but
that it is most marked on the clearest, sunniest, and pleasantest days
of those months. To state his conclusions in his own words: "The clear,
dry days show the greatest number of suicides, and the wet, partly
cloudy days the least; and with differences too great to be attributed
to accident or chance. In fact, there are thirty-one per cent. more
suicides on dry than on wet days, and twenty-one per cent. more on clear
days than on days that are partly cloudy."

It thus appears that, as a rule, the tendency to suicide, throughout the
civilized world, is greatest in the pleasantest seasons of the year;
that it is everywhere greatest in the pleasantest month of the
pleasantest season; and that in New York City it is greatest on the
clearest and sunniest days of the pleasantest month. From the point of
view of science, therefore, it is perfectly reasonable and absolutely
accurate to say on a beautiful, sunny day in early June, "This is
regular suicide weather."

Now, what is the explanation of this world-wide tendency to
self-destruction in the seasons, months, and days when life would seem
to be best worth living? The cause, whatever it be, can have no
connection with race, religion, history, political status, or
geographical location, because it acts uniformly among peoples as widely
different, in all these respects, as the Russians, the Italians, the
Americans, and the Japanese. It is evidently a cosmic cause, but what is
its nature?

Some investigators have suggested that the suicidal tendency is
dependent on heat; but June is not the hottest month, nor is December
the coldest. Durkheim has tested this conjecture by comparing
temperatures with suicides in France, Italy, and Prussia. He finds that,
in all three of these countries, suicides reach their maximum in June
and their minimum in December, while the temperature does not rise to
its maximum until July and does not fall to its minimum until
January.[19] Moreover, if heat were a predisposing cause of suicide, we
should find the suicide rate of Europeans much higher in the tropics
than it is in the north temperate zone; but such is not the case. Heat,
therefore, as a possible cause, must be eliminated. Other writers,
including Dr. Gubski, have called attention to the very close relation
between suicide and light. It is true that daylight, if measured by
hours, has its minimum in December and its maximum in June, in precise
correspondence with the seasonal ra