THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 121 



which elaborated the principles of Newton into a system 

 of the universe, and attacked the intricate mathematical 

 problem which this system presented, gave to the world 

 likewise the first complete treatise on that calculus which 

 comes into play if we eliminate from the apparently most 

 arbitrary region of phenomena, that of human life and 

 history, all regard for final or efficient causes, for provi- 

 dential design and freewill, for human error, human malice 

 and benevolence in fact, all notice of that element which 

 from another and equally important point of view forms 

 the subject of greatest interest the inner life of the in- 

 dividual. It was proposed, and it has since been carried 

 out, to look upon human beings and human events not as 

 things possessed of an inner world of thought and freewill, 

 but as lifeless units, more uniform and regular than the 

 balls thrown into the urn at an election, or the counters 

 in a game of chance. By overstepping with one bound 

 the great field of human activity, full of so much con- 

 fusion and so much interest, it was proposed to investi- 

 gate what knowledge would result from a purely mathe- 

 matical inspection, in which human beings figured merely 

 as units and symbols. 1 This attempt, which has since 



&c./ 1812) is now extensively em- 

 ployed. Of this branch of mathe- 



matics Bertrand says: "Les plus 

 grands ge'ometres ont e\:rit sur le 

 calcul des probabilites ; presque 

 tous ont commis des erreurs : la 

 cause en est, le plus souvent, au 

 desir d'appliquer des principes a 

 des problemes qui par leur nature 

 dchappent a la science." In the 

 hands of Clerk Maxwell the cal- 

 culus has acquired an additional 

 interest and importance through 

 the distinction which he made be- 

 tween what he termed the "histori- 



cal" and the "statistical method" 

 of treating phenomena, and the 

 application of the latter to the 

 kinetic theory of gases (see Life, 

 pp. 438, 562). This subject will 

 occupy our attention in a special 

 chapter. 



The beginnings of the science of 

 statistics belong likewise to the age 

 that produced the higher mathema- 

 tics. More extensive "countings" 

 seem to have been contemporaneous 

 with more refined calculations. Her- 

 mann Conring, professor at Helm- 

 stadt, a friend of Leibniz (see Leib- 



