The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty/Volume 1/Introduction/Authorship

by William Petty

 

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE NATURAL AND POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE BILLS OF MORTALITY^[1].

Concerning the authorship of the "Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality" there seems at first to be no possibility of raising a question. Their title-page bears the name of Captain John Graunt, and the preface gives a plausible account of the manner in which he came to write them. At the time of their publication he was commonly reputed their author. Because of this repute he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and he accepted the membership. Such conduct by such a man would seem to leave no room for doubt that he was the author of the book issued under his name. There are, nevertheless, certain grounds for thinking that the book was in fact written not by Graunt, but by Sir William Petty. Persons who knew one or both of them have asserted that Petty was the author, and later writers^[2] have added certain lines of argument to the same effect, based on internal evidence and on corroborative probabilities.

The first of Petty's friends to assert his authorship of the London Observations was John Evelyn.

In his diary, under date of March 22, 1675, Evelyn wrote:

Supp'd at S^r William Petty's with the Bp of Salisbury and divers honorable persons. We had a noble entertainment in a house gloriously furnish'd; the master and mistress of it were extraordinary persons.... He is the author of the ingenious deductions from the bills of mortality, which go under the name of Mr Graunt; also of that useful discourse of the manufacture of wool^[3], and several others in the register of the Royal Society. He was also author of that paraphrase on the 104th Psalm in Latin verse^[4],, which goes about in MS. and is inimitable. In a word, there is nothing impenetrable to him.

The next witness for Petty—and also against him—is his intimate friend, John Aubrey, the antiquary. Aubrey assisted Anthony à-Wood in the compilation of his "Athenae Oxonienses" by furnishing him a number of "minutes of lives^[5]," From his letters to Wood concerning them^[6], it appears that Aubrey began his sketch of Petty in February, 1680, and that shortly before March 27, "Sir W. P. perused my copie all over & would have all stand." The chaotic condition of Aubrey's notes^[7] renders it impossible to say how much of the manuscript now in the Bodleian Library was approved by Petty; but it seems not improbable that Aubrey showed him folios 13 and 14, bringing the narrative down to Petty's departure for Ireland, 22 March, 1680. If so, we have Petty's approval of the statement (on folio 14) that he was elected professor in Gresham College by the interest of "his friend captaine John Graunt (who wrote the Observations on the Bills of Mortality)^[8]." In June, 1680, Aubrey sent this manuscript to Wood^[9], but he appears to have recalled it, about ten years later, for the purpose of making additions and corrections. To this later period at least a portion of the memoranda on folio 15 must be assigned, for one of them speaks of certain matters subsequent to Petty's death (1687) which have already escaped Aubrey's memory. It is not so clear that the very incomplete catalogue of Petty's writings on folio 15 was likewise added after the return of the manuscript to Aubrey, since there stand opposite two of the titles mentioned in it notes by Wood telling where copies of the books may be found. Still it is at least probable that this, like what immediately follows it on the same folio, was added by Aubrey after Petty had perused his copy all over. And the probability is heightened by the presence on folio 15 of an assertion directly contradictory to what Petty had approved in 1680. Near the end of the list of Petty's writings Aubrey writes, "Observations on the Bills of Mortality were really his."

The third witness for Petty is Edmund Halley. Halley was the most famous of English students of the Bills of Mortality, and the vast results that have flowed from his "Estimate of the Degrees of Mortality of Mankind" predispose us to regard as authoritative anything that he may have said as to the work of his predecessors. It should be remembered, however, that Halley was a much younger man than Petty and did not become a member of the Royal Society until five years after Graunt's death. His famous memoir^[10] begins with these words:

The contemplation of the mortality of mankind has, besides the moral, its physical and political uses, both which have some time since been most judiciously considered by the curious Sir William Petty, in his moral and political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of London, owned by Captain John Graunt. And since in a like treatise on the Bills of Mortality of Dublin.... But the deductions from those bills of mortality seemed even to their authors [sic] to be defective.

Bishop Burnet, the fourth of Petty's contemporaries to assert his authorship of the Observations, had no such interest in them as did Halley; indeed his allusion to the subject is merely casual. In the first volume of his "History of his own Time," published in 1723, but probably written before 1705, he makes the charge^[11] that Graunt, being a member of the New River Company, stopped the pipes at Islington the night before the London fire, September 2, 1666. Burnetts account of this alleged occurrence begins: "There was one Graunt, a papist, under whose name Sir William Petty published his observations on the bills of mortality."

Such is the direct testimony for Petty. The direct testimony in favour of Graunt comes from five sources. First, from the work whose authorship is in issue. Four editions of the "Observations" published during his lifetime and one published by Petty after Graunt's death, all bear on their title-pages Graunt's name as author. Second, Petty's own testimony in his books and in his private correspondence. In his acknowledged writings he mentions the Observations at least seventeen times^[12]. In nine of these instances Graunt's name is mentioned, in seven he is not named, and in the remaining case, the "Political Arithmetick," as printed in 1690, makes Petty speak of "the observators upon the bills of mortality." Since the "Political Arithmetick" was written in 1676, i.e., before Petty's own "Observations upon the Dublin Bills," this expression might be construed as a claim by Petty to a share in the authorship of the "Observations" of 1662. But reference to the Southwell and the Rawlinson manuscripts of the "Political Arithmetick" in the Bodleian Library, bearing Petty's autograph corrections, shows conclusively that he here intended to set up no such claim^[13]. Moreover, in a private letter, to his most intimate friend and relative, Sir Robert Southwell (August 20, 1681), Petty twice speaks of "Graunt's" and once of "our friend Graunt's" book^[14].

In contrast with Petty's direct testimony to Graunt's authorship of the London "Observations" stands the title-page of his statistical firstling, the Dublin "Observations" (1683), which reads "By the Observator on the London Bills of Mortality^[15]." This might be construed as claiming the London Observations for Petty, but an explanation at least equally plausible would make it a mere bookseller's trick of Mark Pardoe^[16], the publisher, to commend the Dublin "Observations" to a public that had recently greeted a fifth edition of the London "Observations" with favour. The device, if such it were, appears to have failed, for Pardoe had sheets of the Dublin "Observations" still on hand in 1686, and when he reissued them, with additions, as a "Further Observation on the Dublin Bills," Petty's name appeared^[17] on the title-page, without any mention of the London "Observations." Nor did the change occur here alone. In the first (1683) edition of "Another Essay in Political Arithmetick. By Sir William Petty," the original Dublin "Observations" are advertised as "by the Observator on the London Bills of Mortality." In the second edition of the Essay, published in 1686, but before the "Further Observation," the advertisement of the original Dublin "Observations" reads; "By Sir William Petty^[18]."

Contemporary testimony in favour of Graunt comes, thirdly, from the Royal Society and from various members of it. The circumstances of his election have been recounted in the preceding section^[19]. The opinion of the Society and of its historian as there expressed was later confirmed by its Secretary. During the Plague^[20] Oldenburg wrote from London:

Though we had some abatement in our last week's bill, yet we are much afraid it will run as high this week as ever. Mr Graunt, in his appendix to his Observations upon those bills (now reprinted) takes notice, that forasmuch as the people of London have, from Anno 1625 to this time, increased from eight to thirteen, so the mortality shall not exceed that of 1625, except the burials should exceed 8400 per week^[21].

The case for Graunt is further strengthened by the testimony of John Bell, clerk of the Company of Parish Clerks^[22]. The author of the "Observations" asserts^[23] that he visited the hall of the Parish Clerks, and used their records in the preparation of his book. Bell, therefore, who was in charge of the Clerks' register, could scarcely have been deceived as to his identity. Now in London's Remembrancer, after explaining and defending the manner in which the bills of mortality were prepared by the Company of Parish Clerks, Bell proceeds:

I think I need not trouble myself herein [i.e., in describing the form of the bills], since that worthy and ingenious Gentleman, Captain John Graunt, in his Book of Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality, hath already so well described them.

The last of the witnesses in the case is Sir Peter Pett. Born, probably, in 1627, a member of Oxford University while Petty was there, a charter fellow of the Royal Society, Pett was a life-long friend of Sir William^[24], and it is probable that he knew Graunt also^[25]. In 1688 Pett published a folio volume designed to vindicate the Earl of Anglesey from the charge of being a Roman Catholic^[26]. This gigantic pamphlet discusses many matters not germane to the charge against Anglesey, and among them England's growth in population. In the course of the discussion Pett alludes four times to the London "Observations," but without mentioning the name of either Petty or Graunt:

If any of our monkish historians... had given the world rational estimates of the numbers of... the males then between the years of 16 and 60 [from the military returns] ... we might now easily by the help we have from the Observator on the Bills of Mortality conclude, what the entire number of the people then was. [Page 91.]

'T is very remarkable that in the Code Louys which he [Louis XIV.] published in April, 1667, he made some ordinances with great care for the registring the christenings and marriages and burials, in each Parish... having perhaps been informed by his ministers that many political inferences, as to the knowing the number of people and their encrease in any state, are to be made from the bills of mortality, on the occasion of some such published about 3 years before by the Observator on the Bills of Mortality in England. [Pages 248—249.]

It must be acknowledged that the thanks of the age are due to the Observator on the Bills of Mortality, for those solid and rational calculations he hath brought to light, relating to the numbers of our people: but such is the modesty of that excellent author that I have often heard him wish that a thing of so great publick importance to be certainly known, might be so by an actual numbering of them.... Mr James Howel... saith, that in the year 1636... the Lord Mayor of London... took occasion to make a cense of all the people and that there were of men, women and children, above 7 hundred thousand that lived within the barrs of his jurisdiction alone... and... more now... But I am to suspect that there was no such return in the year 1636... and do suppose that Mr Howel did in that point mistake... partly because I find it mentioned by the curious Observator on the Bills of Mortality, p. 113 and 114 [of the 1676 ed.] that anno 1631, ann. 7 Caroli i. the number of men, women and children in the several wards of London and liberties ... came in all to but 130178, and finally because the said curious Observator (for that name I give that author after My Lord Chief Justice Hales [sic] hath given or adjudged it to him in his Origination of Mankind) having by rational calculations proved that there dyes within the Bills of Mortality a thirtieth part, or one in thirty yearly, and that there dies there 22000 per annum.... If there were there according to Howel a million and a half people, it would follow that there must dye but 1 out of 70 per annum. [Pages 112-113.]

We are told by the Observator on the Bills of Mortality, that anxiety of mind hinders Breeding, and from sharp anxieties of divers kinds hath the Protestant Religion rescued English minds. [Page 119.]

In these passages from Pett two peculiarities need to be explained. The first is the omission of Petty's name. If Pett regarded Petty as the author of the "Observations," why should he consistently omit to mention him here as "Sir W. P."—a form of reference which he repeatedly uses when speaking elsewhere of Petty's other works^[27]? The second fact to be explained is Pett's manifest desire to avoid mentioning by name "that excellent author," "the most curious Observator." It certainly is not by chance that Pett, whose laborious book is a medley of duly credited extracts from almost all English and classical literature, instead of mentioning the author of the "Observations," here carefully took refuge behind a quotation—or rather a misquotation^[28]— from Sir Matthew Hale. I believe that Pett's peculiar course at this point can be best explained on the assumption that he considered Graunt the author of the work. He was attempting, at a time when Oates' absurd stories of the popish plot were still heartily believed^[29], to vindicate Anglesey from the charge of leaning towards Roman Catholicism. He was therefore careful not to betray any sympathy with the Romanists. Now according to Wood, when Graunt had been a major two or three years, he

then laid down his trade and all public employments upon account of religion. For though he was puritanically bred, and had several years taken sermon-notes by his most dextrous and incomparable faculty in short-writings and afterwards did profess himself for some time a Socinian, yet in his later days he turned Roman Catholic, in which persuasion he zealously lived for some time and died.

May not this explain Pett's obvious unwillingness to praise the author of the "Observations," Graunt, by name? Pett does not afford demonstration, but he furnishes corroboration.

The second line of argument includes all appeals to internal evidence, whether advanced by supporters of Graunt or of Petty. Here again the supporters of Petty shall speak first. Between parts of the "Observations" and portions of his acknowledged writings they find numerous similarities so striking as to constitute, in the opinion of Dr Bevan, an effective way of testing the question of authorship^[30]. An examination of these parallel passages reveals their very unequal significance for the present discussion. For example, the remark in both the London "Observations" and the "Treatise of Taxes" concerning the causes of the westward growth of London cannot be used to establish their common authorship, John Evelyn having set the idea afloat in the preceding year^[31]. In like manner the talk about equalizing the parishes was a current commonplace of the Restoration^[32]. On the other hand the remaining parallels, especially that between Graunt's Conclusion (pp. 395—397, post) and various passages in Petty's writings, are doubtless important.

In addition to these parallel passages, other bits of internal evidence have been adduced by the supporters of Petty. "The most notable thing in the first few pages of the 'Bills,'" says Dr Bevan, "is the amount of space devoted to a description of different diseases. They are described with a familiarity and precision which only a physician could be expected to have^[33]." Upon a layman the discussions in chapters two and three of the similarities between rickets and liver-growth, and between the green sickness, stopping of the stomach, mother, and rising of the lights, undoubtedly make a learned impression. Whether they were in fact the discussions of a learned or of an ignorant man, a specialist in the history of English medicine before Sydenham could probably say. But one need not be a medical antiquarian to see that, in the most elaborate of these discussions, the one concerning rickets and liver growth, and indeed, throughout all the discussions of this sort, the method of the writer of the "Observations" is distinctly statistical, is marked, indeed, by considerable statistical acuteness, and is scarcely at all diagnostic or pathological, as a physician's method, nowadays at any rate, would probably be. He enquires whether the same disease has been returned in different years under different rubrics; and he finds his answer by investigating the fluctuations from year to year in the number of deaths from each. Moreover, it is in the midst of these discussions of diseases that the variations in the number of those who died of rickets from year to year provokes this curious passage:

Now, such back-startings seem to be universal in all things; for we do not only see in the progressive motion of wheels of Watches, and in the rowing of Boats, that there is a little starting or jerking backwards between every step forwards, but also (if I am not much deceived) there appeared the like in the motion of the Moon, which in the long Telescopes at Gresham College one may sensibly discern. [Page 358 post.]

De Morgan points out^[34] the improbability that "that excellent machinist, Sir William Petty, who passed his day among the astronomers," should attribute to the motion of the moon in her orbit all the tremors which she gets from a shaky telescope^[35].

Other peculiarities of the "Observations" which are held by Dr Bevan to indicate Petty's authorship are the "references to Ireland derived apparently from personal observation," and the fact that "Hampshire, Petty's native county, is the only English county mentioned." The latter inference might have been made much stronger for Petty. The author of the "Observations" bases many of his most interesting conclusions upon a comparison between the tables of London mortality and the "Table of a Country Parish," and this country table is unquestionably derived from the parish register of the Abbey of St Mary and St Ethelfleda, at Romsey, the church in which Petty's baptism is recorded and in which he lies buried^[36]. But the fact by no means implies Petty's authorship of the "observations." It is not less reasonable to suppose that Graunt, when studying the London bills, applied to Petty for such comparative material as he afterwards sought from four other friends in various parts of England^[37]. As for the allusions to Ireland, they indicate rather that the author had not been in that kingdom at all than that he had made personal observations there. One of them is a casual remark in connection with his belief that deaths in child-bed are abnormally frequent "in these countries where women hinder the facility of their child-bearing by affected straitening of their bodies... What I have heard of the Irish women confirms me herein^[38]." In the other passage the author says "I have heard,... I have also heard" this and that about Ireland^[39].

Those who have agreed that Graunt was the author of the "Observations," need not leave to their opponents the exclusive use of internal evidence. They, for their part, may first point out that there are considerable differences of language between Petty's works and Graunt's^[40]. Every one at all familiar with seventeenth-century English pamphlets has sympathized with Sir Thomas Browne's solicitude lest "if elegancy still proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream, which we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall within few years be fain to learn Latin to understand English." Petty's "Reflections" and his "Treatise of Taxes and Contributions" are of about the same size as the "Observations."

I have run through all three, and counted the Latin words, phrases and quotations, excluding those which, like anno, per annum, per centum, are virtually English. The "Reflections," in the 154 pages which are indisputably by Petty^[41], contain at least twenty-four Latin phrases, the "Treatise" at least forty-two. The "Observations" show, aside from the sentiment on the title-page, but six Latin phrases; and of the six, three are within as many pages of the "Conclusion" (pages 395—397, post) in precisely the passage which exhibits the most conspicuous of all the parallels between the "Observations" and the "Treatise^[42]."

The supporters of Graunt may properly claim, in the second place—and upon this they may insist, since heretofore it has not received adequate emphasis—that the statistical method of the "Observations" is greatly superior to the method of Petty's acknowledged writings upon similar subjects. Graunt exhibits a patience in investigation, a care in checking his results in every possible way, a reserve in making inferences, and a caution about mistaking calculation for enumeration, which do not characterize Petty's work to a like degree. This difference cannot escape any person of statistical training who may read carefully first the "Observations" and then Petty's "Essays."

In the third place, it deserves to be noted that the chief parallels to Petty's writings do not occur in parts of the "Observations" which are vital or organic. In his patient investigations of the movement of London's population, imperfect and frequently erroneous though they were, and, for lack of data, necessarily must have been, the author of the "Observations" displays admirable traits for which Petty's writings, however meritorious otherwise, may still be searched in vain. The passages in which the parallels occur are, as it were, the embroideries with which Graunt's solid work is decorated—possibly by Petty's hand. For example, the passage concerning beggars and charity in Holland^[43] is appended to the contention that, since "of the 229,250, which have died, we find not above fifty-one to have been starved, except helpless infants at nurse," therefore there can be no "want of food in the country, or of means to get it." The argument is statistical; the appended passage about beggars is not. It has no real connection, and if it were omitted, the argument proper would lose nothing of its cogency. The longest and closest parallel between the "Observations" and the "Treatise" is of like character. It occurs in and indeed pervades "The Conclusion." And this conclusion, instead of offering, as one might expect, a sober summary in the style of the book itself^[44], is an obvious and, one must own, a not altogether unsuccessful attempt "to write wittily about these matters^[45]."

The third group of arguments—those based upon the probabilities of the case—should be considered as corroborative, rather than as of independent weight. In advancing them the partisans of each writer must seek to strengthen a case already built up by direct testimony and internal evidence rather than to establish their contentions ab initio^[46]. In general, the probabilities strongly favour Graunt. In the first place, he was a citizen and a native of London. He thus had opportunity to collect the bills and incentive to study them; and the author's account of the way in which he came to make the study tallies in every particular with the known facts of Graunt's life. Petty, on the other hand, was of provincial birth, and had been a resident of London but a short time when the "Observations" were published. In the second place, the "Observations" are not the product of a few leisure hours, or even of a few hurried weeks. Their laborious compilation demanded time—how much, those will best appreciate who have attempted similar tasks. Graunt may well have had the necessary leisure, whereas Petty, in defending his Irish survey, in writing for the Royal Society, and in working for political self-advancement at the Restoration, must have been otherwise well occupied during the years 1660 and 1661^[47]. In the third place, the assumption that a man of Graunt's standing in the city would consent to be a screen for Petty's book, has never been put upon a sound basis, or indeed upon any basis at all. Finally it may be noted that the "Observations" contained nothing offensive^[48]; they were not only novel, but popular, and it was by no means Petty's nature to refuse credit for a good thing which he had done^[49]. Nevertheless the "Observations" had been out almost fifteen years, had passed through four editions, and had received unusual honours at the hands of the Royal Society, and apparently of the king also, before there was a whisper of Petty's authorship.

Opposed to these probabilities in favour of Graunt stand two analogous arguments for Petty. One argument Dr Bevan advances: "We are not able to assign a reason for Petty's wish to conceal his authorship under the name of a friend, but we do know that several of his works were published anonymously during his lifetime." It need scarcely be said that publishing a book anonymously is a different thing from publishing it under the name of somebody else—and that somebody a well-known man. The other argument is put by Mr Hodge in these words:

If I were disposed to argue the matter upon probabilities, I might ask what other proof Graunt gave of his capacity for writing such a work.... It is certainly strange, if Graunt were the man, that he should have stopped short after having made such a remarkable step. Of Petty's abilities for dealing with the subject it is unnecessary to speak^[50].

The argument that Graunt cannot have written one book because he did not write a second^[51], is scarcely of a cogency sufficient to prevail against the favourable opinion of those who knew him. Aubrey had a very high opinion of his abilities, and Pepys, who seems also to have known him well, accepted his authorship without the slightest hesitation.

To sum up the whole discussion: The "Observations" were published over Graunt's name. Everything about them, as well as everything known of his life, was consistent with the assumption that he wrote them; he had the incentive, the opportunity, the time, and in the opinion of his contemporaries the ability. The book was at once accepted by intelligent people as his, and unusual honours were bestowed upon him. Until after his death (1673) he was generally esteemed the author of the work. Between 1675 and 1705, however, four persons attributed the book to Petty; and later writers have pointed out striking resemblances between passages in the "Observations" and passages in Petty 's avowed writings. It is substantially upon the testimony of Evelyn and of Aubrey and upon these similarities, that the whole case for Petty rests. Before we can admit Petty's authorship we must be convinced that Graunt and Petty, aided and abetted by Bell, were parties to a singularly purposeless^[52] conspiracy whereby, with remarkable shrewdness in covering their tracks and giving to their fraud the appearance of truth, they deceived not only the general public but also their intimates in the Royal Society. Does the evidence adduced for Petty so far outweigh the evidence for Graunt as to convince us that they were guilty of this contemptible conduct? If not, can the direct testimony for Petty, and the similarities noted, be explained without conceding the authorship of the "Observations" to him? I believe that they can be so explained.

In view of Evelyn, Aubrey's second statement and the parallel passages on one hand, and of the strong evidence for Graunt on the other, it seems almost certain that neither Graunt nor Petty was the exclusive author of all parts of the "Observations," as we have them. There is, moreover, competent authority for this view. Anthony à-Wood, speaking of Petty's "Observations on the Dublin Bills," published in 1683, says: "He also long before assisted or put into a way John Graunt in the writing of his Nat. and Pol. Observations on the Bills of Mortality of London." And in his sketch of Graunt, Aubrey says: "He wrote Observations on the bills of Mortality very ingeniosely (but I believe, and partly know, that he had his hint from his intimate and familiar friend Sir William Petty)." That is to say, Graunt and Petty collaborated. But the character of their collaboration was rather complementary than coöperative. They were not, properly speaking, joint authors. The essential and valuable part of the "Observations" seems to be Graunt's. Petty perhaps suggested the subject of the inquiry, he probably assisted Graunt with comments upon medical and other questions here and there; he procured the figures from Romsey for the "Table of the Country Parish;" and he may have revised, or even written, the Conclusion, and possibly, also, the curious "epistle dedicatory to Sir Robert Moray," commending the book and its author to the Royal Society. Such assistance constituted authorship neither in Petty's mind nor in the mind of any one else. But after he had perhaps assisted in the enlargement of the third edition, and had prepared for the press a fifth edition, again enlarged, of the everpopular "Observations," he for the time being persuaded himself that he was their virtual author. After a few years he thought better of it, and assigned the honour to Graunt, to whom it rightfully belonged. All this seems, I am aware, an elaborate edifice of shaky conjecture. I hope so to shore it up with chronological props that it may present at least the appearance of stability.

The fifth edition of the "Observations" is dated "London, 1676." Now Evelyn gave the earliest intimation of a Pettian authorship after supping at Petty's house in 1675. In 1680 Aubrey, in an account perused by Petty, assigned the "Observations" to Graunt, and in his life of Graunt asserted that they were done by him upon a hint from Petty. In or about 1682 Petty himself included "Observations on the Bills of Mortality of London, 1660" in a chronological list of his several works since 1636^[53]. Subsequently Aubrey also asserted that they were "really" Petty's. These are, strictly speaking, the only direct testimonies for Petty's authorship of the London "Observations." As already noted, Halley and Burnet were less intimate with Petty, and what they say is of little independent weight. Meanwhile Petty, if indeed he had ever publicly held himself out as the author of the London "Observations," appears to have repented. The title-page and advertisement of 1683, indirectly attributing that book to him, were altered at the first opportunity to a form consistent with what seem to be the facts, and when he has occasion, in his later works, to mention the "Observations," he repeatedly speaks of them as Graunt's, although he specifically cites the fifth edition, in which his share was larger than in either of the others. In short, the "Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of London" are essentially Graunt's work, and he deserves the credit for them. Petty probably made contributions to the book which may have helped to bring it to popular, and even to scientific notice, but he added little, if anything, to its real merits. He edited it in 1676 with further additions, and for a while perhaps caused or allowed it to be supposed that he was the author. Subsequently he corrected the error.

The general conclusion thus reached makes Graunt in every proper sense the author of the "Observations." This conclusion is by no means new. But those who have held it have not hitherto explained the countervailing testimony for Petty; nor can it be explained save by a chronological examination of the evidence. Consequently one party has accepted Evelyn and Aubrey's second statement, while the other party has ignored them. The attempt here made to explain the testimony for Petty without forgetting the stronger testimony for Graunt seeks to correlate the facts and to harmonize the probabilities more completely than has heretofore seemed possible. The opinion that Graunt, and not Petty, was really the author of the "Observations," I hope thus to have raised in the minds even of readers who do not forget Evelyn and Aubrey, to the grade of probability, if not to that of demonstration^[54].

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1. By permission of the editors of the Political Science Quarterly I have here used in revised form a large part of an article upon the above-named subject, which was originally printed in Vol. xi. pp. 105—132 of that journal.
2. Mr W. B. Hodge writing in the Assurance Magazine, viii. 94, 234—237, (1859) and Dr W. L. Bevan in his Sir William Petty, a study (1894), have elaborated the arguments in favour of Petty. On the other hand Dr John Campbell (Biographia Britannica, iv. 2262—2263, note), McCulloch (Literature of Political Economy, 271), Roscher (Zur Gesch. d. engl. Volkswirthschaftslehre im 16 und 17 Jahrh., 73, note), De Morgan (Assurance Magazine viii. 166, 167; Budget of Paradoxes, 68, 69), John (Geschichte der Statistik, 170), and Cunningham (Growth of English Industry, Modern Times, 247) have all decided for Graunt. But none of these writers has discussed the question thoroughly.
3. Bibliography, no. 28.
4. Bibliography, no. 9, cf. p. xxviii.
5. Cf. p. xiii.
6. Ballard MS. xiv. ff. 126—132, Bodleian Library.
7. See Mr Clark's description, Brief Lives, i. 4.
8. Brief Lives, ii. 141.
9. Ibid., i. 10—12.
10. Philosophical Transactions, no. 196 (1693), p. 596.
11. Vol. i. p. 231. The charge against Graunt was thoroughly disproved by Bevil Higgons in his Historical and Critical Remarks on Bishop Burnet's History of his own Time, 149, and by Maitland, History of London, i. 435.
12. Pp. 27, 45, 303, 458, 461, 481, 483, 485, 526, 527, 534, 535 (twice), 536, 541, 608, and in the Discourse of Duplicate Proportion, which justifies its double dedication by the example of "Graunt's" observations,
13. See pp. 303, 236, 237.
14. Rawlinson MS., A. 178, ff. 71—72, Bodleian Library. See also Petty's letter of 4 Feby., 1663, to Lord Brouncker printed on page 398.
15. See facsimile, p. 479.
16. P. 480.
17. See p. 493.
18. These advertisements were not included in the present reprint of Another Essay, pp. 451—478, post.
19. P. xxxvi.
20. About the same time the Society reaffirmed its judgment by ordering the reprinting of "the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality by Mr John Graunt." See p. 314.
21. Oldenburg to Boyle, 18 Sept., 1665, Boyle's Works, vi. 194.
22. Concerning Bell, see p. lxxx.
23. P. 333.
24. Fitzmaurice, 248—250.
25. Carte, Ormond, ii. 342, cf. p. xxxvii. In mentioning the employment of Graunt to collect weavers in England and remove them thence to Ireland with a view to establishing there the manufacture of Norwich stuffs, as recommended in a memorial which Sir Peter Pett had presented to Ormond, Carte describes Graunt as "a man well known by his observations on the bills of mortality." Carte wrote about 1735.
26. The Happy Future State of England, London: 1688. Anon.
27. Pp. 92, 106, 122, 192, 193, 245, and pp. 1 and 27 of the preface.
28. Hale's Primitive Origination of Mankind, published in 1677, the year after his death, was probably written before 1670. The passages (pp. 205, 206, 213, 237) which allude, with warm praise, to the London Observations, do not, so far as I can see, give or adjudge the name of Observator to the author at all. Hale quotes the title of "this little book," but makes no mention of its author.
29. He began to write in 1680 though his book was not published until 1688. Cf. pp. I, 2 and 5 of The Future Happy State.
30. Bevan, Petty, 44. The similar passages discovered in previous discussions of this subject, together with a few others upon which I had chanced, were printed in parallel columns in my article in the Political Science Quarterly, xi. 118—122. The passages in question may be found in this edition by comparing the following pages and lines:

    ⁠in the London "Observations"	⁠in Petty 's Writings.
    p. 321, l. 6, 7, p. 380, l. 30—33, p. 381, l. 8, 13—15.	p. 41, l. 22—31.
    p. 353. l. 1—23.	p. 29, l. 24—29, p. 30, l. 9—10, p. 31, l. 8—14, p. 83, l. 12—17, p. 118, l. 1—6.
    p. 377. l. 14—17, 35—38.	p. 25, l. 15—18, p. 68, l. 22—26.
    p. 382, l. 20—22.	p. 23, l. 23, p. 24, l. 36.
    p. 395. l.30—p. 397, l. 9.	p. 49, l. 28—p. 50, l. 9, p. 49, l. 6—10, p. 52, l. 33 p. 53, l. 4, p. 34, l. 26—28, p. 26, l. 33—p. 27, l. 4. p. 270, l. 14—21.

31. See his Fumifugium (1661), p. 16, and cf. pp. 41, 380, 381, post.
32. Cf. p. 5, note.
33. Bevan, Petty, 46; cf. pp. post, 346—363.
34. Budget of Paradoxes. 68; Assurance Magazine, viii. 167.
35. Mr Hodge replies: "The paragraph objected to stands unaltered in the fifth edition, edited by Petty, and the question naturally arises, how came he to publish as an editor that which, it is asserted, he must have known to be so grossly absurd that it is impossible he could have published it as a writer?" Assurance Magazine. viii. 235, 236. This is ingenious, but fallacious. The fifth edition is a mere reprint and in no sense a revision.
36. See pp. 412, note, 388, 400.
37. See p. 399.
38. P. 361, 362.
39. P. 396.
40. Dr Bevan (p. 44) would dissent: "It is difficult to discover any great diversity in style, language, or in any other point between the 'Bills' and Petty's authentic writings."
41. The letters ostensibly addressed to Petty were probably written by him, but, to be on the safe side, I excluded them. Cf. Fitzmaurice, 92.
42. Mr Higgs has pointed out also (Economic Journal, V. 72) that Graunt feared London was "too big," whereas Petty wished it still bigger. Cf. pp. 320, 470—476, post.
43. P. 353.
44. The similarity in style of the conclusion to Petty's writings, and its dissimilarity to the earlier parts of the Observations is noted by Mr Hodge, Assurance Magazine, viii. 235.
45. P. 397.
46. McCulloch and Roscher take the contrary course.
47. Cf. pp. xx—xxiv.
48. Cf. Shelburne's dedication of the 1690 edition of the Political Arithmetick, p. 240.
49. His Treatise was indeed published anonymously, but when it succeeded, its authorship soon became known.
50. Assurance Magazine, viii. 236.
51. In fact he did write "Observations on the Advance of the Excise," but they were never printed. Aubrey, i. 273.
52. Mr Hodge says: "It is not necessary for us to determine what could have been Petty's object in making such an arrangement,—whether it was for some personal convenience or advantage to himself or to gain a reputation for Graunt." (Assurance Magazine, Vol. viii. p. 235.) To be sure it is not necessary; but does not absence of motive justify doubt as to the fact?
53. Fitzmaurice, 317; reprinted in supplement to Bibliography, post.
54. A large part of this section was originally printed in the Political Science Quarterly, xi. 105—132, and is here used, in revised form, by permission of the editors of that journal.