TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 187 



should not be giveu to these latter. For instance, if we take the geographical 

 area of a country to he so much, and assume the density of population to be at a 

 certain rate per sq^uare mile, we may work out a very precise figure, and yet in 

 reality the result is not at all precise. 



There is very often fear that Statistics are sought out and adapted to suit a pre- 

 conceived theorv. Another misuse of Statistics is this, that Avhen they are used 

 to test certain capacities and qualifications work is directed and shaped to meet the 

 statistical test, and the results thus obtained become misleading. In such a case 

 it is necessary very frequently to change the form in which the statistical test is 



applied. 



Eearing in mind, however, the necessity of guarding against abuse, there can 

 be little doubt that statistical science is one of the most important instruments 

 and necessities of our time, especially in this country, in which we are somewhat 

 deficient in that science. First, we require statistics for the direct ascertainment 

 of facts for practical use; for instance, the statistics of production. Agricidtural 

 and manufacturing statistics are of the greatest practical importance to the fiirmer 

 and the mauufactiirer. We are almost wholly destitute of agricultural statistics. 

 How o-reat is the contrast in America and other countries, where great attention is 

 paid to these subjects, and every farmer iu the country is kept informed of very 

 much that it is most important for him to know ! 



But there is a second and almost more important use of Statistics, viz. the culti- 

 vation of economic science by the inductive method. It is by collecting, verifying, 

 and classifying facts that we are able to approach economic truth. There was a 

 time when itleems to have been supposed that political economy was a science 

 reo-ulated by natiual laws so fixed that safe results could be attained by deductive 

 reasoning. But since it has become apparent that men do not in fact invariably 

 follow the laws of money-making pure and simple, that economic action is aflected 

 by moral causes which cannot be exactly measured, it becomes more and more 

 evident that we cannot safely trust to a chain of deduction, we must test every 

 step by an accurate observation of facts, and induction from them. This is, it 

 seems "to me, the highest function of statistical science : we recognize that men 

 are not mere machines whose course may be set and whose progress may be 

 calculated by a simple formula. Men are complicated beings, whose minds and 

 motives of action we do not vet thoroughly understand ; we cannot foretell what 

 they will do till we are siu-e 'that we know what in fact they actually have done 

 and do iu a gi-eat variety of circumstances. In proportion as we attain that 

 knowledge, we become acquainted with the main agent in economic science, and 

 make advances towards a knowledge of that science. 



When we seek to understand economic history and economic institutions, it is 

 seldom that all the necessary materials are ready to hand in our own countiy and 

 our own aue. AVe must search for them far and wide. We seek to recover 

 economic history, geuerallv very imperfectly recorded in times when the science 

 was little understood. And at"the same time there is a kind of contemporaneous 

 history of which very much use may be made. We may obser\e facts, and may 

 obtain statistics iu countries which are in stages of human and economic history 

 very different from our own. As the history of plants and animals is recovered 

 from geological records, so we may recover "much of human history by studying 

 uian m the earlv. middle, and more advanced stages of civilization. We of this 

 country, who rule over so manv lands in so many parts of the world, have special 

 opportunities for this kind of economic study. In my own experience I have been 

 particularly struck bv the light thrown on our institutions by a comparison with 

 those lately and now existing among the different peoples of India. India is in 

 truth a country of manv peoples, aud'there is there infinite material for the human 

 archreologist who would study the earlier phases of human history among the 

 primitive" aboriginal tribes, still iu what I would call the earher stages of 

 existence. We may there learn much of the origin of the institutions which we 

 have long come to "look on as almost part of om- nature— of tlie earlier forms of 

 property "and man-iage, and manv other things. The fortuuate connexion with 

 India o"f that great scholar. Sir Henrv Maine, has led to a great anioimt of hght 

 on the connexion between the East "and the West. At present I would only 



