Social Statistics and Probability Theory in the 19th Century

Based on a large number of sources, this paper traces the relation between statistics (excluding demography) and the theory of probability in the 19th century and links this subject with the development of the statistical method in natural sciences. The battle between the partisans of the Staatswissenschaft and the adherents of political arithmetic continued well into the mid-19th century, and, except for some mean indicators, probability hardly entered statistics before Lexis. The causes of this situation were the contemporaneous absence of many issues introduced into statistics in the 20th century as well as the real or imaginary difficulties of applying probability.