3:?4 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. [chap. xiv. 



Social JSfumhers. 



Little allusion need be made in this work to the fact 

 that man in his economic, sanitary, intellectual, aesthetic, 

 or moral relations may become the subject of sciences, 

 the highest and most useful of all sciences. Every one 

 who is engnged in statistical inquiry must acknowledge 

 the possibility of natural laws governing such statistical 

 facts. Hence we must allot a distinct place to numerical 

 information relating to the numbers, ages, physical and 

 sanitary condition, mortality, &c., of different peoples, in 

 short, to vital statistics. Economic statistics, compre- 

 hending the quantities of commodities produced, existing, 

 exchanged and consumed, constitute another extensive 

 body of science. In the progress of time exact investi- 

 gation may possibly subdue regions of phenomena which 

 at present defy all scientific treatment. That scientific 

 method can ever exhaust the phenomena of the human 

 mind is incredible. 



