The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-08 00:00:00

LON DoN FRIDAY EVENING.

IMITISH. ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD.

VAIVCEIVENT OF SCIENCE.

CHELTENHAM, AUG 7.
The first general assembly of the members was held in
the Great H dl of Studies at Cheltenham College, at eight
o'clock last evening, when about 8,10 persons ware present.
The chair was taken by the Duke of Argyll, and among
those present were Dr. Th.cibeney, the President elect;
Earl Ducie, Lord Wrottesley, Lord Stanley, Mr. E. Hol-
land, M.P., Mr.' Hadfield, M.P., Mr. Tite, M. P., Sir R. J.
Murchison, Col. Sir H. C. Ittwlinson, the Master of the
Mint, General Sir George Pollock, Professor Sedgwick,
Sir W. Snow Harris, Professor Phillips, &c. The Duchess
of Argyll, and a great number of ladies were also present.
The Duke of ARGYLL, on taking the chair, observed that
a very light and simple duty devolved upon him—that of
resigning his seat to one far bettter entitled to fill it. He
could say with sincerity that he would cherish with feel-
ings of grateful pride the recollection of the honour which
the Briti.h Association had done him by electing him
their President at the Glasgow meeting. It would be pre-
sumptuous in him to say one word about the distinguished
gentleman who was to follow him in the presidential chair.
He would say, however, that when the association was not
so high in the public favour as at present, and when its
members were ridiculed as peripatetic philosophers, Dr.
Daubeny was one of the men of name and mark in the
scientific world, who,came forward to give it a helping
hand. The noble duke then resigned his seat to the new
president, who delivered his inaugural address.
-This morning the business of the sections commenced at
11 o'clock, as follows :
SECTION A.—MATHEMATIC AL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
Rev. R. Walker, KR.S., presided in this section, and
the following pvers wera read . ,
Professor Powell—on Meteors.
Professor'Stokes—Report on formation of catalogue of
philosophical memoirs.
ProfessorHennessey—On Ixothermal lines.
Wildman Whitehouse—On an instrument for determin-
ing the value of intermittent or alternating electric cur-
rents for telegraphic purposes.
J. Nasmyth—Ou the form of lightning.
Professor Piazzi Smyth—•On the constancy of Solar radi-

ation. •
Piofessor Stevelly—A new method of treating the doc-
trine of parallel lines.
SECTION B.—CHEMICAL SCIENCE.
Mr. B. C. Brodie, F.R.S., presided, and the papers read
were as follows :
R. W. Pearson, Manchester—On the Compounds of
Chromium and Bismuth.
John Horsley, Cheltenham—On the Conversion of Tan-
nin into Gallic Acid.
Dr. Augustus Voelcker—On the Corrosive Action of
Smoke on Building Stones.
Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S.—Notes on Nitroglycerine.
SECTION .C.—GEOLOGY.
President—Professor A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S. The papers

read were by—
Professor Owen, F.R.S.—On a Fossil Mammil (Stereog-
nathus ooliticus) from the Stonesfiold Slate.
Professor Owen, F.E.S.-04 the Dichodon cuspidatus
from the Upper Eocene of the Isle of Wight and Hordwell,
Hants.
Professor Owen, F R.S.—Additional Evidence of the
Fossil Musk-ox (Bubalus Moschatus) from the Wiltshire
Drift.

T. Wright, M.D., F.R.S.E. —Oa the Stratigraphical
Distribution of the Oolitic Echinodermata.
Professor Harkness, F. ELS —On the Lignites of the
Giant's Causeway and the Isle of Mull.
H. C. Sorby, F.G.S.— On the Magnesian Limestone
having been produced by the metamorphism of an ordi-
nary calcareous deposit.
SECTION D.—ZOOLOOY AND BOTANY, INCLUDING
PHYSIOLOGY.
Mr. Thomas Bell, F.R.S., presided, and papers were
read by
James Samuelson—Experiments and observations on
the development of infusorial animalcules.
Dr. Williams—Continuation of Report on the British
Annelides.
Robert McAndrew—Report on the Physical Conditions
affecting the distribution of the Molusca in the North-East
Atlantic and neighbouring Seas.
. Professor James Backman—Notes on experiments in the
otanical Garden of the Royal Agricultural College.,;
Professor Henfrey—On the Development of the Embryo
of Flowering Plants.
SECTION B.—GEOGEtAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.
Colonel Sir H. C. Rewlieson, F.R.S., presided, and
papers were read by
E. Vivian, F.G.S.—The first traces of human art in
Keat's Cavern, Torquay, especially flint knives and arrow
heads beneath the stalagmitic floor.
James Nasmyth, C.E.—On the plastic origin of the
cuneform character and its relation to our own alphabet.
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS.
Lord STANLEY presided in this section, and, upon taking
the chair at 11 o'clock, addressed the members as follows
I believe it will be my duty to open the proceedings of
this section by a few words relative to the purpose of our
meeting, and I must begin by observing that the remarks
which follow were prepared before the passing of that re-
solution yesterday, which has enlarged, the scope of our
duties, so as to include, in addition to statistics, properly
so called, economic science in general. It is needless in
this presence to define at any length the nature or the
object of statistical science. The axiom on which that science
is based may be stated thus—that the laws by which
nature is governed, And more especially those laws which
operate on the moral and physical condition of the human
race, are constant, and aro in all cases best discover-
able; in some cases only discernable by the investiga-
tion and comparison of phenomena extending over a very
large number of individual influences. In dealing with the
individual human being everything is uncertainty ; in deal-
ing with man in the aggregate results may be calculated
with the precision and accuracy of a mathematical pro-
blem. To take a familiar instance—the length of a sin
gle life can never be known beforehand, but by the accu-
rate keeping of returns the aggregate length of 10,000 o
100,000 lives is easily ascertained ; this aggregate length,
the conditions of life being generally the same, approxi-
mates to a constant quantity, however often the experiment
be repeated, and from that quantity thus obtained we de-
duce an average, which, as the experience of every insur-
ance office shows, is near enough to the truth for ordinary
purposes of calculation. Accidental diversities, whether of
internal constitution or of external circumstances, tend to
neutralise one another ; their influence diminishes as the
area of investigation increases, until, if that area be suffi-
ciently extended, we are justified in disregarding them al-
together, and admitting as approximately, if not as abso-
lutely true, the general inference to which our successive
trials point. I will not lead yon into those strange and
startling conclusions to which Quetelch has come when
comparing some of the averages obtained with one another,
and representing them in methemtical form, he finds in the
laws thus discovered a close resemblance to, perhaps, an
actual identity, with those which operate in physics—as,
for instance, when ho lays it down that the obstacles
which oppose the increase of population act in a manner
.ctxactly the same as does the resistance of a medium in
which a body moves to the motion of that body. Wide as
is the field of thought which such a suggestion opens, it
must probably be for many years premature to enter it ;
the laws as yet made known to us by statistical research
are too few to allow of generalisation relative to their mu-
tual interconnezion. Enough to cite the dictum of Quete-
let confirmatory of what has been said above. " All ob-
servation tends to confirm the truth of this proposition,
that that which concerns the human raoe collectively
is of the order of physical facts; the greater the
.number of individuals, the more completely does the will
of individuals disappear ; and, allow the series of general
facts which depend upon the causes by' which society
exists and is preserved to predominate, we must admit
that, on submitting to careful experiment organised bodies
and the social system, we ale unable to say on which side
causes' act in their effects with the greatest regularity.'
This, then, is the first characteristic of statistics as a
science—that it proceeds wholly by the accumulation and
comparison of regiAered facts ; that from these facts alone,
properly classified, it seeks to deduce general principles,
and that it rejects all a priori reasoning, employing hy-
pothesis if at all only in a tentative manner, and subject
to future verifieation. It starts from the assure
fled by many trials, that human action, fluetteraft..; as re-
gards the human unit, is approximately invariable as re-
gards the masses which make up society. But there is
another aspect in which it may be considered. As a rule,
the degree of certainty which attends any science is ex-
actly proportioned to the extent to which such science ad-
, wits of the application of numbers. We know what has
been done in chemistry by the discovery of a single nume-
rical law —the theory of definite proportions—turning by
one stroke into a science what was before little more than,
collection of important but detailed observations. And
what we aim at in statistics is to substitute for vague
phrases, intended to express certain qualities, arithmetical
formulae, by which the same idea may be conveyed with a
precision to which language alone can attain. For instance,
Aie uneducated man, speaking of a climate or a
.season of
the year, will say only that it is warm, hot, or very hot.
fhe statistician registers the temperature of each day,
',likes au average, and gives his result in numericrd
tures, extending it may be over a period of several years,
ted calculated accordingly with the most absolute awn-
-.tcy of which 'unman investigation is capable. Again, tip.
-reveller, in describing a nation which he has visited
At, ites that offences of violence are exceedingly commot.,
probably more so than in any other country. The statisti
cian obtains returns of convictions, distinguishing the dif-