Section 33. (k) Statistics of the Moral Situation.
Upon the first glance it might be asserted that statistics and
psychology have nothing to do with each other. If, however, it
is observed that the extraordinary and inexplicable results presented
by statistics of morals and general statistics influence our thought
and reflection unconditionally, its importance for criminal psychology
can not be denied. Responsibility, abundance of criminals,
their distribution according to time, place, personality, and circumstances,
the regularity of their appearance, all these have so profound
an influence upon us both essentially and circumstantially
that even our judgments and resolutions, no less than the conduct
and thought of other people whom we judge, are certainly altered
by them.[1] Moreover,
probability and statistics are in such close
and inseparable connection that we may not make use of or interpret
the one without the other. Eminent psychological contributions
by Münsterberg show the importance the statistical problems have
for psychology. This writer warns us against the over-valuation
of the results of the statistics of morality, and believes that its proper
tendencies will be discovered only much later. In any event the
real value of statistical synthesis and deduction can be discovered
only when it is closely studied. This is particularly true with regard
to criminal conditions. The works of many
authors[2] teach us things
that would not otherwise be learned, and they would not be dealt
with here if only a systematic study of the works themselves could
be of use. We speak here only of their importance for our own
discipline. Nobody doubts that there are mysteries in the figures
and figuring of statistics. We admit honestly that we know no
more to-day than when Paul de Decker discussed Quetelet's labors
in statistics of morality in the Brussels Academy of Science, and
confessed what a puzzle it was that human conduct, even in its
smallest manifestations, obeyed in their totality constant and
immutable laws. Concerning this curious fact Adolf Wagner says:
"If a traveler had told us something about some people where a
statute determines exactly how many persons per year shall marry,
die, commit suicide, and crimes within certain classes,—and if he
had announced furthermore that these laws were altogether obeyed,
what should we have said? And as a matter of fact the laws are
obeyed all the world over."
[3]
Of course the statistics of morality deal with quantities not
qualities,
but in the course of statistical examination the latter are met
with. So, e. g., examinations into the relation of crime to
school-attendance and education, into the classes that show most suicides,
etc., connect human qualities with statistical data. The time is
certainly not far off when we shall seek for the proper view of the
probability of a certain assumption with regard to some rare crime,
doubtful suicide, extraordinary psychic phenomena, etc., with the
help of a statistical table. This possibility is made clearer when the
inconceivable constancy of some figures is considered. Suppose we
study the number of suicides since 1819 in Austria, in periods of
eight years. We find the following figures, 3000, 5000, 6000, 7000,
9000, 12000, 15000—i. e., a regular increase which is comparable
to law.[4] Or suppose we
consider the number of women, who, in the
course of ten continuous years in France, shot themselves; we
find 6, 6, 7, 7, 6, 6, 7; there is merely an alternation between 6
and 7. Should not we look up if in some one year eight or nine
appeared? Should not we give some consideration to the possibility
that the suicide is only a pretended one? Or suppose we consider
the number of men who have drowned themselves within the same
time: 280, 285, 292, 276, 257, 269, 258, 276, 278, 287,—Wagner
says rightly of such figures "that they contain the arithmetical
relation of the mechanism belonging to a moral order which ought
to call out even greater astonishment than the mechanism of
stellar systems."
Still more remarkable are the figures when they are so brought
together that they may be seen as a curve. It is in this way that
Drobisch brings together a table which distributes crime according
to age. Out of a thousand crimes committed by persons between
the ages of:
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, 8446, 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.[5]
Again, most authorities as quoted by
Gutberlet,[6] 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
[7] 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.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that our criminal statistics,
to be useful, must be handled in a rather different fashion. We saw,
in studying the statistics of suicide, that inferences with regard to
individual cases could be drawn only when the material had been
studied carefully and examined on all sides. But our criminological
statistic is rarely examined with such thoroughness; the tenor of
such examination is far too bureaucratic and determined by the
statutes and the process of law. The criminalist gives the statistician
the figures but the latter can derive no significant principles from
them. Consider for once any official report on the annual results
in the criminal courts in any country. Under and over the thousands
and thousands of figures and rows of figures there is a great mass
of very difficult work which has been profitable only in a very small
degree. I have before me the four reports of a single year which
deal with the activities of the Austrian courts and criminal institutions,
and which are excellent in their completeness, correctness,
and thorough revision. Open the most important,—the results
of the administration of criminal law in the various departments
of the country,—and you find everything recorded:—how many
were punished here and how many there, what their crimes were,
the percentage of condemned according to age, social standing,
religion, occupation, wealth, etc.; then again you see endless tables
of arrests, sentences, etc., etc. Now the value of all this is to indicate
merely whether a certain regularity is discoverable in the procedure
of the officials. Material psychologically valuable is rare. There
is some energetic approximation to it in the consideration of culture,
wealth, and previous sentences, but even these are dealt with most
generally, while the basis and motive of the death-sentence is barely
indicated. We can perceive little consideration of motives with
regard to education, earlier life, etc., in their relation to sentencing.
Only when statistics will be made to deal actually and in every
direction with qualities and not merely with quantities will they
begin to have a really scientific value.
[[ id="n33.1"]]
O. Gross: Zur Phyllogenese der Ethik. H. Gross's Archiv, IX, 100.
[[ id="n33.2"]]
Cf. B. Földes: Einige Ergebnisse der neueren Kriminalstatistik.
Zeitschrift f. d. yes. Strafrechte-Wissenschaft, XI. 1891.
[[ id="n33.3"]]
Näcke: Moralische Werte. Archiv, IX, 213
[[ id="n33.4"]]
J. Gurnhill: The Morals of Suicide. London 1900.
[[ id="n33.5"]]
Näcke in Archiv VI, 325, XIV, 366.
[[ id="n33.6"]]
K. Gutberlet: Die Willensfreiheit u. ihre Gegner. Fulda 1893.
[[ id="n33.7"]]
Die sieben Welträtsel. Leipzig 1882.