- other scientific bodies, to participate. 

NATURE 
61 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1870 

THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE 
HE Statistical Society, which held its first meeting 
for the session 1870-71 on Tuesday, the 15th inst.,had 
the claims of Science brought before it in a paper read 
to it by Dr. Guy, one of its vice-presidents. The paper 
was written with the practical aim of commending and 
furthering a scheme which the Statistical Society has set 
on foot, and in which it has invited the Institute of 
Actuaries, the Social Science Association, and several 
The object these 
societies have in view is to provide a common home in 
which they shall enjoy the advantage of fixity of tenure 
and the sense of permanence, with suitable and economi- 
cal arrangements for carrying on their scientific work. 
They wish to provide for themselves a common theatre, 
convenient offices, spacious libraries, and—in the case of 
societies requiring moderate museum accommodation— 
museums. All this the societies aim at accomplishing 
within moderate limits and at a reasonable cost ; for they 
feel very naturally that when the Government has made 
provision at Burlington House for six leading societies, 
and other institutions have provided their own isolated 
accommodation, there no longer remains any place or 
pretence for a large and comprehensive scientific centre. 
The building contemplated by the associated societies 
would have all the unity of character now practicable, if 
its principal tenants were to consist of societies having a 
common aim. Such an aim is to be found in the culture 
of the sciences now known as “social,” or societies which 
make man himself, as the unit of society, the object of 
their study. 
If we define Science as “knowledge in its most defi- 
' nite, condensed, and exquisite form, dealing with worthy 
objects, and applied to worthy uses,” it may be stated, 
as a truth worthy of general acceptance, that every branch 
of knowledge that is, by common consent, stamped with 
the word scéence, aims at some useful and worthy object, 
studies a certain defined order of things, which it identifies 
by accurate descriptions and exact definitions, by expres- 
sive words and phrases ; which it arranges in lucid order, 
under classes and sub-classes ; on which it brings to bear 
the most delicate instruments and most refined methods 
of analysis ; to which it applies, as far as practicable, the 
rules of logic and the figures of arithmetic ; crowning the 
entire edifice, if it proves equal to the burthen, with some 
comprehensive numerical theory. 
Es — =. 
Passing from this general view of science, and coming 
to that branch of it now known as sacéal, we may trace 
the seeds of it back to the parish registers of 1538 
and the enactment of Henry VIII., respecting leases for 
three lives, or twenty-one years, through the London 
Bills of Mortality and the commentaries of Grount 
and Petty, through the early attempts of Halley to 
construct a table of mortality from the death registers 
of Breslau, through the prison inspections of John 
Howard, up tothe establishment of the Statistical Society 
in 1834, and the foundation of the Social Science Association 
in 1857; the Statistical Society having, as is well known, 
been set on foot with the object of collecting “ facts 
2 VOL. IIT. 



calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of 
society,” which was what Gottfried Ochenwall, of Gét- 
tingen, who coined the word S%adis¢z&, really meant by that 
word. The Social Science Association, therefore, was a 
second development and a modified culture of that branch 
or division of human knowledge—that science of States— 
to which had been previously given the name of Statis- 
tics. The two societies have a common aim—the im- 
provement of man’s condition physical, intellectual, and 
moral, through the patient heaping up, intelligent sorting, 
and critical examination of the elements of a knowledge 
which, properly applied, is power indeed. 
This social science, of which the /zstztute a7 Actuaries 
cultivates a very important section, differs from most 
other sciences chiefly in this, that its units are of variable 
magnitude, and that its truths and principles, gathered 
from large assemblages of such units, admit of application 
only to like collections of facts, not to the individual units 
themselves. The actuary has the function of first estab- 
lishing truths of this order, and then applying them; the 
statist must ]ook to the statesman to carry into effect the 
practical works of justice and benevolence. The asso- 
ciation of the Statistical Society and Institute of Actuaries 
with the Social Science Association and Law Amendment 
Society is, therefore, one pointed out by the nature of 
things; and we may hope to see them some day 
working side by side under one roof with one common 
aim—“ the improvement of man’s estate.” But this prin- 
ciple of association admits of being carried much farther, 
so as at lengthto embrace in one group, under one roof, 
all the societies or associations that make man himself, as 
a physical and moral unit, the object of their study. 
The section of Dr. Guy's paper that treated of sczentijic 
socteties ana associations, consisted of an historical retro- 
spect of the rise and origin of most of the societies now 
existing, finishing with some details of the number and 
composition of the Statistical Society’s members, and of the 
numberof membersof theallied societies. Into thesedetails 
we shall not enter, but we shall restrict ourselves, in what 
we have yet to say, to the views expressed by Dr. Guy on 
the subject of the claims of science to public recognition 
and support. After pointing out that science has fouad 
fayour, encouragement, and support under every form of 
Government, that kings have acknowledged that it adds 
lustre even to thrones, and republics have deemed it quite 
consistent with their sterner virtue to hold ont to it the 
hand of fellowship—a recent notable example of which 
has been afforded in the pecuniary assistance and means of 
transport afforded by the United States to two parties of 
its citizens bent upon voyages to Spain and Sicily to view 
the total eclipse on the 22nd of December, an example 
which our Government has at last, however, willingly 
consented to follow,--the paper proceeded to do justice 
to our own Government. The refusal, followed by a slow 
repentance, was quite an exception to the rule in England. 
It could only have occurred during one of those cold fits 
of economy to which the nation is subject at the close of 
some feverish paroxysm of prodigal expenditure ; or it 
may have been an outbreak of the hypochondriac fancy 
that they are on the brink of ruin, which is apt to seize 
the richest nations no less than the wealthiest indi- 
viduals. It is not difficult to show that Science, in the 
E 
