A historical Pachinko machine, a relative of Francis Galton's
Quincunx and the AAKKOZZLL, and the predecessor of the widely popular amusement
in today's Japan. Click here for more info – photo
by Gnsin.
Are Human Actions Regulated by Fixed Laws?
Experience alone can with certainty solve a problem which no à priori reasoning
could determine. It is of primary importance to keep out of view man as
he exists in an insulated, separate, or in an individual state, and to
regard him only as a fraction of the species. In thus setting aside his
individual nature, we get quit of all which is accidental, and the individual
peculiarities, which exercise scarcely any influence over the mass, become
effaced by their own accord, allowing the observer to seize the general
results.
Thus, to explain our meaning by an example, we
may instance the case of a person examining too nearly a small portion
of a very large circle, and who, consequently, would see in this detached
portion merely a certain quantity of physical points, grouped in a more
or less irregular manner, and so, indeed, as to seem as if they had been
arranged by chance, notwithstanding the care with which the original figure
may have been traced. But, placing himself at a greater distance, the eye
embraces of necessity a greater number of points, and already a degree
of regularity is observable over a certain extent of the segment of the
circle; and, by removing still farther from the object, the observer loses
sight of the individual points, no longer observes any accidental or odd
arrangements amongst them, but discovers at once the law presiding over
their general arrangements, and the precise nature of the circle so traced.
But let us suppose, as might happen, that the different points of the arch,
instead of being material points, were small animated beings, free to act
according to their will, in a very circumscribed sphere, yet these spontaneous
motions would not be perceived by the eye placed at a suitable distance.
It is in this way that we propose studying the
laws which relate to the human species; for, by examining them too closely,
it becomes impossible to apprehend them correctly, and the observer sees
only individual peculiarities, which are infinite. Even in those cases
where the individuals exactly resemble each other, it might still happen
that, by examining them separately, some of the most singular laws to which
they are subject, under certain influences, might escape forever the notice
of the observer. To him, for example, who had examined the laws of light
merely in a single drop of water, the brilliant phenomenon of the rainbow
would be totally unintelligible – it might even happen that the idea
of the possible existence of such an appearance would never have occurred
to him unless accidentally placed in favourable circumstances to observe
it.
What idea should we have of the mortality of mankind
by observing only individuals? Instead of the admirable laws to which it
is subject, our knowledge would be limited to a series of incoherent facts,
leading to a total misapprehension of the laws of nature.
Quetelet, Lambert A.J. A Treatise on Man, and the Development of His Faculties 1842
