Through both columns a definite curve may be drawn which grows steadily and drops steadily. Greater mathematical certainty is almost unthinkable. Of similar great importance is the parallelization of the most important conditions. When, e.g., suicides in France, from 1826 to 1870 are taken in series of five years we find the figures 1739, 2263, 2574, 2951, 3446, 3639, 4002, 4661, 5147; if now during that period the population has increased from 30 to only 36 millions other determining factors have to be sought.[167]
Again, most authorities as quoted by Gutberlet,[168] indicate that most suicides are committed in June, fewest in December; most at night, especially at dawn, fewest at noon, especially between twelve and two o’clock. The greatest frequency is among the half-educated, the age between sixty and seventy, and the nationality Saxon (Oettingen).
The combination of such observations leads to the indubitable conclusion that the results are sufficiently constant to permit making at least an assumption with regard to the cases in hand. At present, statistics say little of benefit with regard to the individual; J. S. Mill is right in holding that the death-rate will help insurance companies but will tell any individual little concerning the duration of his life. According to Adolf Wagner, the principal statistical rule is: The law has validity when dealing with great numbers; the constant regularity is perceivable only when cases are very numerous; single cases show many a variation and exception. Quetelet has shown the truth of this in his example of the circle. “If you draw a circle on the blackboard with thick chalk, and study its outline closely in small sections, you will find the coarsest irregularities; but if you step far back and study the circle as a whole, its regular, perfect form becomes quite distinct.” But the circle must be drawn carefully and correctly, and one must not give way to sentimentality and tears when running over a fly’s legs in drawing. Emil du Bois-Reymond[169] says against this: “When the postmaster announces that out of 100,000 letters a year, exactly so and so many come unaddressed, we think nothing of the matter--but when Quetelet counts so and so many criminals to every 100,000 people our moral sense is aroused since it is painful to think that we are not criminals simply because somebody else has drawn the black spot.” But really there is as little regrettable in this fact as in the observation that every year so and so many men break their legs, and so and so many die--in those cases also, a large number of people have the good fortune not to have broken their legs nor to have died. We have here the irrefutable logic of facts which reveals nothing vexatious.