836 M. Quetelet's Inquiries respecting the 



works, have believed that they can do nothing better than ser- 

 vilely imitate them ; and they have not considered that the type 

 had changed, and that, in imitating for the perfection of the 

 art, they had another nature to study. Hence, this universal 

 cry, ' Who will deliver us from the Greeks and the Romans?' 

 hence this violent schism between the classics and the roman- 

 tique ; hence in fine, the need of a literature which would truly 

 be the expression of society. This great revolution is accom- 

 plished, and it furnishes a proof the most unexceptionable of 

 the variability of the human type, of Vhomme moyen, among dif- 

 ferent nations and in different ages. 



'' Thus the determination of average man is not useless, even 

 for the fine arts and letters, and he who would arrive at this 

 determination, will have no difficulty to make artists and literati 

 listen to him. He would teach them to know, in a more precise 

 manner, things which they already know vaguely ; he would 

 teach them other things of which they are Ignorant, or at least 

 he would rectify their judgment concerning a multitude of pre- 

 judices. They would receive these, in the same manner as a 

 painter learns perspective, which, under its geometrical form, 

 is far from being picturesque also. Moreover, they have received 

 the researches of Gall and Lavater, with more eagerness per- 

 haps than the savans themselves; it is even to their care that 

 we owe, in a great measure, the knowledge of the proportions 

 of the different parts of the human body as respects age and sex.*" 



In the little work in which we find these general considera- 

 tions, with others which we are compelled to omit, the author in- 

 vestigates what concerns the development of the weight of man in 

 the same manner as he has determined his growth, his inclination 

 to crime, the succession of generations, &c. Afterwards he will 

 publish new inquiries concerning the strength, swiftness, and 

 other qualities of the human species; inquiries which, in order to 

 be exact, must be made by many associated observers, and upon 

 a great number of individuals. Physicians and engineers have 

 been sometimes led to estimate the weight of men arrived at ma- 

 turity, and considered, for example, as burdens placed upon a 

 building, or as weights acting on a machine. La Hire has 

 made very remarkable researches of this nature. On the other 

 hand, the legal practitioner must often be occupied with this sub- 



