ABSTRACT
But it might be that the tendency to suicide is based on the constitution of the individual without special dependence on the abnormal states just considered. It might consist of purely psychological phenomena without necessarily being associated with any perversion of the nervous system. Why should there not occur among men a tendency to renounce existence, which is neither a monomania nor a form of mental alienation or neurasthenia? It might even be considered an established fact if, as several writers on suicide have declared,1 each race had a characteristic suicide-rate of its own. For a race is defined and differentiated from others only by organic-psychic characteristics. If then suicide really varied with races, it would be established that it is closely connected with some organic disposition.
