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On the Classification of Statistics and its Results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

Patrick Geddes
Affiliation:
Lecturer on Zoology in theSchool of Medicine, Edinburgh, andDemonstrator of Botany in the University.
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Extract

§ 1. Every one may readily notice that the collection of statistical information goes on around us to a vast and constantly increasing extent; not simply in the periodic census, but in the daily labours of the Registrar-General's Department, of the Board of Trade, and the like. Such functions are carried on in every civilised country by many special statistical bureaux; a statistical society exists in almost every great intellectual centre, and an International Statistical Congress, which has proposed to itself the vast object of accumulating, co-ordinating, and comparing the whole body of national statistics, has met periodically since 1853.

Type
Proceedings 1880-81
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1882

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References

page 295 note * Brown, S. F.S.S., “Report on the Eighth International Statistical Congress, St Petersburg, 1872”; Journ. Statist. Soc. Lond., vol. xxxv., Dec. 1872, p. 457.Google Scholar

page 295 note † Quoted by Mouat, , “Prelim. Report of Ninth International Statistical Congress, held at Buda-Pesth, 1876”; Journ. Statist. Soc. Lond., vol. xxxix., Dec. 1876, p. 645.Google Scholar

page 296 note * Quoted by Mouat, , “Report on the Fourth Session of the Permanent Commission of the International Statistical Congress, held in Paris, 1878”; Journ. Statist. Soc. Lond., xlii., p. 12.Google Scholar

page 296 note † Ibid.

page 300 note * For a valuable discussion of recent opinion as to the nature of statistics, in which this latter view is substantially maintained, see Hooper, , “On the Method of Statistical Analysis”; Journ. Statist. Soc. Lond., vol. xliv., March 1881.Google Scholar

page 301 note * The preceding general conceptions may be traced into interesting detail. The application of the above diagrammatic definition of statistics to all the sciences clearly illustrates the continual progress which goes on in each from mere qualitative to quantitative knowledge, and the increase of definiteness which qualitative knowledge is always tending to assume. For instance, the name of a chemical compound, say sulphate of iron, expresses only a qualitative relation, its ordinary chemical formula FeSO4 reaches the numerical state, its graphic and glyptic formulæ are respectively the plane and solid representation of the same statistic, as we may conveniently term any such relation of quantity. So, too, the astronomer has his star-maps and orrery, the geologist his maps and models, the biologist his figures and diagrams, while the sociologist so often requires similar aid that the French Government has recently established a Bureau de Statistique graphique. So by piling up successive graphic representations of statistical observations, a solid historical Model might often be constructed. A geologist, for instance, by piling map upon map of a given island at successive times (the margin being of course removed) would thus construct a solid model which clearly exhibit the changes throughout the whole period. Where the area was increasing per unit time, the solid would widen upwards and overhand its base; where decreasing it would narrow, and thus even the minutest local increase or decrease would be represented with extreme vividness.

page 303 note * Paris: Gauthier-Villars.

page 304 note * “The Biological sciences are those which deal with the phenomena manifested by living matter; and though it is customary and convenient to group apart such of these phenomena as are termed mental, and such of them as are exhibited by men in society under the heads of Psychology and Sociology, yet it must be allowed that no natural boundary separates the subject matter of the latter sciences from that of Biology. Psychology is inseparably linked with Physiology; and the phases of social life exhibited by animals other than man, which sometimes curiously foreshadow human policy, fall strictly within the province of the biologist.”—Huxley, “Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals,” London, 1877, p. 1, Introduction.

page 304 note † For better agreement with the order of the sciences (see p. 301), it is convenient to transpose the classes of facts derived from the second and third axioms.

page 306 note * This table is essentially borrowed from Tait and Balfour Stewart. See Balfour Stewart, “Elementary Treatise on Heat.”

page 306 note † The details of the above classification would involve the printing of a considerable number of minor tables, and are therefore omitted, as tending to exceed the limits and divert attention from the main purpose of the present paper.

page 310 note * This might, perhaps, more conveniently have been stated as a separate axiom.

page 311 note * It is interesting to compare these with the in many respects similar tables employed by Mr Spencer. See his “Descriptive Sociology.”

page 311 note † The reader may conveniently verify this statement by running through any such book, say a number of the Journal of the Statistical Society, or a copy of the Proceedings of Section F. of the British Association. At most he will only occasionally have a temporary difficulty in finding where to assign any subject, and this merely for want of the minor tables.

page 312 note * The names of these subjects are unsatisfactory, since scientific physics, geology, and biology have no economic aspects at all. The biologist, for instance, divides his subject into morphology, physiology, distribution, and ætiology, and finds no place for economic considerations. These subjects are really sociological ones, and should therefore be termed respectively physical economics, geological economics, botanical and zoological economics. The change is no mere verbal one, but involves a radical alteration of the point of view and mode of treatment, and indeed demands the handing over of these subjects to other cultivators.

page 313 note * See the very interesting alphabetic list of occupations in the London Directory, and the discussions as to classification in the Report of the United States Census, 1870, and Report of Census of Scotland, 1871, where detailed classifications are also given.

page 315 note * See Presidential Addresses to Sections A, F, G of the British Association, York, 1881.

page 316 note * Ex. gr. Marshall, , “Economics of Industry,” London, 1880.Google ScholarGuyot, , “La Science Economique,” Paris, 1881.Google Scholar

page 316 note † Πολιτεια, οικια, οἰκος, νομος.

page 318 note * With the limitation stated at page 311, note 2, the reader may continue this with any journal. See also author's paper, Brit. Ass. 1881, and “Nature,” 29 Sept. 1881, for similar classification of anthropological and economic papers.