562 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



10. labour of statistics was taken up in Germany by the 



statistics in 



France, Ger- Universitics, whcrcas in England it fell to the lot chiefly 



many, and ' " •' 



Engiami. ^f .^ single pcrson — the celebrated Sir William Petty, 

 the creator of the term " Political Arithmetic." Thus, as 

 in science generally, so in statistics, Prance marched 

 ahead with her systematic and administrative genius ; 

 Germany followed in the person of Professor Conring,^ 

 who introduced the matter as a subject of university 

 teaching ; whilst Sir William Petty ^ wrote his essay 

 with the practical object of disproving an opinion then 

 much current in England, and which has periodically 

 cropped up in the writings of journalists at home and 

 abroad — the threatened decline of the English nation. 



1 Hermann Conring (1606-81), 

 Professor of lledicine and Phil- 

 osophy at Hehnstildt, lectured on 

 " Staatskunde, Notitia Rerum Pub- 

 licarum," from about 1660. 



- About the same time when 

 lectures on '" The Science of the 

 State " were begun in Germany bv 

 Conring, Sir William Petty (162:3- 

 87) in England, one of the founders 

 of the Royal Society, occupied him- 

 self for practical reasons with similar 

 subjects, collecting his views in a 

 tract called 'Political Arithmetic' 

 about the j'ear 1677, besides con- 

 tributing various papers to the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions ' and 

 publishing several 'Essays' (1681- 

 86). The 'Political Arithmetic' 

 would have been printed, but for 

 the French policy of Charles II., to 

 whom it was presented in manu- 

 script. It was not published till 

 1690, after the author's death, on a 

 permission "given at the Court 

 of Whitehall on the seventh day 

 of November," by Lord Shel- 

 burne, the son of the author. 

 In the preface, he characteristic- 



ally saj's : " I have thoui^ht fit to 

 examine the following Persuasions ; 

 which I find too current in the 

 world, and too much to have 

 affected the minds of some, to the 

 prejudice of all — viz., That the 

 rents of lands are generally fallen ; 

 that therefore, and for many other 

 reasons, the whole hingdom grows 

 every day poorer and poorer. That 

 formerlj' it abounded with gold ; 

 but now, there is a great scarcity, 

 both of gold and silver. That there 

 is no trade, nor employment for the 

 people ; and yet that the land is 

 under -peopled. That taxes have 

 been many and great. That Ire- 

 land and the Plantations in 

 America, and other additions to 

 the Crown, are a burden to Eng- 

 land. That Scotland is of no ad- 

 vantage. That trade, in general, 

 doth lamentably decay. That the 

 Jlollanders are at our heels, in the 

 race for naval power ; the French 

 grow too fast upon both ; and appear 

 so rich and potent, that it is but their 

 clemency that they do not devour 

 their neighbours." 



