Agricultural Statistics. 
565- 
subject, " effected nothing: more than the substitution o{ figures 
for words they would have established a strong claim to our 
approbation. Nothing can be more variable or worse defined 
than the meaning of some words in constant use. What meaning 
are we to attach to such vague terms as ' sometimes/ ' occasion- 
ally,' 'generally,' 'in the majority of cases'? These terms, as 
every one knows, have every possible signification, and vary in 
their meaning with the varying disposition, and more or less 
sanguine character of those who use them. The ' sometimes ' of 
the cautious is the ' often ' of the sanguine, the ' always ' of the 
empiric, and the ' never ' of the sceptic : but the numbers 1, 10, 
100, 1000, have but one meaning for all mankind." * 
It is well known that the great science of astronomy, which 
predicts the moment of an eclipse or the arrival of a comet 
with the most prophetic truth and with an accuracy exceeding 
that of the most perfect chronometer, began its wonderful career 
by a mere numerical tabulation of the stars. It is now the most 
perfect of the physical sciences : all its elements, time, space, 
order, magnitude, velocity, are expressed by numbers ; and of 
all its principles the most important, gravitation, the power 
that unites and retains in place the atoms of the whole uni- 
verse, may be itself described as a numerical theory. Che- 
mistry, which but a generation or two back was a mere empirical 
art, consisting of detached observations and experiments, a 
lumber-room of ' curiosities for the ingenious,' without order or 
connection, by the mere application of numerical system — the 
theory of definite proportions — sprang at once into practical form 
and life ; its scattered members united into one intelligible whole, 
and became invested with the same foretelling power (applied to 
changes in the conditions and phenomena of matter) which is so 
remarkable a feature of the sciences that are based upon numbers, 
and which take rank in proportion as they are so. 
But of all the uses and achievements of statistics, the most 
important lies in the discovery of general laws and their sub- 
sequent application to the secular uses of life. As our ob- 
servations multiply, individual exceptions grow less important, 
or disappear, and averages take more and more the form of 
integral and new developed truths. It is as though a multitude 
of points or specks of light, each individually powerless, blended 
together into one broad and mensurable disc. Uncertain words, 
and phrases of the most variable and indefinite meaning, become 
substituted by actual figures, which for all the purposes of 
reasoning, comparison, and deduction, may be employed with a 
confidence only limited by the care used in collection of the 
* See Dr. Guy's admirable Paper in the Statistical Society's Journal, vol. ii. 
