ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 563 



And as in science, so also in statistics, Germany in time 

 followed the example of France by introducing organis- 

 ations similar to that of the " Cabinet complet de poli- 

 tique et de finances " of Sully. It was notably during 

 the reign of Frederick the Great that the population 

 statistics were regularly and systematically collected in 

 Prussia, this enterprise being greatly stimulated by the 

 publication of J. P. Siissmilch's l ' Treatise on the Divine 

 Order.' In England with a notable exception to be 

 mentioned immediately the line of research opened out 

 by Sir William Petty was not followed up, and Mac- 

 Culloch, when publishing, at the beginning of our cen- 



1 Joharm Peter Siissmilch (1707- 

 67) published, in the year 1741, a 

 book with the following title : ' Die 

 gottliche Ordnung in den Veriinder- 

 ungen des nienschlichen Geschlechts, 

 aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der 

 Fortpflanzung desselben erwiesen 

 von Johann Peter Siissmilch, Pre- 

 diger beym hochloblichen Kalck- 

 steinischen Regiment. Nebst einer 

 Vorrede Herrn Christian Wolffens.' 

 The book, as well as the author, 

 was for a long time but little ap- 

 preciated ; for although the former 

 was dedicated to Frederick the 

 Great, and must presumably, to 

 judge from the several editions 

 which appeared, have been made 

 use of in the statistical labours of the 

 Prussian administration, the author, 

 not having been connected with any 

 university, had, for a long time, 

 little influence on the so - called 

 "university school" of statistics. 

 In the course of the last fifty years, 

 all prominent writers on statistics, 

 such as Wappaus, Roscher, von 

 Oettingen, Knapp, and V. John, in 

 Germany, M. Block and others in 

 France, as also Italian writers on 

 statistics, have taken increased 

 interest in the book. Dr V. John 



('Geschichte der Statistik,' vol. i. 

 p. 241, &c.) gives an exhaustive 

 analysis of the work. He calls the 

 author " the first statistician in the 

 modern sense," the precursor of 

 Quetelet, and says, moreover, "It 

 is easily explained how the philos- 

 opher Siissmilch would vanish into 

 the background as soon as the con- 

 ception of the encyclopaedists, that 

 only matter in motion exists and 

 no mind, came to be generally ac- 

 cepted, and that the politician 

 Siissmilch should utterly disappear 

 in the turmoil of the French 

 Revolution." Von Oettingen, who, 

 on the other side, agrees in accept- 

 ing with Siissmilch the existence 

 of a Divine or moral order, says of 

 the latter, that "he has become, 

 through his magnificent labours, 

 the founder of the science which 

 we now call moral statistics," inas- 

 much as he, "for the first time, 

 recognised the intrinsic regularity 

 in the apparently most accidental 

 human phenomena and actions, and 

 tried to establish it by inductive 

 methods" (' Moralstatistik,' 3rd 

 ed., 1882, p. 21). That he was 

 known to Herder and appreciated 

 by him, we saw supra, p. 536 note. 



