Suicide as a social phenomenon

E. Durkheim, prof. sociology. Suicide. Sociological study In recent days, the issue of suicide has increasingly attracted the attention of science and journalism. The number of suicides reaches such terrifying proportions that it is no longer possible to calmly contemplate this social evil. This epidemic of suicide depresses the spirit of the observer, both in itself, as a loss of precious human lives, and as the most striking symptom of social disorder. Therefore, one cannot help but welcome the translation of a solid work by a famous French sociologist on the issue of suicide. The proposed article has as its task to acquaint readers of the Theological Bulletin with the contents of Durkheim’s book. Suicide can be viewed from two perspectives - individual and social. Durkheim's work is constructed exclusively from a social point of view. Individual conditions to which a priori can be attributed an influence on suicide are of two types. First, there are external circumstances in which the suicide finds itself: sometimes people who take their own lives suffer from family grief, from wounded pride, sometimes they are depressed by poverty and illness, sometimes they are tormented by remorse, etc. But these individual characteristics are not able to explain the social percentage of suicides, because it changes quite significantly while various combinations of circumstances immediately preceding individual suicides retain almost the same relative frequency. This proves that they are not the decisive causes of the act which they precede. The prominent role they sometimes play in a decision is not yet proof of their strength. The conclusions that a person has reached through conscious reflection are often only formal and have no other result than the strengthening of a previous decision made for reasons completely unknown to consciousness. In addition, the circumstances that seem to be the causes of suicide only because they often accompany it are of unlimited number. One kills himself while living in wealth, another in poverty; one was unhappy in his family life, the other, through divorce, broke the marriage ties that made him unhappy. Here a soldier who was unjustly punished for a crime he did not commit takes his own life, there a criminal kills himself because his crime went unpunished. Life events, the most diverse and sometimes opposite, can be a reason for suicide, which means that none of them can be called its specific cause. Perhaps, perhaps, at least, to look for this reason in the common character that is characteristic of all of them? But does it really exist? The most that can be said is that the general character is one of trouble and grief, but it is absolutely impossible to determine what intensity grief must reach in order to lead a person to such a tragic outcome. There is not even the slightest discontent of which it can be said that it will not become intolerable, just as there is no need for it to necessarily become intolerable. We sometimes see people suffer terrible misfortunes while others kill themselves due to minor annoyance. Individuals whose lives are especially difficult are not among the people who kill themselves most often. Rather, on the contrary, an excess of the comforts of life arms a person against himself. Those classes of society more easily part with life for which life is freer and easier, and in those eras when this freedom is greatest: if in reality it happens that the personal state of a suicide is the main reason for his decision, then this happens extremely rarely and, therefore, cannot serve as an explanation for the social percentage of suicides. And even those researchers who attribute the greatest influence to individual conditions look for them not so much in external accidents as in the internal nature of the subject, that is, in its biological structure and the physical environment on which it depends. Suicide is therefore portrayed as a product of a certain temperament, as an episode of neurasthenia, subject to the action of the same factors as it. But if we pay close attention to the question, we will not find any direct and correct relationship between neurasthenia and the social percentage of suicides. It happens that these two phenomena change in the opposite sense and that one reaches a minimum where the other is at its apogee. Nor will we find any definite relationship between the suicide movement and the state of the physical environment, which is said to have a particularly strong influence on the nervous system, such as race, climate, temperature. And even if we admit that under certain conditions a neuropath exhibits some predisposition to suicide, this does not mean that he is destined to take his own life; and the influence of cosmic factors is not able to impart a completely precise and definite direction to these extremely general inclinations of his nature. We will obtain completely different results when, leaving aside the individual himself, we begin to look in the nature of societies for the reasons for the predisposition to suicide that is observed in each of them. As much as the relationship between suicide and the laws of physical and biological order is doubtful and ambiguous, so direct and constant are the relationships between suicide and known states of the social environment. These relationships can even be formulated in the form of laws. Sociological causes defined in this way will explain to us even those individual coincidences that were often attributed to the influence of material causes and in which they wanted to see evidence of this influence. If the number of women who commit suicide is much less than the number of men, this is due to the fact that the former have much less contact with collective life and therefore feel its bad or good influence less strongly. The same thing is observed in relation to old people and children, although for slightly different reasons. Then, if the number of suicides increases from January to June and then begins to decrease, it is because social activities are experiencing the same seasonal changes. It is quite natural that the various results that this activity produces are subject to the same rhythm as itself, and, therefore, are most noticeable during the first of these periods: but since suicide is also a product of this activity, it too is subject to the same laws. From all these facts we can draw the conclusion that the percentage of suicides depends only on sociological reasons and that the contingent of voluntary deaths is determined by the moral organization of society. Every nation has a certain collective force of a certain intensity that pushes a person to commit suicide. Those actions that a suicide commits and which at first glance seem to be a manifestation of personal temperament, are in fact a consequence and continuation of a certain social state that finds external manifestation in them. Next, we will look at the positive part of Durkheim’s book, dwelling in some detail on the social relations of suicide, and above all, on the relationship of suicide to religion. Suicide and Religion. If you look at the European map of suicides, then at first glance it will be evident that in purely Catholic countries, such as Italy, Portugal and Spain, suicides are very low, while the maximum is observed in Protestant countries, in Prussia, Saxony and Denmark. From this point of view, Switzerland, in particular, presents an instructive picture. This country contains both a German and a French population, and therefore the influence of religion on each of these two races can be observed separately. Catholic cantons, regardless of the nationality of their population, have 4 or 5 times fewer suicides than Protestant cantons. Consequently, the influence of religion is so great that it exceeds all other influences. Asking about the reasons for this difference, Durkheim finds an explanation in the very nature of the religious systems of Catholicism and Protestantism. Both prohibit and condemn suicide to the same extent; not only is he subject to the most severe moral punishments, but both religions teach that a new life begins beyond the grave, where people will bear punishment for their sins, which include suicide both in Protestantism and Catholicism. Finally, in both religions the prohibition against killing oneself is of a divine nature. Therefore, if Protestantism favors a greater number of suicides, it is not at all because it treats it differently from Catholicism. But since in this particular case both religions put forward the same moral demand, then their unequal degree of influence on the number of suicides must be caused by some of the more general properties that distinguish them from each other. The only significant difference between Catholicism and Protestantism is the fact that the latter allows for much more freedom of inquiry than the former. The mere fact that Protestantism is an idealistic religion gives much more room for thought and reflection than Greco-Latin polytheism or the monotheism of the Jews. He is not content with mechanical rituals, but wants to control the consciousness of people. He appeals to human consciousness and even at the moment when he calls the mind to blind submission, he himself speaks the language of reason. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Catholic accepts his faith in a ready-made form without any critical examination. He cannot even subject it to historical verification, since he is forbidden to use the originals of the texts on which it is based. In order to ensure that religious tradition remains inviolable, an entire organized hierarchy of authorities has been built with amazing skill. Everything that is new inspires horror in orthodox Catholic thought. The Protestant is to a greater extent the creator of his faith; the Bible is in his hands, and he is not prohibited from interpreting it in any direction. Even the very structure of the Protestant cult reveals its religious individualism. Nowhere except England is there a hierarchical organization of the Protestant clergy; the priest, just like every believer, is subordinate only to himself and his conscience; he is only a more knowledgeable leader than all ordinary believers, but is not invested with any special authority in the field of interpretation of dogma. But what best proves that this freedom of thought, proclaimed by the leaders of the Reformation, did not remain only a Platonic assertion, is the continuous growth of various sects, which present such a living contrast in comparison with the indivisible unity of the Catholic Church. Thus, the tendency of Protestants to suicide must depend on the spirit of free thought with which this religion is imbued. Let us try to understand this dependence in detail, since free thought itself is a consequence of other reasons. When Protestantism was just born, when people, after many years of perceiving their faith in an unshakably traditional form, demanded the right to create it themselves, this did not happen due to the advantages of free search, for freedom brings with it as much suffering as joy. And this need for freedom has only one reason: the decline of traditional beliefs. If tradition acted with undiminished force, then there would be no reason for criticism; if the authority of the tradition remained unshaken, then the daring idea would not have arisen to check its very source. Criticism only rises up against public opinion when it no longer has the same force, that is, it is no longer fully public. Therefore, if it can be argued that the proclaimed freedom of thought multiplies heresies, then it must be added that it itself is generated by heresies, that it can become desired and receive actual implementation only as a principle allowing hidden or semi-overt heresies to develop completely freely. Consequently, if Protestantism devotes more space to individual thought than Catholicism, it means it is poorer in beliefs and less dependent on established customs. A religious society cannot exist without a collective credo, and it is the more united and the more powerful the more widespread this credo is. It does not connect people through the exchange of mutual services - this temporary connection that tolerates differences and even presupposes them, but is not able to reconcile them. Religion unites people only by tying them to the same system of teachings, and this unity is stronger the wider the field the system covers and the more solidly it is built. The more religious imprint lies on the way of thoughts and actions of a given society, the more completely, therefore, the possibility of free research is excluded here, the more strongly the thought of God penetrates into all the details of human existence and directs all individual wills towards one goal. On the contrary, the more private judgments are manifested in a group of believers, the less its role in people’s lives, the weaker its cohesion and vitality. The advantage on the side of Protestantism in the area of ​​suicide comes from the fact that this church is essentially less integral than the Catholic one. The beneficial effects of religion cannot be attributed - according to Durkheim - to the social nature of religious ideas; if it protects man from self-destruction, this is not because it instills, by means of arguments sui generis, respect for the human person, but because it is a society; the essence of this society consists in certain common beliefs and customs, recognized by all believers, sanctified by tradition and therefore obligatory. The more such collective states of consciousness exist, the stronger they are, the more tightly connected the religious community is, the more protective principles it contains. The details of dogmas and rituals in this case are of secondary importance. The point is that they should be by nature capable of nourishing collective life with sufficient intensity; and precisely because the Protestant church is not as tightly knit as all the others, it does not have the same moderating influence on suicide. Family and suicide. If religion protects against suicide insofar as it creates society, then it is likely that other social unions produce the same results. Durgheim views political society and the family from this point of view. Durkheim establishes the following laws that determine the family’s attitude towards suicide: 1. Marriage too early increases suicidal tendencies, especially in men. 2. Starting from the age of 20, married people, in relation to single and unmarried people, have a protection coefficient exceeding one. (Durkheim's safety factor is a number indicating how many times less people in one group take their own lives than others at the same age.) 3. The rate of protection of spouses in relation to single and unmarried people varies depending on gender. In France, the advantage is on the side of men, and the difference between the sexes is quite significant. It may be said that the sex which is most favored in marital condition varies from country to country, and that the magnitude of the deviation between the rates of suicide in the two sexes varies according to which sex is the most favoured. 4. Widowhood reduces the rate of protection of spouses of both sexes, but usually does not completely destroy it. Widowers kill themselves more often than married people, but generally less than completely celibate people. Exactly the same as for spouses, the protection rate of widowers relative to celibates varies depending on gender. The most favored sex among widows varies from country to country, and the magnitude of the deviation between the suicide rates of the two sexes varies depending on which sex is found to be the most favored. The advantages enjoyed by people in the marital state can only be attributed to one of the following two causes. Either we have here the influence of the home environment; in this case, it is the family that neutralizes the suicidal tendency and prevents it from developing. Or this fact is explained by what can be called “marriage selection.” Marriage, indeed, mechanically produces a sort of sorting in the general mass of the population. Not everyone who wants to get married. There is little chance of creating a family for a person who does not have a certain level of health, means of livelihood and certain moral virtues, etc. With this hypothesis, it is no longer the family that protects a person from suicide, crime or illness, but, on the contrary, the advantage of people in a marital state depends on the fact that only those who have serious guarantees of physical and moral health have access to family life. Durkheim rejects the second hypothesis. If the relationship between married and unmarried people was determined by marriage selection, then it should have manifested itself from the moment when selection begins to take effect, that is, when young men and girls get married. At this time, for the first time, a certain deviation should have become apparent, which would then gradually increase as the selection continued, that is, as more mature people married, separating them from that group which, by nature, was destined to form a class of incorrigible bachelors. In reality, it turns out that the protection coefficient varies according to a completely different law. At its starting point, it very often gives way to the inverse coefficient, i.e., an increase in suicide cases. Very young spouses are more likely to commit suicide than single people. This could not have happened if from birth they had contained within themselves conditions that protected them from suicide. Then the maximum difference occurs almost immediately. From the moment when the privileged position of married people begins to emerge (between 20 and 25 years), the coefficient already reaches a figure beyond which it subsequently does not rise. On the contrary, between the ages of 30 and 40, when the division into two groups was finally completed and the class of spouses almost filled all its cadres, the coefficient of protection, instead of reaching its apogee and thus indicating the fact that the matrimonial selection had reached its limit, suddenly and sharply falls. Even more convincing is the fact that the position of both sexes in relation to the protection against suicide enjoyed by married people varies from country to country. It is therefore impossible to admit that marriage selection is a significant factor in the advantage that married people enjoy in relation to suicide, for otherwise it would be inexplicable why this selection produces different results in different countries. On the contrary, it is quite possible that a family in two different countries has developed in such a way that it affects both zeros differently; Therefore, in the very structure of the family group we must look for the main reason for the phenomenon that interests us. But the home environment is made up of a variety of elements. For each spouse, the family consists of [1] the other spouse and [2] children. Is it the first or second of these elements that has a beneficial effect on suicidality? There is evidence that marriage has a small effect on suicide prevention rates. The limited and insignificant influence of marriage itself is seen most clearly from the fact that widowers left with children are in a more favorable position than childless spouses. The advantage in terms of mortality from suicide, which, generally speaking, married people enjoy, is due not to the influence of the marital union itself, but to the influence of the family union. An essential factor in protecting married people from suicide is the family, that is, a close-knit group formed by parents and children. Of course, since the spouses are part of this group as its members, they also exert their share of influence on each other, but not as husband and wife, but as father and mother, as organs of the family union. A family union, just like a religious one, is a powerful preventive measure against suicide. This protection is more complete the larger the family, that is, the greater the number of its members. When comparing different localities, we find that as the number of suicides decreases, family size correctly increases. So, the facts are far from confirming the common opinion that suicide is caused mainly by the hardships of life; on the contrary, their number decreases as existence becomes harder. Here is an unexpected consequence of Malthusianism, which its author, of course, did not foresee. When Malthus recommended abstinence from childbearing, he thought that, at least in certain cases, this restriction was necessary for the sake of the common good. In fact, it turns out that this abstinence is such a strong evil that it kills the very desire to live in a person. Large families are not a luxury that can be dispensed with and that only the rich can afford; This is our daily bread, without which we cannot live. No matter how poor a person is, in any case the worst investment of capital - and, moreover, from the point of view of personal interest - is the capitalization of part of his offspring. What explains the effect of family size on suicide rates? In this case, it is impossible to resort to the help of an organic factor to explain the total phenomenon, because if complete infertility is mainly a consequence of physiological reasons, then the same cannot be said about insufficient fertility, which most often is voluntary in nature and dictated by a certain state of mind. Moreover, family size does not depend solely on fertility; where there are few children, other factors may be at play, and conversely, large numbers of children may be unsuccessful if children do not actually and consistently participate in the life of the family group. Therefore, this protective property can rather be attributed to the feelings sui generis of parents towards their immediate offspring. Finally, these feelings themselves require some specific state of the family environment in order to fully manifest themselves; they cannot be strong if the family is deprived of internal unity. Consequently, it is precisely because the nature of the family changes depending on its size that the number of its constituent elements influences the tendency to commit suicide. The cohesion of a group cannot diminish without its vitality changing. If collective feelings have exceptional energy, this happens because the force with which each individual consciousness experiences them is reflected in all other members; The intensity of these feelings is directly dependent on the number of individual consciousnesses experiencing them together. In a small family, common feelings and memories cannot be particularly intense, because there is not a sufficient number of consciousnesses to imagine them and strengthen them through shared experience. Within such a family, solid traditions cannot be created that serve as a connecting chain for members of the same family group: such traditions outlive the original family and are passed on from generation to generation. In addition, a small family is inevitably characterized by fragility, and no union devoid of duration can be strong. In it, not only are collective states of consciousness poorly developed, but the very number of these states is very limited, because their existence is determined by the liveliness and energy with which various views and impressions are transmitted from one subject to another: on the other hand, the exchange of thoughts takes place the faster the greater the number of people involved in it. When the family is limited in scope, then at any given moment only a very few members are together, family life barely ekes out its existence, and there are times when the home is completely empty. So, since the family is a powerful protector against suicide, its effect is greater the stronger its cohesion. Suicide and divorce. In view of the important protective significance of the family, we will not be at all surprised by the observation that the number of suicides varies in direct proportion to the number of divorces and separations of spouses. The very institution of divorce, by its influence on marriage, inclines a person to commit suicide. What is marriage? Regulation of relations between the sexes, covering not only the sphere of physiological instincts, but all kinds of feelings instilled by civilization on the basis of material interests. For love in our time is much more a spiritual than an organic feeling. A man seeks in a woman not only the satisfaction of the need for childbearing. If this natural desire served as the germ of the entire sexual evolution, then it was progressively complicated by many different aesthetic and moral feelings, and at the present time it is only an insignificant element of the complex process that it once initiated. Under the influence of these intellectual elements, sexual feeling became spiritualized and partly freed from the shackles of the body. It is equally nourished by both moral quests and physical impulses, and therefore it no longer has that automatic regular periodicity that manifests itself in an animal. But precisely because these various inclinations have been transformed under the influence of time and are no longer directly subordinate to organic necessity, they require social regulation. If the body does not find anything within itself to restrain such feelings, then society must take on this responsibility. This is the function of marriage. Marriage, especially in its monogamous form, regulates this entire life of passions. By imposing on a man the obligation to love the same woman forever, monogamy points the feeling of love to a very specific object and thereby closes further horizons. Thanks to this certainty, the moral balance that the spouse enjoys is established. Without violating his duty of fidelity, he cannot seek other satisfactions than those allowed to him by marriage, and therefore limits himself in his desires. The saving discipline to which the spouse is subjected forces him to seek happiness in the situation that befalls him, and thereby gives him the means for this. In addition, if the feeling of one spouse is not inclined to change, then its object responds to him in the same way: after all, the obligation of fidelity is mutual in nature. His joys are defined, they are secured, and all this has the most positive effect on the direction of his mind. The position of a bachelor is completely different. For him there are no restrictions in his affections, he grabs onto everything and nothing satisfies him. The internal poison of boundless aspirations penetrates this area of ​​our consciousness, as well as any other. It is difficult to restrain yourself if there is nothing holding you back from the outside. Having experienced only pleasures, a person already imagines new pleasures in his imagination, and as soon as he goes through the entire circle of the possible, then, tormented by a constant thirst for novelty, he will dream of the impossible. How not to fall into despair with such an endless pursuit of elusive happiness? All sorts of hopes are endlessly born and then shattered by life, and the feeling of fatigue and disappointment continually grows in the soul. And how can this or that desire take hold in a person’s mind if there is no certainty that the object of desire can be preserved? After all, anomie is two-sided: if a person cannot completely surrender, he cannot completely master. The infidelity of the future, together with its own half-heartedness, deprives him of peace forever. The result is anxiety, agitation and dissatisfaction, which inevitably brings with it a greater degree of inclination towards suicide. But divorce presupposes a weakening of marital regulations; where it is practiced, and especially where law and morals strengthen its practice, marriage is only a faint hint of it. what it should be. This is a second-class marriage and therefore cannot have its inherent beneficial results. The boundaries he sets for feeling lose their definition; they lose stability and can only weakly restrain passions that take on the widest dimensions. The feeling is already. does not so easily obey the conditions that are prescribed to him. The calmness and moral balance that constituted the advantage of a married person disappears; in their place appears a certain state of anxiety, which prevents a person from appreciating what he has. He pays less attention to the present because his well-being seems unstable to him, the future is less certain. You cannot firmly hold on to the position you are in if it can be destroyed at any moment from one side or the other. For these reasons, in countries where the influence of marriage is greatly moderated by divorce, the immunity of a married person is inevitably weakened. Since, as a result of this, his condition approaches that of a bachelor, he cannot help but lose part of his advantages. This increases the total number of suicides. Suicide and selfishness. What, in particular, has been said about the importance of the family union, the same should be said about any social union, including political society: the number of suicides is inversely proportional to the degree of integration of those social groups to which the individual belongs. The cohesion of society cannot be weakened unless the individual lags behind social life to the same extent, so that his personal goals do not outweigh the desire for the common good - in a word, unless the individual person strives to become higher than the collective. The more the internal ties of the group to which an individual belongs weaken, the less he depends on it, and the more his behavior will be guided by considerations of his personal interest. If we agree to instill egoism in such a state of the individual, when the individual “I” sharply opposes itself to the social “I” and to the detriment of this latter, then we can call that particular type of suicide that is caused by excessive individualization selfish. When society is closely united, then the individual will is, as it were, in its power, occupies a purely official position in relation to it, and, of course, the individual under such conditions cannot dispose of himself at his own discretion. Voluntary death here is a betrayal of common duty. But when people refuse to recognize the legitimacy of such subordination, then what power does society have to assert its supremacy over it? It does not have sufficient authority at its disposal to keep people in their posts at the moment when they want to desert, and, conscious of its weakness, society goes so far as to recognize the individual's right to do what it is powerless to prevent. Once a person is recognized as the master of his life, he has the right to put an end to it. On the other hand, individuals lose one of their motives for meekly enduring the cruel hardships of life. When people are united and bound by love to the group to which they belong, they easily sacrifice their interests for the sake of a common goal and fight with great tenacity for their existence. The same feeling prompts them to bow to the desire for the common good and value their lives, and the creation of a great goal standing before them makes them forget about personal suffering. But extreme individualism not only removes the obstacles that restrain the desire of people to kill themselves, but itself arouses this desire and gives rise to a special type of suicide that bears its imprint. Already due to the fact that the highest forms of human activity have a collective origin, they pursue a collective goal, since they arise under the influence of society, since all their aspirations relate to it: we can say that these forms are society itself, embodied and individualized in each of us. But in order for such activity to have a reasonable basis in our eyes, the very object it serves must not be indifferent to us. We can be attached to the first only to the extent that we are also attached to the second, that is, to society. On the contrary, the more we are separated from society, the more we are removed from the life for which it is both the source and the goal. Why these moral rules, legal norms that force us to make all sorts of sacrifices, these dogmas that constrain us, if there is no being outside of us to whom all this serves and with whom we would be in solidarity? Why then does science exist? If it brings no other benefit than that which increases our chances in the struggle for life, then it is not worth the labor expended on it. Instinct plays this role better; Animals serve as proof. And especially, how can we justify the suffering we endure? The evil experienced by an individual cannot be justified by anything and becomes completely meaningless, since the value of everything that exists is determined from the point of view of an individual person. For a person who is firmly religious, for one who is closely connected with a family or a certain political society, such a problem does not even exist. Voluntarily and freely, without any reflection, such people give their whole being, all their strength: one to their church, another to their family, a third to their homeland or party. In their very suffering these people see only a means to serve the glorification of the group to which they belong. Thus the Christian achieves that he bows before suffering and seeks it, in order to better prove his contempt for the flesh and to approach his divine model. But since the believer begins to doubt, that is, since he is emancipated and feels less in solidarity with the religious environment to which he belongs, since family and society become strangers to the individual, he becomes a mystery to himself and cannot escape the annoying question; “Why is all this needed”? As soon as the social principle embedded within us loses its objective existence, only an artificial combination of ghostly images remains, a phantasmagoria that dissipates at the first light touch of thought; there is nothing that could give meaning to our actions, the price of our existence. At the same time, we lose all reason to value our life: the life that could satisfy us no longer corresponds to anything in reality, and the one that corresponds to reality no longer satisfies our needs. Since we have been introduced to higher forms of existence, life, which satisfies the requirements of a child and an animal, can no longer satisfy us. But since these higher forms elude us, we remain in a completely helpless state: we are overcome by a feeling of tragic emptiness, and we have nothing else to apply our strength to. It is completely unnecessary to prove that with the influx of mental disharmony, minor failures easily lead to desperate decisions. If life loses all meaning, then at any moment you can find an excuse to end the score. Suicide and economic crises. From the indicated disciplinary significance of society it follows that every upheaval in society, every social crisis is accompanied by an increase in the number of suicides. Popular movements that, for example, do not fit this concept of crisis. popular warrior - embrace the entire people, unite them and raise their spirit and energy. This concept fits primarily economic crises, which have an increasing impact on the number of suicides, both when they bring with them poverty and ruin, and when they are crises of prosperity. Industrial and financial crises have this impact precisely as crises, that is, shocks to the collective system. And it's easy to understand. Man differs from animals in that instinctive restraints lose power over him, and his aspirations can become limitless. Nothing can be found either in the organic or mental structure of man that could serve as a limit to his appetites. Since needs depend only on the individual, they are limitless. Our receptivity, if we abstract from any external force regulating it, represents a bottomless abyss that nothing can fill. If no restraining principle comes from outside, our receptivity becomes a source of eternal torment for itself, because limitless desires are insatiable in their essence, and insatiability is rightly considered a sign of a diseased state. In the absence of external obstacles, desires do not know any boundaries for themselves and therefore go far beyond the limits of the given means and, of course, never find peace. Tireless thirst turns into pure torture. This state of affairs can be changed only if human passions find a certain limit for themselves. Only in this case can we talk about harmony between a person’s aspirations and needs, and only then can the latter be satisfied. But since there is no restraining principle within the individual, it can only flow from some external force. Spiritual needs require some kind of regulatory principle that plays in relation to them the same role that the body performs in the sphere of physical needs. This regulative force must, of course, in turn be of a moral character. The awakening of consciousness disrupted the state of balance in which the animal was dozing, and therefore only consciousness can provide a means of restoring this balance. Material coercion in this case cannot have any meaning; the hearts of people cannot be changed through physical and chemical forces. Since aspirations are not automatically stopped by physiological mechanisms, they can only stop at a limit that they recognize as fair. The law of justice must come from a person whose authority people respect and before whom they voluntarily bow. Society alone, either directly as a whole or through one of its organs, is capable of playing this moderating role: it alone has that moral force that rises above the individual and the superiority of which the latter is forced to recognize. No one else, except society, has the right to outline for human desires that extreme limit beyond which they should not go. So, he who claims that human activity can be freed from all restraint is mistaken. Such a privilege in this world cannot be enjoyed by anyone or anything, because every being, as a part of the universe, is connected with the rest of it: the nature of each being and the way it manifests itself depends not only on this being, but also on all other beings. Which are thus a restraining and regulating force for him. But at the moment of social disorganization, whether it occurs due to a painful crisis or, conversely, during a period of favorable, but too sudden social transformations, society turns out to be temporarily unable to exert the desired effect on a person, and this explains the sharp increases in the suicide curve during times of social crises. And, indeed, at a time of economic disaster, we can observe how the outbreak of a crisis entails a certain confusion of classes - due to which an entire class of people is thrown into the ranks of lower social categories. Many are forced to cut back on their demands, reduce their habits and, in general, learn to restrain themselves. In relation to these people, all the work, all the fruits of social influence are wasted, and their moral education must begin all over again. It goes without saying that society is not able to accustom these people to a new life, to additional self-restraint, in a single stroke. As a result, all of them cannot come to terms with their deteriorating situation: and even the mere prospect of deterioration becomes unbearable for them: the suffering that forces them to forcibly break through the changed life comes before they have had time to experience this life. But the same thing happens if a social crisis results in a sudden increase in general well-being and wealth. Here, again, living conditions change, and the scale by which people’s needs were determined turns out to be outdated; it moves along with the increase in social wealth, since it determines, in general, the share of each category of producers. The old hierarchy is broken, and the new one cannot be immediately established. In order for people and things to take their rightful place in the public consciousness, a long period of time is needed. Until social forces, left to themselves, reach a state of equilibrium, their relative value cannot be calculated and, therefore, for some time all regulation turns out to be untenable. No one knows exactly what is possible and what is impossible, what is fair and what is unfair: it is impossible to indicate the boundaries between legitimate and excessive demands and hopes, and therefore everyone considers themselves entitled to claim everything. No matter how superficial this social upheaval may be, all the same, the principles on the basis of which members of society are distributed among various functions are shaken. Since the relationships between different parts of society change, the ideas expressing these relationships cannot remain unshakable. The social class that has benefited most from the crisis is no longer willing to accept its previous standard of living, and its new, exceptionally favorable position inevitably gives rise to a whole series of envious desires in the environment. Public opinion is not able to overcome individual appetites with its authority; these latter no longer know a boundary before which they would be forced to stop. In addition, people's minds are already in a state of natural excitement because the very pulse of life at such moments beats more intensely than before. It is quite natural that, along with the increase in wealth, human desires also grow: richer prey awaits them at the feast of life, and under the influence of this, people become more demanding, more impatient, and no longer put up with the limits set by the now weakened authority of tradition. The general state of disorganization, or anomie, is aggravated by the fact that the passions are least willing to submit to discipline at the very moment when it is most needed. In this state of affairs, reality cannot satisfy the demands made by people. The unbridled claims of everyone will inevitably go beyond any achievable result, for nothing prevents them from growing limitlessly. This general excitement will continuously support itself, not finding peace in anything. And since such a pursuit of an unattainable goal cannot give any other satisfaction than the feeling of the pursuit itself, it is only necessary for this desire to encounter any obstacle in its path for a person to feel completely unsettled. At the same time, the struggle itself becomes more fierce and painful, both because it is less settled and because the fighters are especially heated. All social classes are breaking out of their usual boundaries, so that a specific class division no longer exists. The general effort in the struggle for existence reaches its highest point of tension precisely at the moment when it is least productive. How can the desire to live not weaken under such conditions? Suicide and the Commercial and Industrial World. If anomie always manifested itself, as in previous cases, in the form of intermittent attacks and acute crises, then, of course, from time to time, it could cause the social suicide rate to fluctuate, but would not be its constant and regular factor. There is, however, a certain sphere of social life in which anomie is a chronic phenomenon; it is the commercial and industrial world. For a whole century, economic progress has sought mainly to free industrial development from all regulation. Up to the present time a whole system of moral forces has had as its task the discipline of industrial relations. At first, this influence was exerted by religion, which equally addressed both workers and employers, the poor and the rich. For its part, secular power, occupying a dominant position in the economic field, subordinating economic activity to a certain extent, regulated its manifestations. Finally, within the business world itself, the craft corporation, by regulating wages, food prices and even production itself, indirectly fixed the average level of income, which, naturally, determines to a large extent the very size of needs. Not so now. Religion, one might say, has lost an enormous share of its power. Government power, instead of being a regulator of economic life, became its servant and instrument. The most opposing schools, the orthodox economists on the one hand and the extreme socialists on the other, agree that government should take a more or less passive role as an intermediary between the various social functions. All these theories only reflect the prevailing public opinion: in fact, industry, instead of serving as a means to achieve a higher goal, has already become in itself the center of the ultimate aspirations of both individuals and society. Because of this, individual appetites grow limitlessly and escape the influence of any authority that restrains them. This apotheosis of material well-being sanctified them and placed, so to speak, above every human law, the law on this path any obstacles are now considered an insult to the sacred, and therefore even that purely utilitarian regulation of industry, which the industrial world itself could implement with the help of its corporations, is not able to take root. The very development of industry and the limitless expansion of markets inevitably favors, in turn, the unbridled growth of human desires. This is where this extreme excitement comes from, which from one part of society was transmitted to everyone else. In the industrial world, crisis and a state of anomie are not only constant phenomena, but, one might even say, normal. Greedy lusts embrace people of all strata and cannot find a specific point of application. Nothing can calm them down, because the goal they strive for is infinitely greater than anything they can actually achieve. The feverish, insatiable pursuit of the imaginary devalues ​​the present reality and makes us neglect it; As soon as the immediate goal is achieved, and something previously only possible and desirable becomes an accomplished fact, immediately an uncontrollable passion for new possibilities draws a person even further. People are tormented by a thirst for new, unexplored pleasures, unexperienced sensations: but the latter immediately lose their salt as soon as they become known. And some vicissitude of fate is enough for a person to be powerless to endure this test. The feverish excitement subsides, and the person sees how fruitless all his confusion was, and how all this sea without ultimate desires does not leave behind any solid reserve of well-being that could be used in years of difficult trials. Whoever lived his whole life only in the future, gave it all the strength of his soul, cannot find anything on the pages of his past that would help him endure the bitterness of the present, for his entire past life was only one impatient expectation of future blessings. Blinded by this expectation, he sought distant happiness, which all the time only eluded him. When any obstacle stops such a person, then all his plans will be destroyed, and he will have nothing to fix his gaze on either behind him or in front of him. In the end, even the feeling of fatigue can give rise to hopeless disappointment, because it is difficult not to feel the futility of chasing the unattainable. Practical conclusions. Thus, suicide, examined statistically, becomes in the hands of a sociologist a mirror that consistently reflects all aspects of social life. Suicide statistics acquire the significance of a world court and force us to carefully reconsider all the motives and goals of our activities. It becomes the scale of revaluation of all paths of life. The speech of a sociologist involuntarily becomes, from the first word to the last, an inspired sermon. Any path at the end of which yawns a terrible abyss of voluntary death is recognized as unnecessary. In this way, a whole system of social life is created, and the sociology of suicide merges with moral philosophy. Once again we are convinced that morality, as a conditio sine qua non of human life and, especially, social life, is based on natural necessity. From the extensive (541 pages) book by prof. Durkheim follows practical conclusions in the immediate sense of the word. Durkheim himself draws these conclusions, but we will not follow him. He pins all his hopes on professional corporations. He is pessimistic about the future of religion. Only Catholicism, which does not give room for freedom of research and therefore is not acceptable to “people of science,” could have social power; Protestantism, which so easily reconciles itself with science, is powerless in this respect. It turns out to be a vicious circle. What about Orthodoxy? Speaking of Catholicism and Protestantism, Durkheim briefly mentions the Greek-Eastern Church. “The low rate of suicide among Greek Catholics cannot be confidently attributed to the influence of religion, since the civilization of these countries differs sharply from that of other European nations, and, consequently, these cultural differences may be the reason for the unequal expression of suicidal tendencies.” Inattention to Orthodoxy is common among Western scientists, which, however, indicates the only way out of this vicious circle and on which we pin our hopes in the fight against the modern epidemic of suicide.