio:""mno_12.arti~-indi- vidual but expressing ~..s~~te . .QJ disintegra~~~Th«::Y"J,eflect the relaxation orsociar bongs.._;uort of collectiv~~st~ia, or social mafaise"Just as r i~d~;,tl ~adness~heruhmnif,j,Qjts,_ wayrefi~<:.~i- the poor o~g~~1~-~.~~!<: ~gf.thejndividual. Then metaphysical. an~ r_e- ligi':)~~y~tems..._sptlngu.p_}YQich,J?y reducing these o~s~.!~ents Fcn:ormulae, _attempt to pr9ve to men the_senselessness_ of life and that it is self-deception· to believe that __ it_ has _purpose. Then new mbralifies'originafe whicn:·15felevating facts to ethicsl. commend sui- cide or--at}east tend JE~W~~onfiisu~i-~g a mm1mat exist- ence. On_ thei_r ~ppearance they seem to have been _ _c~atectoiitol' whole cloth by their' makerswlioare-sometimes blamed for the pessimism of their doctrines. In reality they are an effect rather than a cau_~~;-~-~--f!l..<:£.<:!Y..~Y.l]lQ_Qlize in abstract lang1:_~e and systematic form the physiol2.gical.distress_of the body social.48 As these currents are collective, they have, by virtue of their origin, an authority which they impose upon the individual and they drive him more vigorously on the way to which he is already inclined by the state of moral distress directly aroused in him by the disintegration of society. Thus, at the very moment that, with excessive zeal, he frees himself from the social environment, he still submits to its influence. How- ever individualized a man may be, there is always something collec- tive remaining-the very depression and melancholy resulting from this same exaggerated individualism. He effects communion through sadness when he no longer has anything else with which to achieve it.

He~_ thi.Llypttf suicide _well _des_er_yes tbe oame__w_e_liay_~en it-Egoism is not merely a cont!_puting f ~ct9!Jn_j_tjt_is...it:£_,generating cause. In this case the bond attach._~~ mE,n to life relaxes be(a.us.e.

.... ~ ., ·--·, -·-· ~·--·~ -- ~-....... . 48 This is why it is unjust to accuse these theorists of sadness of generalizing per.

sonal impressions. They are the echo of a general condition.

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EGOISTIC SUICIDE 215

that 3:ttaching him t?, s"~:i.~-~-}s ~!~<:l.D!~~k. Thejngg~nts of _private lif~,-~hi~eem the ~!!~~~~~~Pif!~<;m of suicig_~-~~c!_.<1.f:<! considered its de~r~i~n_g.~~~S}re_ i?J7ality onlyjn_ci4_ental causes._ The indi- vidual yields to the sHgFte~hockof circumstance b_eQnm: the state of s()detz.ha(~~~: Iiim 3:l~<:~ to ~~-is.i~e. .

Several facts conhrnl this explanation. Su1C1de 1s known to be rare among children and to diminish among the aged at the last confines of life; physical man, in both, tends to-,'become the whole of man. Society is still lacking in the former, for it has not had the time to form him in its image; it begins to retreat from the latter or, what amounts to the same thing, ·he retreats from it. Thus both are more self-sufficient. Feeding a lesser need for self-completion through something not themselves, they are also less exposed to feel the lack of what is necessary for living. The immunity of an animal has the same causes. We shall likewise see in the next chapter that, though lower societies practice a form of suicide of their own, the one we have just discussed is almost unknown to them. Since their social Iif e is very simple, the social inclinations of individuals are simple also and thus they need little for satisfaction. They readily find ex- ternal objectives to which they become attached. If he can carry with him his gods and his family, primitive man, everywhere that he goes, has all that his social nature demands.

This is also why woman can endure life in isolation more easily than man. When a widow is seen to endure her condition much better than a widower and desires marriage less passionately, one is led to consider this ease in dispensing with the family a mark of superiority; it is said that woman's affective faculties, being very intense, are easily employed outside the domestic circle, while her devotion is indispensable to man to help him endure life. Actually, if this is her privilege it is because her sensibility is rudimentary rather than highly developed. As she lives outside of community existence more than man, she is less penetrated by it; society is less necessary to her because she is less impregnated with sociability. She has few needs in this direction and satisfies them easily. With a few devotional practices and some animals to care for, the old un- married woman's life is full. If she remains faithfully attached to religious traditions and thus finds ready protection against suicide, it is because these very simple social forms satisfy all her needs. Man,

216 SUICIDE

on the contrary, is hard beset in this respect. As his thought and activity develop, they increasingly overflow these antiquated forms. But then he needs others. Because he is a more complex social being, he can maintain his equilibrium only by finding more points of support outside himself, and it is because his moral balance depends on a larger number of conditions that it is more easily disturbed.

CHAPTER 4 ALTRUISTIC SUICIDE 1

~N THE order of existence, no good is measureless. A biological quality can only fulfill the purposes it is meant to serve on condition that it does not transgress certain limits. So with social phenomena. If, as we have just seen, excessive individuation leads to suicide, insufficient individuation has the same effects. When man has become detached from society, he encounters less resistance to suicide in him- self, and he does so likewise when social integration is too stron~J

I It has sometimes 2 been said that suicide was unknown among

lower societies. Thus expressed, the assertion is inexact. To be sure, egoistic suicide, constituted as has just been shown, seems not to be frequent there. But another form exists among them in an endemic state.

Bartholin, in his book, De Causis contemptae mortis a Danis, reports that Danish warriors considered it a disgrace to die in bed

1 Bibliography.-Steinmetz, Suicide Among Primitive Peoples, in American An· thropo/ogist, January 1894.-Waitz, Anthropo/ogie der Naturvoe/ker, passim.- Suicides dans /es Armees, in Journal de la societe de stati11ique, 1874, p. 250.- Millar, Statistic of military suicide, in Journal of the Statistical Society, London, June 1874.-Mesnier, Du suicide dans /'Armee, Paris 1881.-Bournet, Crimina/ite en France el en Italie, p. 83 ff.-Roth, Die Selbstmorde in de, K. u. K. Armee, in den Jahren 187.3-80, in Statistische Monatschrift, 1892.-Rosenfeld, Die Se/bstmorde in der Preussischen Armee, in Militarwochenblatt, 1894, 3. supplement.-By the same, Der Se/bstmord in de, K. u. K. oesterreichischen Heere, in Deutsche Worte, 1893.-Anthony, Suicide dans l'armee allemande, in Arch. de med. et de phar. mi/i- taire, Paris, 1895.

2 Oettingen, Moralslatistik, p. 762. 217