beforehand, and mark those things you intend more minutely to inspect. This will save your time when you arrive; and you will be able to employ your opportunities more effectively and profitably.

66

When you read history, you will observe that the sources of national wealth were as well understood in ancient as in modern times. That more corn could be produced from the soil than was necessary for the wants of the population, and the surplus could be sold to foreigners, was as well known in Egypt and Sicily as it is now known in Poland and Canada; the effect of manufactures to produce wealth was as well understood in Tyre and Corinth as it is now in Birmingham and Manchester; ships, colonies, and commerce" were as highly appreciated at Athens and at Carthage as they have since been at Amsterdam and London; and the Romans knew the advantages to be gained by facility of intercourse as well as it is now known by the advocates of our modern railways. And with regard to moral causes: that industry, frugality, and prudence, are the road to wealth, is as distinctly taught in the Proverbs of Solomon as in any of our modern systems of political economy; and the denunciations of the prophets against fraud, robbery, injustice, and oppression, are proofs that they taught the doctrine, that security of property is essential to national prosperity.

I advise you thus to study political economy. Study it because it is interesting, and will form an agreeable recreation to your reasoning faculties. Study it because it concerns the welfare of others; and a new discovery of any important principle may cause you to become a public benefactor. Study it because it contains no principles adverse to morality and religion, and the investigation of its doctrines is not attended with that danger to which weak minds are exposed by the study of the abstract principles of morals and metaphysics. Study it because it will lead your mind into the contemplation of the divine wisdom and goodness, manifested no less in the organization of society than in the construction of the material universe.

SECTION IV.

THE APPLICATION OF THE ART OF REASONING TO STATISTICS.

1. THE nature and extent of the Science of Statistics is thus described in the Sixth Annual Report of the Statistical Society of London :—

"The first sentence of the prospectus of the Society, issued in 1834, which states that the object of its establishment is 'to procure, arrange, and publish facts, calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of society,' contains, perhaps, the best definition of statistics which has yet been attempted; and, if it be imperfect, its imperfection assuredly consists in its being, not too narrow, but too comprehensive. Statistics, as thus defined, and as a branch of study worthy of our efforts, are assuredly not the mere method' of stating the observations and experiments of the physical or other sciences, as seems, in some instances, to have been supposed. Such was not the duty assigned to this Society by its founders;-it was not to perfect the mere art of tabulating that it was embodied;-it was not to make us hewers and drawers to those engaged on any edifice of physical science-but it was that we should ourselves be the architects of a science or of sciences; the perfecters of some definite branch or branches of knowledge, which should do honour to ourselves and our country, and at the same time to the distinguished men who summoned us to the labour; the elaborators, in fine, of truths which we feel to be necessary to our happiness, but which are yet wholly hidden from us, or but partially revealed."

"The whole field of our labours appears to be divisible into the following chief sections:

"I. The Statistics of Physical Geography, Division, and Appropriation; or geographical and proprietary statistics.

II. The Statistics of Production; or agricultural, mining, fishing, manufacturing, and commercial statistics.

"III. The Statistics of Instruction; or ecclesiastical, scientific, literary, and academical statistics.

"IV. The Statistics of Protection; or constitutional, legal, judicial, and criminal statistics.

"V. The Statistics of Consumption and Enjoyment; or of population, distribution, consumption, diversions, life, health, and public and private charity."

2. The importance of the science is now universally acknowledged. It is manifested in the attention paid by the Government to the register of births, marriages, and

deaths, and by the anxiety shown at the present time with regard to the census. It was not always so. The following are extracts from a letter I addressed, on the 17th of October, 1823, to the then prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool :

Under these circumstances, I beg leave to suggest to your Lordship the propriety of establishing a public register of all births (not baptisms), marriages, and deaths that may occur in the nation, including all the circumstances of sex, age, and occupation of the parties.

"The utility of such a measure is obvious. Independently of its use in ascertaining the descent of every individual, and thus preventing disputed successions, it would possess numerous advantages. The system of insurance on lives would be perfected. The influence of different occupations, or of different parts of the country, in extending or abridging the term of human life, would be clearly exhibited. The theories which are now advocated in regard to population, would be confuted or confirmed. A variety of useful truths, equally curious and important, would be elicited; and the science of political economy, instead of resting on probability and conjecture, would be founded on the rock of mathematical certainty. It would then be easy to ascertain the exact number of each respective class, or of any given age in society; and the information thus obtained might be usefully applied to subjects connected with taxation, to quotas required for military service, and to a variety of other subjects.

"Had such a register been established three centuries ago, what a fund of knowledge would it supply; what a number of tedious and expensive lawsuits would have been prevented; how many visionary theories would have been suppressed; how distinctly should we be able to trace the progress of national prosperity; and how highly should we esteem the author of so useful a regulation."

3. The facts with which this science is conversant are those which are susceptible of being represented and registered by figures. Its arithmetical operations are chiefly multiplication and division, the calculation of ratios, and the construction of tables.

In treating of the relation of a whole and its parts, in the second section of the second part of this work, I have observed that we employ multiplication, when we wish to magnify the importance of any matter, and division when we wish to produce a contrary effect. Thus if a party wished to show that the Established Church is in possession of enormous wealth, he would endeavour to obtain an account of all ecclesiastical property, and present it in one sum. But if another party wished to produce a different impression, he would divide this sum by the number of clergymen, and contend that upon an average they do not receive, individually, a higher income than an educated man should receive for the kind of duty he performs. It was by simple multiplication that Mr. G. R. Porter ascertained the amount spent annually in the purchase of Spirits, Beer, and Tobacco-sums which he happily styled 'self-imposed taxes." The following is the amount taken from the paper he read on the subject, at Edinburgh, before the Statistical Section of the British Association :

When we wish to compare a number of things, together in some one respect, we employ a ratio. The ratio usually employed is a per centage. For example, if we wish to show

the number of crimes in each county or district, as compared with its population, we should place in one column the population of each county, and, in an adjoining column, the number of crimes in each county. We should then reduce these figures to a ratio, that is, we would, by the rule of three, ascertain what per cent. in each county the crimes bore to the population. We might then, in making our comparisons, dispense with both the preceding columns; and place against the name of each county its per centage of crime.

A series of figures may be placed either longitudinally or horizontally. In the former case they are called a column of figures; and in the latter case a row of figures. A table of figures combines both. Several columns of figures are placed side by side, but at the same time there is a connexion between all these columns horizontally.* Such a table admits of being added together in two ways. You may add longitudinally, and place at the bottom the amount of each column; and you may add horizontally, and place in a column at your right hand, the separate amount of each row. You will understand what I mean by the following table, which I have taken from "The Statistical Companion," published by T. C. Banfield and C. R. Weld, of the Royal Society :

Classified Abstracts of the numbers of Electors in the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs of Great Britain, for the year 1846. The total number of registered Electors in 1846 was as follows:

Some consist

All tables are not drawn up in this form.

only of a series of columns placed side by side without any horizontal connexion, and sometimes the columns are not added up longitudinally.

4. From the facts represented and registered by the figures, the statician endeavours to deduce new truths.

* See the description of the horizontal system of bookkeeping in Gilbart's Practical Treatise on Banking, p. 325.