Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/45

46 most noticeable thing in the first few pages of the "Bills," is the amount of space devoted to a description of different diseases. They are described with a familiarity and precision which only a physician could be expected to have. There are references to Ireland derived apparently from personal observation. Hampshire, Petty's native county, is the only English county mentioned. There are proposals for poor-law reform identical with those found in Petty's works. The remark that gold would take the place of silver, if the art of making it were known, accords with Petty's view. There is the same suspicion of the benefits of charity, the same contempt expressed for theological speculation, that we find elsewhere.

It might be necessary to apologize for devoting so much space to the question of the authorship of a small book of about one hundred pages, published over two centuries ago, if its unique character had not met with uniform recognition by all who have interested themselves in the history of the science of statistics. It is agreed on all sides that this small book was the first step made in marking out the province of a new science, and the first attempt to collect the preliminary data for its construction. The prefaces to the book contain a characteristic defense of his undertaking. It had occurred to him, he says, that some good use might be made of the weekly "Bills of Mortality." Ordinarily they furnished a topic for idle conversation. Now that he has reduced the information scattered in them to a tabulated form, he believes they will be found to contain valuable information. Such speculations as they give rise to should be a concern to all who are interested in giving