Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/451

Rh direct by his counsel, and to advance, by his own indefatigable industry, those statistical inquiries of which the Belgian Government so well appreciated the advantage.

At length the conviction of the importance of the value of Statistical Science becoming widely extended in other countries, M. Quételet saw that a fit time had arrived for summoning a European Congress. The results of such meetings are invaluable to all sciences, but more peculiarly to statistics, in which names have to be defined, signs to be invented, methods of observation to be compared and rendered uniform; thus enhancing the value of all future observations by making them more comparable as well as more expeditiously collected.

The proposal was adopted by the Belgian Government, and the first International Statistical Congress was held at Brussels in September, 1853.

The result was most successful; all the cultivators of Statistical Science are deeply indebted to M. Quételet for the unwearied pains he took to insure its success. He was assisted in this arduous task by the ministers of the crown, and supported by the high approbation of an enlightened sovereign.

This was my earliest step, and is still one to which I would willingly recur if other demands on my time permitted. Many years ago I recorded, in a small MS. volume, the facts, and also extracts of letters from Herschel, Bromhead, and Maule, in which I believe I have done justice to my friends if not to myself. It is very remarkable that the Analytical Engine adapts itself with singular facility to the development and numerical working out of this vast department of analysis.

In the list of my printed papers, at the end of this volume, will be found my various contributions to that subject. 2 2