QTJETELET ON THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 49 



current opinion that more children are born in the night than in the 

 day ; in fact, there are about five night-born against four day-born, 

 the maximum being about midnight, the minimum a little before 

 noon (i., p. 208). Why this is, no one yet knows; it is a case of 

 unexplained law. But another not less curious law relating to births 

 seems to have been at last successfully unravelled. In Europe about 

 106 boys are born to every 100 girls. The explanation appears to 

 depend on the husband being older than the wife ; which difference 

 again is regulated by prudential considerations, a man not marrying 

 till he can maintain a wife. In connection with this argument, it 

 must be noticed that illegitimate births show a much less excess of 

 male children (p. 168). Here, then (if this explanation may be 

 accepted), it appears that a law, which has been supposed to be due 

 to purely physiological causes, is traceable to an ultimate origin in 

 political economy. 



The examples brought forward by Quetelet, which thus show the 

 intimate relation between biological and ethical phenomena, should 

 be pondered by all who take an interest in that great movement of 

 our time the introduction of scientific evidence into problems 

 over which theologians and moralists have long claimed exclusive 

 jurisdiction. This scientific invasion consists mainly in application 

 of exact evidence in place of inexact evidence, and of proof in place 

 of sentiment and authority. Already the result of the introduction of 

 statistics into inquiries of this kind appears in new adjustments of the 

 frontier line between right and wrong, as measured under our modern 

 social conditions. Take, for instance, the case of foundling hospitals, 

 which provide a "tour," or other means, for the secret reception of in- 

 fants abandoned by their parents. It has seemed, and still seems, to 

 many estimable persons, an act of benevolence to found and maintain 

 such institutions. But, when their operation comes to be studied by 

 statisticians, they are found to produce an enormous increase in the 

 number of exposed illegitimate children (" Phys. Soc," i., p. 84). In 

 fact, thus to facilitate the safe and secret abandonment of children is 

 to set a powerful engine at work to demoralize society. Here, then, a 

 particular class of charitable actions has been removed, by the statis- 

 tical study of its effects, from the category of virtuous into that of 

 vicious actions. An even more important transition of the same kind 

 is taking place in the estimation of alms-giving from the ethical point 

 of view. Until modern ages, through all the countries of higher civili- 

 zation, men have been urged by their teachers of morality to give to 

 the poor, worthy or unworthy ; the state of public opinion being well 

 exemplified by the narrowing of the word " charity " from its original 

 sense to denote the distribution of doles. Yet, when the statistics of 

 pauperism were collected and studied, it was shown that indiscrimi- 

 nate alms-giving is an action rather evil than good, its tendency being 

 not only to maintain, but actually to produce, idle and miserable pau- 

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