“Without the knowledge of the true number of the people, as a principle, the whole scope and use of keeping bills of birth and burials is impaired; wherefore by laborious conjectures and calculations to deduce the number of people from the births and burials, may be ingenious, but very preposterous.” PeopleMayWholeUseNumbersPrinciplesBirthBillsScopeCalculationsIngeniousBurialConjecture Book:The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty: Together with the Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality More Probably by John Graunt Source: The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty: Together with the Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality More Probably by John Graunt
“The method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.” LongUseSciencePoliticalCoursesCausesTermNatureNumbersTakenIntellectualArgumentWeightMethodFoundationVisibleUsualArithmeticSuperlatives Author:William Petty
