80 Scientific Gleanings* 



ages. The report might have dwelt on sickness, on injudicious 

 diet, on defective ventilation, on want of drainage, and so forth, 

 and all such statements would have been pronounced to be exag- 

 gerations or errors : but when it applied the ascertained scale of 

 mortality, so as to prove that there were so many deaths in the 

 thousand when there ought only to have been half that number, 

 the definiteness of the figures and facts defied evasion, fastened on 

 the public mind and conscience, and compelled immediate mea- 

 sures of reform. Those persons who have ignorant! y charged 

 upon political economy and statistics a disregard of moral consi- 

 derations and of humanity may now see how egregiously they 

 were mistaken, and how the arithmetic which they thought so 

 heartless is rising up as the most powerful advocate of the value 

 of human life, of health, of domestic comfort, of temperance, of 

 virtue, of proper leisure, of education, and of all that can purify 

 and elevate society. I am glad to know that we shall have one 

 or more papers on important points of vital statistics laid before 

 this Meeting. May I for a moment refer to another reproach 

 thrown upon statistics, namely, that they may be so used as to 

 prove anything? I hardly need say that it is unfair to argue from 

 the abuse of a thing against its proper use. But it may be admit- 

 ted, that there is sufficient grouud for this reproach, in the negli- 

 gent or dishonest use sometimes made of statistics, to call upon 

 us for the exercise of great caution, so that in the first place we 

 may be sure we have got all the facts that are essential, and in 

 the next place that we draw from them sound and accurate con- 

 clusions. I cannot refrain from expressing my conviction that as 

 the science we cultivate has been shown to be favourable to 

 humanity, so it is no less favourable to freedom. Within the last 

 quarter of a century how busy has it been in knocking off all 

 sorts of fetters from human energies ! 



The note on the cover of the December number of the Natu- 

 ralist, in reference to Art. XXX. of our last volume, has, we find, 

 been misunderstood. It was intended merely to remedy an 

 omission of our own. In copying the article in question from the 

 Canadian Journal, we omitted to copy with it the acknowledg- 

 ment to the Smithsonian Institution for the use of the wood-cuts, 

 which were originally prepared for that institution ; and also to 

 state that the article was based on that in the report of the 

 Smithsonian Institution for 1850, but brought up to 1858 for the 

 Canadian Journal. We regard this more full statement as due 

 to both the bodies to which we have been indebted in this matter. 



