Page:Hull 1900 Petty's Place in the History of Economic Theory.djvu/6

312 the entire output of his second period of activity as an economic writer. The Political Anatomy and the Political Arithmetick are the forerunners, if not the direct ancestors, of eighteenth-century "statistics," the Staatenkunde of Achenwall and Schlözer.

The more numerous but briefer pamphlets of the third group were written, with one exception, during such visits as he made to London, after 1682, to work for reforms in Ireland, and incidentally to enjoy the company of his friends in the Royal Society. Their external provocation is to be found in the relation existing between the Courts of Versailles and Whitehall, and especially in the dispute whether London were a larger city than Paris. Their character is due to their lineal descent from Graunt's Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of London. It may best be described by saying that they are not merely the forerunners, but the direct ancestors, of Süssmilch and of modern vital statistics.

The Natural and Political Observations made upon the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John Graunt, citizen of London, 1662, bear so intimate a relation to this third group of Petty's writings, and they are themselves of such importance in the history of statistics, that, if they were really written by Petty, as some assert, he should not be deprived of the credit which their author unquestionably deserves. There is not space here to discuss the disputed question as to their authorship. After a survey of the evidence on both sides, which I tried to make comprehensive, the conclusion was reached that Graunt alone was the real author of the book. Petty probably assisted him with a medical comment here and