Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/600

* STATIONERS' HALL. 514 STATISTICS. preceded by a voluntary association as early aa 1403, was incorporated in 155G. For nearly three hundred years it regulated the publication of all books in England. Since the passage oi the copyright law (1842), registration is no longer' compulsory, but it is necessary for securing copy- right. For a history of the company, consult the first volume of E. A. Arber's valuable Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, 155i-16JiO (5 vols., London, 1875-94). STATIONS (Lat. statio, from stare, to stand). A name applied in the Roman Catholic Church to certain places reputed of special sanc- tity, which are appointed to be visited as places of prayer. The name is particularly applied in this sense to certain churches in the city of Rome. The word is employed in reference to a popular devotional practice of the Roman Catho- lic Church, known as that of 'the stations of the cross.' Carved or painted representations, the subjects of vrhich are supplied by scenes from the passion of Christ, are called stations of the cross, and are found in every church. The origin of this devotional exercise, like that of local pilgrimages, is traceable to the difficulty of access to the holy places of Palestine, consequent on the Turkish occupation of that country. The number of the stations is conmionly fourteen; the subject of all is a sort of pictorial narrative of the passion. The devotional exercise is performed by kneeling at the several stations in succession, and reciting certain prayers at each, or joining in their recitation bj- the priest. STATISTICAL CONGRESS, International. An organization of the most eminent statisticians of all countries, which convenes from time to time to define and systematize investigations. The first meeting was held at Brussels in 1853. STATISTICS. Etymologieally, the science of States. The word seems to have been introduced into England about the beginning of the nine- teenth century. It came into use in Germany about half a century earlier, and was there ap- plied to lectures or books upon descriptive politi- cal science, of which the Statesman's Year Book and the Almanach de Goiha are typical modern representatives. If either of these annual publi- cations be imagined stripped of the numerical statements so frequent in them, a very fair notion is left of Achenwall's Outlines of Modern Politi- cal Science ("Abriss der neuesten Staatswissen- schaft," etc., 1749), which opens with the state- ment : "The notion of statistics so called, that is, the political science of the several kingdoms, ia very difl'erently understood, and among the many books on the subject it is not easy to find any one that agrees with the rest in the number and the arrangement of its parts," a complaint which might be made to-day with almost equal correct- ness. The title Statistics thus adopted by Ach- enwall established itself as the prevailing name for a sort of descriptive political science, which had existed long before as the Elzevir Repuhlics and the writings of Conring illustrate, and which maintained itself at the universities and before the public in Germany until into the nineteenth century. Meantime in England a different line of ^York had begun about the middle of the seven- teenth century, after the recurrent and disastrous visitations of the plague had roused interest enough in the mortality it did so much to swell to cause weekly reports of the burials and later of the christenings in London to be made and published. The keen interest in the meth- ods of observation and measurement which culminated in and were reinforced by the Royal Society, chartered in 10(32, induced Captain Jolin Graunt to apply methods of observation, induc- tion, and measurement to the births and deaths of London. He presented to the Royal Society in 1002 his "Observations on the Bills of Mortal- ity," the foundation of statistics as that word is now understood. But at that time the new study was baptized by his friend and collaborator. Sir William Petty, 'Political -Arithmetic' Literest in this line of work grew and spread gradually to the Continent, where Achenwall's contemporary Siisstnilch in 1741 hailed Graunt as a scientific Columbus wlio had discovered a new continent and confessed himself Graunt's disciple, but showed no knowledge of Aclienwall's work and made no use of the name statistics. Gradually the word statistics spread to Great Britain, where, in 1798, Sir John Sinclair published his Statistical Account of Scotland. The word was taken up by Malthus in editions of his Principle of Population, after the first, and in such con- nection as to indicate that he borrowed it from Sinclair. Malthus's subject-matter was in the line of previous writers on political arithmetic, and his adoption of the term statistics ma.y have been instrumental in leading to its gradual displacement of the lengthier phrase in English writing. Meantime the study of political arith- metic, born in England, extended to the Conti- nent, gradually displacing the older statistics of Achenwall, sometimes called 'university statis- tics,' from its prevalence as a .subject of univer- sity lectures, and, to add insult to injury, usurped its name. Perhaps the most striking difference between the two notions of statistics, the older and the newer, is that the former is purel.v de- scriptive and takes no account of the undcrl.ving notion of modern science, the notion of causation, while the latter subordinates description to ex- planation, or an attempt at explanation. At the same time it would be inconsistent with present usage to limit the word statistics any further than to sa.v that it refers to the results obtained in any field of reality by methods of counting and that these methods are mainly emplo.ved in the study of societies politically organized into States. ^Methods of counting apply especially to the study of human societies, because in them the individual units are widely diiferent, and it is with the differences almost as much as with the resemblances between individuals that science ia concerned. In the inorganic sciences and to a less extent in the sciences of plant and animal life, the units taken for purposes of investigation resemble one another far more closely than hu- man individuals do, or at least their resem- blances are far more obvious and for man's pur- poses more important than their differences. In other than the social sciences, therefore, the ob- servation of one or a few imits may serve as a basis for general statements about the groip, but in human societies it is frequently necessary to ascertain the existence, or non-existence, of a particular characteristic in every member of the group. This involves counting, and results in a