Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/449

Rh At the Third Meeting of the British Association at Cambridge in 1833, I happened, one afternoon, to call on my old and valued friend the Rev. Richard Jones, Professor of Political Economy at Haileybury, who was then residing in apartments at Trinity College. He informed me that he had just had a long conversation with our mutual friend M. Quételet, who had been sent officially by the Belgian Government to attend the meeting of the British Association. That M. Quételet had brought with him a budget of statistical facts, and that as there was no place for it in any section, he (Professor Jones) had asked M. Quételet to come to him that evening, and had invited Sir Charles Lemon, Professor Malthus, Mr. Drinkwater (afterwards Mr. Bethune), and one or two others interested in the subject, to meet him, at the same time requesting me to join the party. I gladly accepted this invitation and departed. I had not, however, reached the gate of Trinity College before it occured to me that there was now an opportunity of doing good service to the British Association. I returned to the apartments of my friend, explained to him my views, in which he fully coincided, and I suggested the formation of a Statistical Section. We both agreed that unless some unusual course were taken, it would be impossible to get such a Section organized until the meeting in the following year. I therefore proposed that when we met in the evening we should consider the question of constituting ourselves provisionally a Statistical Section, and afterwards, at the general meeting in the Senate House, that I should explain the circumstance which had arisen, and the 2