“Self-murder,” Buckle observes, “seems to be not only capricious and uncontrollable, but also very obscure in regard to proof.” Yet, in different countries, for which we have returns, we find, year by year, the same proportion of persons putting an end to their own existence. In London, for example, about 240 persons make away with themselves every year; the annual suicides oscillating, from the pressure of temporary causes, between 266, the highest, and 213, the lowest. In 1846, which was the great year of excitement--caused by the railroad panic--the suicides in London were 266; in 1847 began a slight improvement, and they fell to 256; in 1848 they were 247; in 1849 they were 213; in 1850 they were 229. In the “Journey through India,” Heber mentions the vain attempt of the English government to check the frequent suicides by drowning, committed at Benares; and August Comte has exposed the folly of thinking that suicide can be diminished by the enactments of law-givers. Of this field, Quatelet says, in conclusion: “The possibility of assigning, beforehand, the number of accused and condemned which should occur in a country, is calculated to lead to serious reflections, since it involves the fate of several thousands of human beings, who are impelled, as it were, by an irresistible necessity, to the bar of the tribunal, and towards the sentences of condemnation that there await them. These conclusions flow directly from the principle, already so often stated in this work, that effects are in proportion to their causes, and that the effects remain the same, if the causes which produced them do not vary.”