Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/60

lii covering their tracks and giving to their fraud the appearance of truth, they deceived not only the general public but also their intimates in the Royal Society. Does the evidence adduced for Petty so far outweigh the evidence for Graunt as to convince us that they were guilty of this contemptible conduct? If not, can the direct testimony for Petty, and the similarities noted, be explained without conceding the authorship of the "Observations" to him? I believe that they can be so explained.

In view of Evelyn, Aubrey's second statement and the parallel passages on one hand, and of the strong evidence for Graunt on the other, it seems almost certain that neither Graunt nor Petty was the exclusive author of all parts of the "Observations," as we have them. There is, moreover, competent authority for this view. Anthony à-Wood, speaking of Petty's "Observations on the Dublin Bills," published in 1683, says: "He also long before assisted or put into a way John Graunt in the writing of his Nat. and Pol. Observations on the Bills of Mortality of London." And in his sketch of Graunt, Aubrey says: "He wrote Observations on the bills of Mortality very ingeniosely (but I believe, and partly know, that he had his hint from his intimate and familiar friend Sir William Petty)." That is to say, Graunt and Petty collaborated. But the character of their collaboration was rather complementary than coöperative. They were not, properly speaking, joint authors. The essential and valuable part of the "Observations" seems to be Graunt's. Petty perhaps suggested the subject of the inquiry, he probably assisted Graunt with comments upon medical and other questions here and there; he procured the figures from Romsey for the "Table of the Country Parish;" and he may have revised, or even written, the Conclusion, and possibly, also, the curious "epistle dedicatory to Sir Robert Moray," commending the book and its author to the Royal Society. Such assistance constituted authorship neither in Petty's mind nor in the mind of any one else. But after he had perhaps assisted in the enlargement of the third edition, and had prepared for the press a fifth edition, again enlarged, of the everpopular "Observations," he for the time being persuaded himself that he was their virtual author. After a few years he thought better of it, and assigned the honour to Graunt, to whom it rightfully