TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 173 



ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



Address by the Eight Honourable Sir Staffobd Northcote, Bart., C.B., 

 D.C.L., M.P., President of the Section. 



If it had not been the custom for those who occupy the position which I have 

 been called on to tQl to open the proceedings of the Section with some general re- 

 marks, I should have invited you to proceed to the consideration of the papers 

 which will be laid before you, without any preface. For the preface is not only 

 the dullest part of a work, and that which is the most fi-equently skipped ; but, as 

 a matter of authorship, it is the part which ought to be written last, because it 

 ought to be adapted to that which is to follow it ; and what that may be, I do not 

 yet fully know. 



Forecasting, however, as well as I can, the character of the work which now 

 lies before us, though not prepared as yet to present to you a summary of what you 

 may expect, I cannot doubt that the transactions of the present Meeting will con- 

 tinue to exhibit the tendency of statistical iuquuy to take year by year a wider 

 range. That such is its tendency is, I think, not only evident to the observer, but 

 may be said to be a law of the science. For the statist is not animated by a mere 

 spirit of curiosity, nor does he content himself with the simple accumulation of 

 fects. His objects are at once nobler and more practical. He aims at discoverino- 

 the actual condition of his country, and the causes of that condition, with a view 

 to discover also the methods of improving it. Now, even the true condition of the 

 coimtry is not immediately obvious to the superficial observer ; while the causes 

 of the several phenomena which it exhibits lie very deep, and can only be discerned 

 by the aid of patient and extensive inquiries, conducted with skill and discernment, 

 as well as with the most rigid exactitude ; and the investigation of the methods by 

 which improvements may be effected imposes a further and at least an equally 

 severe labour. The " Condition of England " question is one which does not lie 

 in a nutshell. 



I need not, I am sure, recall to the recollection of such an audience as the pre- 

 sent, the interesting Report presented by an eminent member of this Association*, 

 whom we have now the pleasiu-e of seeing amongst us, to the International Statis- 

 tical Congress of 18G0. You will remember how he drew attention to the two oi-eat 



laws which the study of statistics reveals to us, and on which the science rests, 



the law of Stability, which teaches us to deduce from the observation of particular 

 phenomena general conclusions, as to the regidarity of their recun-ence ; and the 

 law of Variation, which teaches us in what manner, and within what limits, the 

 conditions of human life, and the cun-ent of human action, may be modified or 

 controlled by man. The main interest of our studies is, of course, concentrated on 

 the working of this second law, and on the discovery of the limits within which 

 our power is confined, and here it is that we find the necessity for that extension 

 of the range of our inqiuries to which I have adverted. 



As in the ease of most other sciences and branches of learning, so most assuredly 

 in the case of Statistics, our progress is marked by a series of disappointments. 

 We begin in ignorance and we phmge into error ; then we find out om- mistakes, 

 and, after having fancied that we had attained to gi-eat proficiency, learn, like the 

 wise man of old, that the sum of our knowledge is, that we know "nothing. From 

 that point, if we are wise enough and honest enough to profit by om* experience 

 we may indeed begin to make some solid progress ; "but both wisdom and honesty 

 are needed for the purpose ; aye, and courage too, and self-denial. For it is no 

 slight trial to a man, who with much labour and much ingenuity has collected a 

 mass of materials, and has constructed a theory out of them, to find that, throuo-b 

 some mistake or oversight, he has gone wi-ong from the first, and that the whole 

 work must be taken to pieces, the materials sifted and rearrano-ed, and the 

 favourite theoiy abandoned. No one will go through such a tiial who is not sup- 

 ported by a genuine love of truth, and by a hearty conviction that it is a prize 

 worth every sacrifice. 



But this lesson, at all events, we learn from the history of these disappoiutments, 



* Dr. Farr. 



