I think it&#x27;s more a psychological view.<p>The default psychological view (if you can call it that) in 1830 was Romantic Individualism.<p>The default psychological view in 2016 is that objective statistical trends are the rule across populations, not the exception.<p>There can be arguments about which statistics apply, and whether or not they&#x27;re accurate and not measured poorly, or impossible to replicate, or even deliberately dishonest and politically motivated.<p>But there&#x27;s no argument that <i>in principle</i> it&#x27;s perfectly scientific to use statistics to identify and measure behavioural trends.<p>The shock in 1830 was discovering the latter fact. The <i>idea</i> that something personal like suicide might fit a measurable statistical trend was completely novel - perhaps because it directly challenged beliefs about heroic personal self-determination.<p>The fine details of the distributions don&#x27;t matter. The fact that statistics can be used at all shocked people in a way that it doesn&#x27;t now.