ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE, 



571 



view that morals and politics might derive the same 

 henefit from the science of calculation as the physical 

 sciences had already experienced, seems to have been 

 Turgot. To show the importance of this view, Con- 

 dorcet wrote his much quoted hut little read essay on 

 the application of analysis to decisions based on the 

 plurality of votes. Tn his fiitroductioii tlie author 

 laments that his friend, on whose suggestions he had 

 commenced his work, did not live to see it finished/ It 

 would have been interesting to know whether so emi- 

 nent a practical philosopher as Turgot is considered to 

 have been, would have been encouraged by his friend's 

 specimen of political algebra, or whether he would have 

 held the opinion of Mill, who saw in tliese " appli- 

 cations of the calculus of probabilities . . . the real 

 opprobrium of mathematics." " 



^ {Loc. cit., p. i.) "Si riiumanite 

 n'eut pas eu le mallieur, longtemps 

 irreparable, de le ])er<lre trop tot, 

 cet ouvrage eut etu muiu-s impar- 

 fait: cclairo par ses conseils, jaurois 

 vu mieux ou plus loin, et j'aurois 

 avauce avec plus de confiance des 

 principes qui auroieut (5to les sieus. 

 Prive d'un tel guide, il ne nie reste 

 qu'ii fairo h sa memoire I'liommage 

 de mon travail, en faisant tous rues 

 efforts ])our le rendre moins indigne 

 de I'amitid dont il m'houoroit. " 



- There is no doubt tliat the 

 writings of Condorcet, through the 

 useless accumulation of forniuUc 

 with very little substance behind 

 them, contributed to bring the 

 whole theory into discredit. An- 

 other still moie eminent contem- 

 porary mathematician, D'Alembert, 

 after having occupied himself at 

 considerable length with problems 

 in prtjbabilities, formed an un- 

 favourable opinion of the usefulness 



of the calculus. Gouraud (quoted 

 by Todhunter, p. 293) says : '■ (^uaut 

 au reste des malhematiciens, ce ne 

 fut (jue par le silence ou le dedain 

 qu'il rcpondit aux doutes que 

 d'Alembert s'ctait permis d'cmettre. 

 Mi5pris injuste et malhabile oh tout 

 le monde avait ii perdre et qu'une 

 posterite moins pr^venue ne devait 

 point sanctiouner." It is interest- 

 ing to note that Laplace, in hi.s 

 historical account at the end of his 

 ' Essai Philosophique,' does not 

 refer either to Condorcet or to 

 D'Alembert. J. S. Mill ('Logic,' 

 vol. ii. p. 66) says : " It is obvious, 

 too, that even when the proba- 

 bilities are derived from observation 

 and expei-iment, a very slight 

 improvement in the data, by better 

 observations, or by taking into 

 fuller consideration the s]>ecial 

 circumstiinces of the case, is of more 

 use than the most elaborate appli- 

 cation of the calculus to jjrobabil- 



