While this would hardly be startling news for us, in the 1830s suicide seemed to be a highly irrational private decision that could not possibly conform to any deeper pattern. Instead, Quetelet showed that suicides occurred with reliable and consistent regularity—and not only that, he claimed that the stability of the occurrences indicated that everyone possesses an average propensity toward suicide. The Average Man, attested Quetelet, was suicidal to an average extent.
