334 



MORAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE. 



[In our second number we gave a brief notice of M. Guerry's " Essai 

 sur la Statisque Morale de la France" but a fuller analysis of this cele- 

 brated work having been subsequently communicated to the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society by Mr. C. B. Fripp, we think our readers will have 

 pleasure in reviewing this interesting subject more at large. — Ed.] 



Before proceeding to the analysis of M. Guerry's work, which will form 

 the main subject of this Essay, it may be useful to offer a few remarks on 

 the nature and progress oi Statistics in general. This science is in a great 

 measure one of recent growth, and indeed the very term is so new to our 

 language, as not to be found in the earlier editions of Johnson. The want 

 of interest in researches of this kind, which is observable even in the pre- 

 sent day, may be traced to various causes ; one of which is no doubt the 

 repugnance felt by many persons to details which can be adequately re- 

 presented only by figures, the due examination and comparison of which 

 involve no slight degree of application.* Beside this, in Hfting the veil 

 from the surface of society, and exposing its real condition to view, sta- 

 tistical science, in its moral department, acts the part of a faithful but 

 unwelcome monitor ; and reveals to us, in the most legible characters, a 

 mass of disorder and crime, which, however chequered by brighter features, 

 is almost certain to repel the fastidious taste of the sentimentally bene- 

 volent, if it does not dishearten and overwhelm the genuine philan- 

 thropist. 



Of all the causes which contributed to the military greatness of the 

 ancient Romans, their wonderful organization, founded on the results of 

 their periodical census, is most conspicuous. The frequent enumerations 

 of the people, from the time of Servius TuUius (about 570 b. c), to the 

 year 73 of the Christian era, and the particulars of their social condition 

 then deposed to, appear to have been registered with much care in a ta- 

 bular form 3 and had these records come down to us, more especially in a 

 completed state to the time of Constantine, it would be a matter of great 

 interest to compare them with the results of later inquiries. They could 

 not fail to clear up many unexplained diflSculties in contemporary history, 

 and they would throw a new light on the causes of the decline and fall of 

 that monstrous creation of military power, the Roman Empire j which, in 

 the later period referred to, had acquired a distaste for the severe and 

 healthful institutions of its early days, till at length (to use the words of a 

 popular writer) the world beheld in it " but a bloated and feeble giant, 



* Statistical inquiries have been humorously described as ' ' the Cause, — the Figures 

 of Arithmetic, versus the Figures of Speech." 



