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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
Paris, 15 germinal de Van IV Isolated, and almost without any support, with neither public schools nor elementary textbooks, deprived of most of the means of propagation and influence, the moral and political sciences – strong only in the energy that is provoked by oppression, and using time and again the resources that arise from an instinct for liberty – the moral and political sciences, whether deceiving tyranny or defying it, prepared our century for the overwhelming revolution that brings it to a close and which recalls 25 millions of humankind to the exercise of their rights, to the study of their interests, and to their duties.
Published tabulations freeze the assembled numerical facts of a nation in cold print. The tables exhibit regularities from year to year. Can that new kind of thing, a statistical law of human nature, be far behind? Yes and no. It depends where you are. The Prussia that overthrew Napoleon created a conception of society that resolutely resisted statistical generalization. It gathered precise statistics to guide policy and inform opinion, but any regularities they might display fell far short of laws of society. The Prussians created a powerful bureau but failed to achieve the idea of statistical law. That was left for the France that survived Napoleon (‘If you want to attract the attention of the emperor, just recite some statistics’).
Statistical law needed two things. One was the avalanche of printed numbers that occurred throughout Europe. Without the post-war bureaucracies there would have been no tabulations in which to detect law-like regularity.
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