MORSELLI E. - 1876 IL SUICIDIO - SAGGIO DI STATISTICA MORALE - E. MORSELLI - 1876

"Suicide. A Saggio di statistica morale comparata" (1879) by Enrico Morselli is considered a milestone in Italian sociology and positivist psychiatry. The work represents one of the earliest and most ambitious European attempts to apply a rigorous statistical and scientific method to the analysis of moral and social behaviors, anticipating almost twenty years the most famous homonymous study by French sociologist Émile Durkheim.

The most innovative element of the critical review of the work lies in the titanic collection of quantitative data. Morselli does not treat suicide as a solitary philosophical or theological drama, but collects extensive historical series related to sex, age, profession, climate, religion, and marital status. Influenced by positivist currents and Darwinian evolutionism, Morselli arrives at strongly deterministic conclusions. The act of suicide loses its aura of "ethical free choice" and is treated as the inevitable effect of social and biological forces acting on the individual.

* The price of progress: One of Morselli’s central (and most debated) theses is that the progressive and constant increase in suicides is directly related to the concept of “uncivilization.” For the scholar, the development of industrial society and modernity generates a psychological and competitive pressure such that the weaker subjects are driven to self-elimination. [3]
* Natural selection applied to society: Morselli interprets suicide in almost biological terms, defining it as a form of spontaneous elimination of elements less able to withstand the rhythms and conflicts of modern life.

Strengths: The text is systematic, rigorous, and opened the way to modern empirical sociology in Italy. It had immediate international resonance, being quickly translated into English and German. [1, 5, 6]

In the eyes of contemporary readers, Morselli’s view bears the stamp of excessive deterministic rigor characteristic of the era. Reducing intricate psychological suffering and the individuality of the individual to a mere statistic or to a "natural law" now appears limiting and devoid of a real empathetic or clinical dimension of mental health.

Cardboard binding with handwritten titles
The volume includes 3 color plates separated from the binding