An Introduction to the theory of statistics

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1751730271

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-127610

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Yule, George Udny http://d-nb.info/gnd/12910504X

Title:: An Introduction to the theory of statistics

Edition:: 8. ed. rev

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Griffin

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XV, 422 S; Ill., Diagr

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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INTRODUCTION, the exposition of the characteristics of a State by numerical methods. It is difficult to say at what epoch the word came definitely to bear this quantitative meaning, but the transition appears to have been only half accomplished even after the founda- tion of the Royal Statistical Society in 1834. The articles in the first volume of the Journal, issued in 1838-9, are for the most part of a numerical character, but the official definition has no reference to method. ¢ Statistics,” we read, “may be said, in the words of the prospectus of this Society, to be the ascertain- ing and bringing together of those facts which are calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of society.” It is, however, admitted that “the statist commonly prefers to employ figures and tabular exhibitions.” 5. Once, however, the first change of meaning was accomplished, further changes followed. From the name of a science or art of state-description by numerical methods, the word was transferred to those series of figures with which it operated, as we speak of vital statistics, poor-law statistics, and so forth. But similar data occur in many connections ; in meteorology, for instance, in anthro- pology, ete. Such collections of numerical data were also termed “statistics,” and consequently, at the present day, the word is held to cover a collection of numerical data, analogous to those which were originally formed for the study of the state, on almost any subject whatever. We not only read of rainfall “statistics,” but of “statistics” showing the growth of an organisation for recording rainfall? We find a chapter headed ‘Statistics ” in a book on psychology,® and the author, writing of ‘statistics con- cerning the mental characteristics of man,” “statistics of children, under the headings bright—average—dull.”* We are informed that, in a book on Latin verse, the characteristics of the Virgilian hexameter “are examined carefully with statistics.” 6. The development in meaning of the adjective * statistical” was naturally similar. The methods applied to the study of numerical data concerning the state were still termed statistical methods,” even when appiied to data from other sources. Thus we read of the inheritance of genius being treated ‘in a statistical manner,”® and we have now ‘a journal for the statistical study of biological problems.”” Such phrases as “the statistical Jour. Stat. Soc., vol. i. p. 1. ? Symons’ British Rainfall for 1899, p. 15. * E. W. Scripture, The New Psychology, 1897, chap. ii. 4 Op. cit. p. 18. 5 Atheneum, Oct. 3, 1903. * Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (Macmillan, 1869), preface. Biometrika, Cambridge Univ. Press, the first number issued in 1901 2

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