Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/329

Rh The great authority for this statement, and for the theory he derives from it, is M. Quételet. Now although he conceives that because he calls M. Quételet "confessedly the first statistician in Europe," his conclusions will therefore pass unchallenged, we must observe that a very different opinion of him prevails among those who are more competent judges than either Mr. Buckle or ourselves. His way of applying the theory of probabilities to statistics is rejected even by the French writers ; and the following observations made with reference to him by one of the most celebrated political economists of the age, show the estimation in which his method is held in Germany : — But to return to Mr. Buckle —

So suicide ; the number of suicides in every year is about the same, therefore —