ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 581 



establish in some way the foundation of Social Physics, 

 it is the mean man whom one must consider without 

 stopping at particular and anomalous cases and without 

 investigating whether some individual can take a de- 

 velopment more or less great in one of his faculties. 1 

 . . . After having considered man at different epochs 

 and among different peoples, after having successively 

 determined the different elements of his physical and 

 moral condition, ... we shall be able to fix the laws 

 to which he has been subjected in different nations 

 since their birth that is to say, we shall be able to 

 follow the course of the centres of gravity of every part 

 of the system." 2 In an astronomical fashion Quetelet 

 speaks of the perturbing forces and variations, and of 

 the " stability of the social system," 3 and compares the 

 new science of society to the mechanics of the Heavens. 4 

 The influence of Laplace and his school is evident in 

 every page of Quetelet's work. Whilst speaking of the 

 " variability of the human type and the mean man 

 among different peoples and in different centuries," he 



1 ' Sur I'Homme,' vol. i. p. 22. 



2 Ibid., p. 23. 



3 Ibid., p. 26. 



4 Vol. ii. p. 338. Quetelet speaks of 

 the annual and diurnal periods, and 

 continues : " Les causes regulieres 

 et periodiqucs, qui dependent ou de 

 la peYiode annuelle ou de la periode 

 diurne, exercent sur la societe des 

 effets plus prononces et qui varient 

 dans des limites plus larges, que 

 les effets combines non periodiques, 

 produits annuellement par le con- 

 cours de toutes les autres causes 

 qui agissent sur la societe" ; en 

 d'autres termes, le systeine social, 

 dans sa maniere d'etre, parait etre 



plus dissemblable a lui - meme 

 pendant le cours d'une anne"e ou 

 meme pendant 1'espace d'un jour, 

 que pendant deux anne'es con- 

 secutives, si 1'on a egard a 1'ac- 

 croissement de la population. La 

 periode diurne semble exercer une 

 influence un peu plus prononcee 

 que la periode annuelle, du moins 

 en ce qui concerne les naissances. 

 La periode annuelle produit des 

 effets plus sensibles dans les 

 campagncs que dans les vittes, et 

 il parait eu etre de meme des 

 causes en gdneral qui tendent 

 a modifier les faits relatifs a 

 1'homme." 



