The dance of life / Havelock Ellis.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dance of life / Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    within us. All sorts of dogmatic standards have been set up by which to measure the degree of a people’s civilisation. The development of demography and social statistics in civilised countries during the past century should, it has seemed, render such comparison easy. Yet the more carefully we look into the nature of these standards the more dubious they become. On the one hand civilisa¬ tion is so complex that no one test furnishes an adequate standard. On the other hand, the methods of statistics are so variable and uncertain, so apt to be influenced by circumstance, that it is never possible to be sure that one is operating with figures of equal weight. Recently this has been well and elaborately shown by Professor Niceforo, the Italian sociologist and statistician.1 It is to be remembered that Niceforo has himself been a daring pioneer in the measurement of life. He has applied the statistical method not only to the natural and social sciences, but even to art, especially to literature. When, therefore, he discusses the whole question of the validity of the measurement of civilisation his conclusions deserve respect. They are the more worthy of consideration since his originality in the statistical field is balanced by his learning, and it is not easy to recall any scientific attempts in this field which he has failed to mention somewhere in his book, if only in a footnote. The difficulties begin at the outset, and might well serve to bar even the entrance to discussion. We want to measure the height to which we have been able to build 1 Alfred Niceforo, Les Indices NumSriques de la Civilisation et du Progres, Paris, 1921.