Mar. 7, 1872J 



NATURE 



361 



a society in a certain condition, is embodied in his maxim 

 that society prepares the crime and the criminal executes 

 it. This should be read with a comment of the author's. 

 "If," he says, " I were to take up the pavement before my 

 house, should I be astonished to hear in the morning that 

 people had fallen and hurt themselves, and could I lay 

 the blame on the sufferers, inasmuch as they were free to 

 go there or elsewhere ? " Thus every member of society 

 who offers a facility to the commisiion of crime, or does 

 not endeavour to hinder its commission, is, in a degree, 

 responsible for it. It is absurd to suppose that the crimes 

 in great cities are attributable altogether to the free agency 

 of the poor wretches who are transported or hung for 

 them. The nation v/hich can and does not prevent the 

 existence of a criminal class is responsible collectively 

 for the evil done by this class. This we can see plainly 

 enough, although the exact distribution of the responsibility 

 among the different members of society may be impossible 

 to determine. Such a theory, of course, casts aside the 

 revenge-theory of criminal law, assimilating the treatment 

 of criminals to the operation of a surgeon healing a 

 diseased part of the bod)-, if possible, or, if not, rendering 

 it harmless or removing it. 



The wealthy and educated classes, whose lives seem to 

 themselves as free from moral blame as they are from 



ej'^- 



legal punishment, may at first hear with no pleasant sur- 

 prise a theory which inculpates them as sharers in the 

 crimes necessarily resulting from the state of society 

 which they are influential in shaping. Yet this considera- 

 tion is by no means one of mere hopeless regret, for 

 coupled with it is the knowledge that it is in their power, 

 by adopting certain educational and reformatory measures, 

 so to alter the present moral status of society as to reduce 

 the annual budget of crime to a fraction of its present 

 amount. Thus the doctrine that the nation participates in 

 and is responsible for the acts of its individual members is 

 one which widens the range of duty to the utmost. The 

 labours of M. Ouetelet in reducing to absolute calculation 

 this doctrine of the solidarity of human society, entitle 

 him to a place among those great thinkers whose efforts 

 perceptibly raise that society to a higher intellectual and 

 moral level. Here, as everywhere, the larger compre- 

 hension of the laws of nature works for good and not for 

 evil in the history of the world. 



Some slight account has now to be given of M. 

 Ouetelet's doctrine of typical forms, as displayed in the 

 '~homme moyen," or " mean man," of a particular nation 

 or race. This is no new theorj' ; but since the pubhcation 

 of the " Physique Sociale" in 1S35, the author has been 

 at work extending and systematising it, his last results 

 being shown in the present works. First, it must be 



pointed out that the term "homme moyen" is not in- 

 tended to indicate what would be popularly meant by an 

 " average man." An average or arithmetical mean of a 

 number of objects may be a mere imaginary entity, 

 having no real representative. Thus, an average chess- 

 man, computed as to height from the different pieces on 

 the board, might not correspond to any one of the actual 

 pieces. But the " homme moyen " or central type of a 

 papulation really exists ; more than this, the class he 

 belongs to exceeds in number any other class, and the 

 less nearly any other class approaches to his standard 

 the less numerous that class is, the decrease in the number 

 of individuals as they depart from the central type con- 

 forming to a calculable numerical law. The" mean min" 

 (the term may probably be adopted in future researches, 

 and when technically used its popular meaning will cease 

 to interfere with this special one)— the " mean man " thus 

 stands as a representative of the whole population, in- 

 dividuals as they differ from him baing considered as forms 

 varying from his specific type. 



To realise a conception which even among anthropo- 

 logists has scarcely yet become familiar, it is desirable to 

 show by what actual observations M. Quetelet was led to 

 the discovery of his principle. When a large number of 

 men of a practically homogeneous population are mea- 

 sured, and arranged in groups accordingly, it becomes 

 evident that the individuals are related to one another by 

 a law of distribution. A central typ3 is represented by 

 the most numerous group, the adjoining groups becoming 

 less and less numerous in both directions. Thus, on 

 classifying the measured heights of some 26,000 Ame- 

 rican soldiers of the Northern army during the late 

 war, the proportionate number of men to each height 

 was ascertained to be as follows (Phys. Soc. i. p. 131 ; 

 Anthropom. p. 259) : — 



Height, inches .... 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 6S 



No. ofmen in 1,000 . i i 2 20 48 75 117 134 157 



Height, inches .... 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 



No. of men in 1,000 . 140 121 80 57 26 13 5 2 



Here it is seen that the mean man is a little under 5 ft. Sin. 

 in height, the numbers ofmen shorter and taller diminish- 

 ing with evident regularity, down to the few representatives 

 of the very short men of 5 ft. and under, and the very tall 

 men of 6ft. 4 in. and over. The law of relation of 

 height to numerical strength is shown graphically by the 

 binomial curve figured above, where the abscissa; 

 (measured from an origin on the left) represent the heights 

 of the men, and the ordinates the relative numbers ofmen 

 corresponding to each height. The maximum ordinate, 

 representing the number of mean men, is aX m = about 

 5 ft. 8 in., the ordinates on both sides diminishing almost 

 to nothing as they reach the dwarfish and gigantic limits 

 li ssiA. g, and vanishing beyond. 



Again, measurement round the chest, applied to the 

 soldiers of the Potomac army, shows a similar law of 

 grouping (Phys. Soc. ii. 59 ; Anthropom. p. 289). 



Round chest, inches .... 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 

 No. of men in 1,000 ... i 3 " 3^ 67 119 160204 



Round chest, inches .... 36 37 38 39 4° 4' 4^ 

 No. of men in 1,000 ... 166 119 68 28 13 4 I 



Here the mean man measures about 35in. round the chest, 

 the numbers diminishing both ways till we reach the few 



