Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/57

Rh most conspicuous of all the parallels between the "Observations" and the "Treatise ."

The supporters of Graunt may properly claim, in the second place—and upon this they may insist, since heretofore it has not received adequate emphasis—that the statistical method of the "Observations" is greatly superior to the method of Petty's acknowledged writings upon similar subjects. Graunt exhibits a patience in investigation, a care in checking his results in every possible way, a reserve in making inferences, and a caution about mistaking calculation for enumeration, which do not characterize Petty's work to a like degree. This difference cannot escape any person of statistical training who may read carefully first the "Observations" and then Petty's "Essays."

In the third place, it deserves to be noted that the chief parallels to Petty's writings do not occur in parts of the "Observations" which are vital or organic. In his patient investigations of the movement of London's population, imperfect and frequently erroneous though they were, and, for lack of data, necessarily must have been, the author of the "Observations" displays admirable traits for which Petty's writings, however meritorious otherwise, may still be searched in vain. The passages in which the parallels occur are, as it were, the embroideries with which Graunt's solid work is decorated—possibly by Petty's hand. For example, the passage concerning beggars and charity in Holland is appended to the contention that, since "of the 229,250, which have died, we find not above fifty-one to have been starved, except helpless infants at nurse," therefore there can be no "want of food in the country, or of means to get it." The argument is statistical; the appended passage about beggars is not. It has no real connection, and if it were omitted, the argument proper would lose nothing of its cogency. The longest and closest parallel between the "Observations" and the "Treatise" is of like character. It occurs in and indeed pervades "The Conclusion." And this conclusion, instead of offering, as one might expect, a sober summary in the style of the book itself ,