122 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



led to such interesting results, and which has furnished 

 almost all the knowledge upon which a judicious regula- 

 tion and government of society depends, was the work of 

 Laplace, and was produced in an age and in a nation 

 which seemed to have set at naught all ideas of order and 

 method in human affairs, which defied all authority and 

 all tradition, and trusted its fate to the most radical 

 revolution which civilised society ever witnessed. 1 



It is curious to read the criticism which the first 

 Napoleon, that wayward child of the Eevolution, passed 

 on the author of the mechanics of the heavens and the 

 theory of probability. Laplace, like so many other men 

 of science, had been called by the Emperor to assist in 

 the labours of administration, but, according to his judg- 

 ment, proved himself a poor administrator, being unable 



oiiz's ' Philosophische Schriften,' ed. 

 Gerhardt, vol. i. p. 155), lectured 

 .about 1660 on subjects now com- 

 prised under the term " Statistics," 

 and about the same time John Graunt 

 of London published ' Natural and 

 Political Annotations made upon 

 the Bills of Mortality ' (1666). Sir 

 William Petty, one of the founders 

 of the Royal Society, published in 

 1683 'Five Essays in Political 

 Arithmetick.' The newly discov- 

 ered calculus of probabilities in- 

 duced mathematicians to take an in- 

 terest in the subject, and to urge the 

 desirability of gaining data for their 

 calculations. Many of these turned 

 upon questions of mortality and 

 the ravages of diseases, such as the 

 smallpox. But though undoubt- 

 edly the fact that during the 

 French Revolution mathematicians 

 for the first time had a great in- 

 fluence in administrative and gov- 

 ernmental matters contributed 

 enormously to the introduction of 

 .statistical methods, the great epoch 



in this science is allied with the 

 name of the Belgian Quetelet 

 (1796-1874), of whom more later 

 on. 



1 Cantor (' Historische Notizen 

 iiber die Wahrscheinlichkeitsrech- 

 nung, J Halle, 1874, p. 6) says : 

 "The tendency of thought which 

 prepared the Revolution, and which 

 is marked by an unsparing and de- 

 structive criticism of the conditions 

 of society in state and family, could 

 not dispense with an instrument 

 which, more than any other, enables 

 one to subject to general views the 

 most different factors of civilisation. 

 It belonged to the favourite ideas of 

 that age, that the calculus of proba- 

 bilities should be among the most 

 important subjects of public in- 

 struction ; for it was said to be the 

 calculus of common-sense, through 

 which alone the influence of hope, 

 fear, and emotion on our judgment 

 could be destroyed, and prejudice 

 and superstition removed from the 

 decisions of social life. " 



