Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain by Lawrence Goldman (review)

IF 0.7 1区 文学 0 LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES DICKENS QUARTERLY Pub Date : 2024-02-23 DOI:10.1353/dqt.2024.a920211
Dominic Rainsford
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That is certainly the impression created by the unsmiling faces of Ada Lovelace (datalogical prodigy and Byron’s daughter), William Farr (of the General Register Office; subsequently President of the Statistical Society of London), Florence Nightingale, Prince Albert, and Charles Babbage (computer pioneer), which ponderously adorn the dust-jacket. However, it contains a wide range of information and ideas, much of it potentially useful to Dickens scholars, and the good news is that Goldman’s reader will require no “technical knowledge of statistics” (xxxviii).</p> <p>Following a long Prologue, which jumps ahead to the “Zenith” of Victorian statistics in 1860, the book retreats chronologically and settles into a methodical five-part structure. In Part I, Goldman describes the background to Victorian statistics in the rudimentary “political arithmetic” of the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Part II, he describes the establishment of influential statistical societies in the 1820s and 1830s in Cambridge, Manchester, and Clerkenwell. Part III is devoted to chapters on the principal “intellectual influences” on the turn to statistics, including Babbage and Lovelace, Richard Jones (professor of Political Economy at King’s College, London), William Whewell (Cambridge polymath and inventor of the term “scientist”), Adolphe Quetelet (Belgian statistician <strong>[End Page 127]</strong> and reformer), Alexander von Humboldt, and – as “opposition” – Disraeli, Ruskin, Carlyle, and our man Dickens. Part IV, on “Statistics at Mid-Century,” describes the growing acceptance and practical use of statistics, and especially in the field of medicine – where it could demonstrably be linked to saving lives. Part V contrasts “Conservative Nationalism” with “Liberal Internationalism” at the International Statistical Congresses of the 1850s, 60s and 70s. “Conservative Nationalism” is thereafter shown to develop into something more sinister, and for a time at least this is “The End of the Statistical Movement,” as Francis Galton introduces a far higher level of mathematical sophistication but reveals his “moral inadequacy,” turning from the desire to use numbers to understand and ameliorate society to eugenics, racism, and speculative social engineering. A brief concluding chapter takes us from the nineteenth century to our own time, “From Statistics to Big Data, 1822–2022.”</p> <p>Throughout the book, Goldman’s focus is divided between exceptional individual thinkers and collective initiatives, such as the formation and dissolution of statistical societies, and the holding of international congresses. Perhaps the most vivid and exciting passages occur already in the Prologue, “Statistics at the Zenith: The International Statistical Congress, London 1860.” Here, Goldman discusses Prince Albert’s speech to the Congress (his last and perhaps best “public oration” [xlv]). He “display[ed] considerable intellectual bravery” in discussing “whether the study of statistics encouraged philosophical determinism, or what the age sometimes termed ‘fatalism’” (li). Albert “pointed out that recurrent events were not ineluctable laws governing nature and behaviour, but probabilities only”; “nature allowed for uncertainty; men and women could exercise free will and volition” (li). He spoke, at this international gathering, of “the mutual dependence of nations for their progress”; his speech “was liberal, improving, internationalist, universalist. As such it was statement of the aims of the statistical movement itself” (lii). Part of this may be attributable to the teenage Albert having had Adolphe Quetelet as his mathematics teacher (lii–liii). In any case, he stands as a paragon of the Victorian statistics that Goldman wants us to appreciate: rational, outward-looking, idealistic, honest, and humane. Moreover – in what I think may be a subtle undercurrent throughout this book – he also stands as an implicit rebuke towards 21st-century Britain’s parochial and illiberal tendencies.</p> <p>Florence Nightingale was also at the Congress, or <em>almost</em>: “she invited leading participants to breakfast at her London home before the day’s debates. They talked among themselves as she listened from the other side of a drawn curtain, neither seen nor heard except by a select few whom she received upstairs” (liv). 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Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain by Lawrence Goldman
  • Dominic Rainsford (bio)
Lawrence Goldman. Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain. Oxford UP, 2022. Pp. lxiii + 371. £40.49. ISBN 978-0-19-284774-4 (hb).

One might be forgiven for expecting this to be a very dull book. That is certainly the impression created by the unsmiling faces of Ada Lovelace (datalogical prodigy and Byron’s daughter), William Farr (of the General Register Office; subsequently President of the Statistical Society of London), Florence Nightingale, Prince Albert, and Charles Babbage (computer pioneer), which ponderously adorn the dust-jacket. However, it contains a wide range of information and ideas, much of it potentially useful to Dickens scholars, and the good news is that Goldman’s reader will require no “technical knowledge of statistics” (xxxviii).

Following a long Prologue, which jumps ahead to the “Zenith” of Victorian statistics in 1860, the book retreats chronologically and settles into a methodical five-part structure. In Part I, Goldman describes the background to Victorian statistics in the rudimentary “political arithmetic” of the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Part II, he describes the establishment of influential statistical societies in the 1820s and 1830s in Cambridge, Manchester, and Clerkenwell. Part III is devoted to chapters on the principal “intellectual influences” on the turn to statistics, including Babbage and Lovelace, Richard Jones (professor of Political Economy at King’s College, London), William Whewell (Cambridge polymath and inventor of the term “scientist”), Adolphe Quetelet (Belgian statistician [End Page 127] and reformer), Alexander von Humboldt, and – as “opposition” – Disraeli, Ruskin, Carlyle, and our man Dickens. Part IV, on “Statistics at Mid-Century,” describes the growing acceptance and practical use of statistics, and especially in the field of medicine – where it could demonstrably be linked to saving lives. Part V contrasts “Conservative Nationalism” with “Liberal Internationalism” at the International Statistical Congresses of the 1850s, 60s and 70s. “Conservative Nationalism” is thereafter shown to develop into something more sinister, and for a time at least this is “The End of the Statistical Movement,” as Francis Galton introduces a far higher level of mathematical sophistication but reveals his “moral inadequacy,” turning from the desire to use numbers to understand and ameliorate society to eugenics, racism, and speculative social engineering. A brief concluding chapter takes us from the nineteenth century to our own time, “From Statistics to Big Data, 1822–2022.”

Throughout the book, Goldman’s focus is divided between exceptional individual thinkers and collective initiatives, such as the formation and dissolution of statistical societies, and the holding of international congresses. Perhaps the most vivid and exciting passages occur already in the Prologue, “Statistics at the Zenith: The International Statistical Congress, London 1860.” Here, Goldman discusses Prince Albert’s speech to the Congress (his last and perhaps best “public oration” [xlv]). He “display[ed] considerable intellectual bravery” in discussing “whether the study of statistics encouraged philosophical determinism, or what the age sometimes termed ‘fatalism’” (li). Albert “pointed out that recurrent events were not ineluctable laws governing nature and behaviour, but probabilities only”; “nature allowed for uncertainty; men and women could exercise free will and volition” (li). He spoke, at this international gathering, of “the mutual dependence of nations for their progress”; his speech “was liberal, improving, internationalist, universalist. As such it was statement of the aims of the statistical movement itself” (lii). Part of this may be attributable to the teenage Albert having had Adolphe Quetelet as his mathematics teacher (lii–liii). In any case, he stands as a paragon of the Victorian statistics that Goldman wants us to appreciate: rational, outward-looking, idealistic, honest, and humane. Moreover – in what I think may be a subtle undercurrent throughout this book – he also stands as an implicit rebuke towards 21st-century Britain’s parochial and illiberal tendencies.

Florence Nightingale was also at the Congress, or almost: “she invited leading participants to breakfast at her London home before the day’s debates. They talked among themselves as she listened from the other side of a drawn curtain, neither seen nor heard except by a select few whom she received upstairs” (liv). Goldman does not fully...

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维多利亚人与数字:Lawrence Goldman 著的《十九世纪英国的统计与社会》(评论)
以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要:评论者: 维多利亚人与数字:劳伦斯-戈德曼(Lawrence Goldman)著《十九世纪英国的统计与社会》(Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain),多米尼克-雷恩斯福德(Dominic Rainsford)(简历)。维多利亚人与数字:牛津大学出版社,2022 年。牛津大学出版社,2022 年。pp.£40.49.ISBN 978-0-19-284774-4 (hb)。也许有人会认为这是一本非常沉闷的书。艾达-拉芙蕾丝(Ada Lovelace,数据学神童,拜伦的女儿)、威廉-法尔(William Farr,总登记局成员,后任伦敦统计学会主席)、弗洛伦斯-南丁格尔、阿尔伯特亲王和查尔斯-巴贝奇(Charles Babbage,计算机先驱)等人不苟言笑的面孔给人留下的印象就是如此。不过,该书包含了大量信息和观点,其中许多对狄更斯学者可能有用,好在戈德曼的读者不需要 "统计学方面的技术知识"(xxxviii)。冗长的 "序言 "跳到了 1860 年维多利亚时期统计学的 "顶点",之后,该书按时间顺序后退,形成了有条不紊的五部分结构。在第一部分中,戈德曼描述了维多利亚时期统计的背景,即 17 世纪末和 18 世纪的初级 "政治算术"。在第二部分中,他介绍了 19 世纪 20 年代和 30 年代在剑桥、曼彻斯特和克勒肯威尔成立的有影响力的统计协会。第三部分是关于统计学转向的主要 "知识分子影响 "的章节,包括巴贝奇和洛夫莱斯、理查德-琼斯(伦敦国王学院政治经济学教授)、威廉-惠威尔(剑桥大学多面手和 "科学家 "一词的发明者)、阿道夫-奎特莱(比利时统计学家 [第127页完] 和改革家)、亚历山大-冯-洪堡,以及作为 "反对派 "的迪斯雷利、罗斯金、卡莱尔和我们的狄更斯。第四部分是 "世纪中叶的统计学",描述了统计学日益被接受和实际使用的情况,尤其是在医学领域--在这一领域,统计学与拯救生命有着明显的联系。第五部分对比了 19 世纪 50 年代、60 年代和 70 年代国际统计大会上的 "保守民族主义 "和 "自由国际主义"。此后,"保守民族主义 "被证明发展成了更邪恶的东西,至少在一段时间内,这是 "统计运动的终结",因为弗朗西斯-高尔顿引入了更高水平的数学复杂性,但却暴露了他的 "道德不足",从利用数字理解和改善社会的愿望转向了优生学、种族主义和投机性的社会工程。简短的结语篇章 "从统计到大数据,1822-2022 年 "将我们从十九世纪带到了当代。纵观全书,戈德曼将重点放在了杰出的个人思想家和集体倡议之间,例如统计协会的成立和解散,以及国际大会的召开。也许最生动、最激动人心的段落出现在序言 "统计的顶峰 "中:1860 年伦敦国际统计大会"。在这里,戈德曼讨论了阿尔伯特亲王在大会上的演讲(这可能是他最后一次也是最好的一次 "公开演讲"[xlv])。他在讨论 "统计研究是否鼓励哲学上的决定论,或这个时代有时所说的'宿命论'"(li)时,"表现出了相当大的智慧勇气"。阿尔伯特 "指出,反复发生的事件并不是支配自然和行为的不可避免的规律,而只是概率";"自然允许不确定性;男人和女人可以行使自由意志和意志"(李)。在这次国际会议上,他谈到 "各国相互依存,共同进步";他的演讲 "是自由的、进步的、国际主义的、普遍主义的。他的演讲 "是自由的、进步的、国际主义的、普遍主义的,因此也是统计运动本身的目标"(lii)。这可能部分归因于少年阿尔贝的数学老师是阿道夫-凯特莱(Adolphe Quetelet)(lii-liii)。无论如何,他是戈德曼希望我们欣赏的维多利亚时期统计学的典范:理性、外向、理想主义、诚实和人道。此外--我认为这可能是贯穿全书的一股微妙的暗流--他也是对 21 世纪英国狭隘和不自由倾向的一种含蓄的斥责。弗洛伦斯-南丁格尔(Florence Nightingale)也参加了大会,或者说几乎参加了:"在当天的辩论之前,她邀请主要与会者到她在伦敦的家中共进早餐。他们相互交谈,而她则在拉开的窗帘的另一侧倾听,除了她在楼上接待的少数几个人之外,其他人既看不到也听不到"(liv)。戈德曼并没有完全...
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DICKENS QUARTERLY
DICKENS QUARTERLY LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES-
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
16.70%
发文量
33
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