DEFINITION OF SOME MODERN SCIENCES. 105. 



facts relating to botany can be classified, and so, as to other depart- 

 ments of human knowledge, classification or the lack of it may deter- 

 mine the scientific character of the knowledge. Science demands a 

 classification of facts so rigid that all men will consent to its use and 

 to the conclusions to which it may point. 



Notwithstanding statistics is a science or a scientific method, its. 

 use is often empirical, deceptive, ilhisory and dishonest, and because 

 of these things the method itself is often condemned. No one thinks, 

 however, of condemning anaesthetics because the burglar chloroforms 

 his victim, or the elementary features of arithmetic, the means by 

 which all honest accounts are kept, simply because dishonest accounts 

 are made possible by the same means. So many instances of the lying 

 use of honest statistics meet one's observation that it is not remarkable 

 that many make surprising denunciation of statistics and the assertion 

 that anything can be proved by it is made to belittle the importance 

 and value of the method. 



It is true that one so disposed can, by dropping an essential element 

 of a table, show the exact reverse of the truth, just as the foolish man 

 said he could prove by the Bible itself there was no God, referring to 

 the statement 'there is no God/ leaving out part of the whole statement, 

 which is 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.' So 

 writers and speakers who have a particular economic theory to sustain 

 will drop out of the statistical presentation of the facts the elements 

 which work against them, using the others as the whole truth. This is 

 seen very often in political speeches. The attempt to make comparison 

 between the percentage of growth of population and the percentage 

 of growth in the expenditures of the Federal Government, using no 

 facts relative to the great increase in mechanical production and of 

 wealth, is a vicious use of statistical data. Such showings are the 

 results of the work of the statistical mechanic, the man who constructs 

 statistical tables to order. 



Statistics really take the place of observation. The latter is not 

 trustworthy. Enumerations, counts, or records of continuous events 

 are essential to establish accurate knowledge. But statistical science 

 in this direction differs from the exact sciences. A few experiments 

 may establish the fact that water freezes at a certain point or that the 

 intermingling of two chemical agents will produce certain results, and 

 the conclusion is that the same results will always be secured when 

 the. same elements are brought in contact; but the phenomena of life 

 conditions and productions may not so easily be ascertained. Statis- 

 tical work is full of fallacious details. Fallacies are found in the or- 

 dinary practice of striking averages. These things add to the disturb- 

 ing influences resulting from any great enumeration, to perplexing 

 differences among international trade accounts and to miscalculation 

 by individual inquirers. 



