QUETELET ON THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 45 



ultimately fall into the sun. These things, however, possess to us no 

 practical physical interest. Such countless ages must elapse ere they 

 affect man's material condition upon earth, that we hardly can gravely 

 consider them as impending. The chief interest they excite is moral. 

 Like the man's hand that appeared to the revelling king, they write 

 "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (Weighed, measured, limited, doomed) 

 on our material world, and dimly point to some power that stands, as 

 it were, hidden from our view behind the screen of matter, " that 

 shall make all things new." Chambers's Journal. 



-+++- 



QUETELET ON THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 1 



By E. B. TYLOK. 



TWO lines of research into the Science of Man, of the highest mo- 

 ment as well in theoretical Anthropology as in practical Ethics 

 and Politics, both to be always associated with the name of Quetelet, 

 are now discussed at large in his Social Physics and Anthropometry. 

 The two great generalizations which the veteran Belgian astronomer 

 has brought to bear on physiological and mental science, and which it 

 is proposed to describe popularly here, may be briefly defined : First, 

 he has been for many years the prime mover in introducing the doc- 

 trine that human actions, even those usually considered most arbitrary, 

 are in fact subordinate to general laws of human nature ; this doctrine, 

 maintained in previous publications, especially in the earlier edition of 

 the first-named work some thirty-seven years ago, is now put forth in 

 its completest form. Second, he has succeeded in bringing the idea 

 of a biological type or specific form, whether in bodily structure or 

 mental faculty, to a distinct calculable conception, which is likely to 

 impress on future arguments a definiteness not previously approached. 

 The doctrine of the regularity and causality of human actions was 

 powerfully stated some fifteen years ago by Mr. Buckle in the intro- 

 duction to his " History of Civilization." Buckle is here essentially 

 the exponent of Quetelet's evidence, from which, indeed, as a specula- 

 tive philosopher, he draws inferences more extreme than those of hie 

 statistical teacher. To Quetelet is due the argument from the aston 

 ishing regularity from year to year in the recurrences of murders and 

 suicides, a regularity extending even to the means or instruments by 

 which these violent acts are committed ; his inference being broadly 

 that " it is society which prepares the crime, the criminal being only 



1 Physique Sociale, ou Essai sur le Developpement des Facultes de l'Homme. Pai 

 Ad. Quetelet. (Brussels, 1869.) 



Anthropometric, ou Mesure des differentes Facultes de l'Homme. Par Ad. Quetelet 

 (Brussels, 1870.) 



