"It would appear... that moral phenomena, when observed on a great scale, are found to resemble physical phenomena; and we thus arrive, in inquiries of this kind, at the fundamental principle, that the greater the number of individuals observed, the more do individual peculiarities, whether physical or moral, become effaced, and leave in a prominent point of view the general facts, by virtue of which society exists and is preserved."

Source : Francis Bisset Hawkins, Adolphe Quetelet (1973). “Comparative statistics in the 19th century”, Gregg Revivals

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