TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 151 



ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 

 Address by Wii-liam Fakk, M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., the President of the Section. 



Gentlemex, — I am deeply sensible of the honour which has been conferred upon 

 me by placing me in this Chair. 



In opening your proceedings, I propose to bring rapidly under your notice the 

 state of the science which you have met in this Section to promote as Members of 

 the British Association. 



Mathematics is the great abstract science -which fosters all the rest ; and physics, 

 mechanics, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, geography, ethnology, embrace the 

 phenomena of the heavens, the earth, and the thi'ee kingdoms of nature. They 

 occupy other Sections. 



Man himself is the special study of physiology and of ethnology in two of those 

 Sections; but there they inquire into the functions and parts of the body, or the 

 condition of cm' race as the foremost of the animal kingdom ; while geography 

 describes nations, as it describes mountains and rivers, because they are on the 

 earth's siu'face. 



"\Ye have to do with men in States, and in political communities. Statistics is 

 essentially a science of the relation-? of numbers of men, and its laws are founded 

 on the observation of mankind as they exist in nations now and in past times ; 

 but, building on facts that can be measured and expressed in numbers, it is only in 

 civilized communities, and in recent times, that it hnds adequate materials. Tlie 

 domain of the past we almost abandon to the geologists or the historians : and we 

 leave the uncivilized world in the possession' of our enterprising neighbours the 

 ethnologists ; while we yet hope one day to enter this held, and indeed have 

 already made, under established Governments, some conquests among the races in 

 India, in Ivussia, and in South America. 



Mau in society possesses property, and all his possessions fall within our pro- 

 vince, for they form an intrinsic part of the State. We have to study, besides the 

 political relations of men to each other, their riches in land, in horses, sheep, and 

 the cattle on a thousand hills, in grain and crops, ia precious metals, in minerals, 

 and in merchandise. 



Here are found the gToimds of two grand divisions of statistics ; the first falling 

 imder the head of Populatiim, and the second under the head of Property, which is 

 the subject also of econondc science. 



Under Population are discussed the races, sexes, ages, marriages, births, deaths, 

 causes of death, the ranks, professions and tenm-es of each people in a State : from 

 their earnings the value of their life-work is deduced ; certain acts are also inves- 

 tigated, such as baptisms, attendances at schools or at chm-ches, votes at elec- 

 tions, crimes, pimishments, diseases, and civil actions. Civil and military statistics 

 constitute a capital chapter of this division. 



The statistics of Property are di\-isible into two chapters : the first treats of 

 the fixed property, including land, miues, forests, manufactories, houses, roads, 

 canals, and rivers ; its basis is a map on a scale large enough to exhibit the quan- 

 tities of every parcel of land and the area of every dwelling-house : the holdings 

 of land, its burthens, and transfers, naturally fall under this head. 



Under the second head falls the moveable property, including live stock, ships, 

 machines, goods, merchandise, and vendible products of all kinds. 



Jhe annual produce of the two classes of property, its transport, its sales, its 

 prices, and its relation to the stock, form the subject of the three sections of agri- 

 cultural statistics, industrial statistics, and commercial statistics. 



The public revenue and expenditure, the financial operations of the public ex- 

 chequer, of the banks, and of the gTeat companies, offer an extensive field, and are 

 in the domain of financial statistics. 



There are other minor divisions, but the object I aim at is to survey rapidly the 

 field of our labours, which, although it is concerned in the facts of public interest 

 to statesmen and political inquirers, and includes the fundamental part of politics, 

 yet does not embrace all the doctrines of that kindred science, which, I may 

 add, has been kuuinously expounded by Sir George Lewis in the treatise on the 



