<h2><SPAN name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></SPAN>XXVIII</h2>
<h3>ON THE BEAUTY OF STATISTICS</h3>
<p>One of the most unexpected pages in Sir Edward
Cook's <i>Life of Florence Nightingale</i>, is that in
which he describes Miss Nightingale, in a phrase
Lord Goschen once used about himself, as a
"passionate statistician." Somehow one did not
associate statistics with Florence Nightingale.
She had already taken her place in the sentimental
history of the world as the angel of the wounded
soldier. It is a disturbance to one's preconceptions
to be asked to regard her as the angel among the
Blue Books. As Sir Edward Cook reveals her to us,
however, she is ardent in the pursuit of figures as
other women in pursuit of a figure. We read how
she helped one of the General Secretaries of the
International Statistical Congress of 1860 to draw
up the programme for the section dealing with
sanitary statistics, at which, indeed, her own pet
scheme for uniform hospital statistics was the
chief subject of discussion. Her faith in statistics,
however, went far beyond that of statistical con<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</SPAN></span>gresses.
She believed that statistics were in a
measure the voice of God. "The laws of God were
the laws of life, and these were ascertainable by careful,
and especially by statistical, inquiry." That is
how Sir Edward Cook explains his remark that her
passion for statistics was "even a religious passion."</p>
<p>It is by no means to be wondered at that the religion
of statistics made its appearance in the nineteenth
century. The surprising thing is, that no
church has yet been founded in its honour. In the
history of religion, philosophy and magic, numbers
have again and again played a leading part; and
what are statistics but numbers on regimental
parade? Pythagoras found in number the ultimate
principle of creation. Xenocrates went a step
farther when he defined the soul as "a number which
moves itself." To the unphilosophical reader the
definition of Xenocrates is the merest riddle till
one realises that he was probably trying to destroy
the idea that the soul was something material,
a fact of space, as might be connoted by words
like "thing" or "living being." This is why, in
order to express the soul, it was necessary to use
an abstraction; and what so abstract as number?
Nor did the numerical explanation of the universe
stop here. "Pure reason," Gomperz tells us, in
speaking of the Pythagoreans in <i>Greek Thinkers</i>,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</SPAN></span>
"was assimilated to unity, knowledge to duality,
opinion to triplicity, sense-perception to quadruplicity."
What a jargon it all seems—a game of
the intellect! But the heavenly arithmetic has
lingered in the world to our own day, and among
simple people, too.</p>
<p>The mystery of numbers has entered into folklore
as well as into philosophy, as that fine jingle,
"Green grow the rushes, O!" which survives in
half a dozen English counties, shows. It has
always seemed to me the perfect expression of the
fantastic lyricism of numbers:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I'll sing you one O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Green grow the rushes O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What is your one O?<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>And so on till we reach the number twelve in the
catalogue of holy delights:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Twelve are the twelve apostles;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Eleven, eleven went up to heaven;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ten are the ten commandments;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Nine are the bright shiners;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Eight are the bold rainers:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Seven, seven are the stars in heaven;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Six are the proud walkers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Five are the symbols at your door;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Four are the gospelmakers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Three, three is the rivals;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Two, two is the lilywhite boys,<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</SPAN></span><span class="i0">Clothed all in green, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">One is one and all alone<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And ever more shall be so.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>What it all means is for the folklorists to dispute
about. It is interesting in the present connection
chiefly as the ruins of an arithmetical statement of
the mysteries of the universe. Similar chants of
number are known in all religions. They are
common to Christianity, Mohammedanism and
Judaism. One is told that, on the night of the
Passover, Jewish families chant a list of numbers,
beginning "Who knoweth One?" and going on
to "Who knoweth thirteen?" with its answer:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>I, saith Israel, know thirteen: Thirteen divine
attributes—twelve tribes—eleven stars—ten commandments—nine
months preceding childbirth—eight
days preceding circumcision—seven days of
the week—six books of the Mishnah—five books of
the Law—four matrons—three patriarchs—two
tables of the covenant—but One is our God, who
is over the heavens and the earth.</p>
</div>
<p>This list may be regarded as a mere aid to memory,
and no doubt it is to some extent that. But it is
also an example of the religious use of numbers—a
use which has given various numbers a magic
significance. One has an example of this magic
significance in the custom, among those who resort<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</SPAN></span>
to holy wells, of walking round the well nine times
in the opposite direction to the sun. One always
has to do things by threes or sevens or nines.
Similarly, the belief in the maleficent power of
thirteen is commoner in London than in Patagonia,
where, indeed, they do not know how to count up
to thirteen. One remembers, too, how in recent
years the prophetic sort of evangelical Christians
were on the look out for some great statesman or
conqueror upon whom they could fix the dreaded
number of the Antichrist, 666. First it was
Napoleon; later it was Gladstone, the letters of
whose name, if you slightly misspelt it in Greek,
stood for numbers which added up to the awful
total. I recall the relief with which in my own
childhood I discovered the fact that, however wrongly
my name was spelt, and in whatever language,
it was not possible to work out 666 as the answer.</p>
<p>So much for the mysteries of numbers. To most
people the whole thing will appear a chronicle of
superstitions, as astrology does. But, just as astronomy
has taken the place of the superstitions of the
stars, so statistics has taken the place of the superstitions
of numbers. It is as though men had suspected
all along that stars and numbers had some significance
beyond their immediate use and beauty,
but for hundreds of years they could only guess<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</SPAN></span>
what it was. It was not till the eighteenth century
indeed that the science of statistics was discovered—under
its present name, at least—and ever since
then men have been debating whether it is a science
or only a method. Whichever you prefer to call
it, it may be described as an explanation of human
society in terms of number. It is the discovery
of the most efficient symbols that have yet been
invented for the realistic portraiture of men in the
mass. Symbols, I say advisedly, for statistics is
more closely allied to Oriental than to Western
art in that it avoids the direct imitation of life and
appeals to the imagination through conventional
figures. Perhaps it is a certain suspicion of
Orientalism that accounts for the fanatical hatred
of statistics which still exists among many of the
apostles of the West. For statistics is a new thing
which has had to fight as desperately for recognition
as Impressionist art or Wagnerian opera. Infuriated
Victorians still speak of "lies, damned
lies, and statistics," as the three degrees of wickedness;
and the statistician is denounced in superlatives
as a sort of gaoler of humanity, who would
give us all numbers instead of names. Now, I
am not concerned to defend bad statisticians any
more than bad artists. Statistics has its charlatans,
its bounders after a new thing, as well as its Da<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</SPAN></span>
Vincis and its Michelangelos. Or, perhaps it is
more comparable to music than to painting or
sculpture. The philosophy of number is the
philosophy of proportion, of harmony, of rhythm,
and statistics is the study of the proportions,
harmonies, rhythms of society. Music and poetry,
it should be remembered, are both an affair of
number. "I lisped in numbers," said the poet,
"for the numbers came." And the statistician
has the same apology. Statistics, of course, is
largely concerned, like the arts, with the disharmonies
of life, but it deals with them in terms
of harmony. It is a method of asserting order amid
chaos, and that is why the lovers of chaos attempt
to spread the idea among the people that statistics
is a dangerous innovation, a black-coated tyranny.
That is why landlords who benefit by the social
chaos have fought so hard against the valuation
of land, and churches against the registration of
ecclesiastical property. Similarly, there was a
middle-class party that denounced the income tax
because it would mean a statistical inquest into
the wealth of manufacturers and shopkeepers.
Among savage tribes, we are told, it is a common
custom to hide one's name, because those who know
one's name have a magic power over one's soul.
Similarly, in civilised societies, the rich man likes<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</SPAN></span>
to hide his number. He knows that in some way the
knowledge of this will give society a new control
over him. It is possible to ignore all the evils of
monopolised riches till one knows the numbers of
the rich. To many people it is a turning-point in
social and political belief to discover such a fact
as that, of the total income of Great Britain and
Ireland in 1908,</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>5,500,000 people received £909,000,000,</p>
</div>
<p>while</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>39,000,000 people received £935,000,000.</p>
</div>
<p>In other words, the fact that one-half of the wealth
of Great Britain and Ireland goes to the twelve
per cent. of the population who belong to the class
with incomes over £160 a year. It is a terrible
revelation both of poverty and of riches. The
figures thunder at one's imagination more effectively
than a sea of rhetoric. And the figures concerning
destitution and the housing of the poor are still
more terrible in their realism. Shelley never
wrote a revolutionary hymn that more surely
prophesied the coming of a new society. Social
greed, that has withstood ten thousand prophets
and poets, at last begins to feel troubled in the
unaccustomed presence of the statistician. Not the
statistician in his study, of course: he is no more<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</SPAN></span>
than a dryasdust inventor. But the statistician,
like Florence Nightingale, with the genius of a fine
purpose and a sure aim with sure facts. This is
not to discredit any of the old battalions of reform.
It is merely to hail the coming of the new regiment
of the statisticians, who fight with tables instead
of swords, and whose leaders exhort them on the
eve of battle with passages out of Blue Books.
Statistics and the man I sing. Let the next great
epic be an Arithmiad.</p>
<h5>TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH</h5>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</h2>
<p>Missing text added on page 211 to correct "particularisations" to
"particularisations of". Other than this, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been retained.</p>
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