ewers, they are as varied a
crowd as the rest of the public. One of them enjoys _The Scarlet
Pimpernel_ better than Shakespeare; another blames Miss Marie Corelli
for not writing like Donne; another has read and rather liked Shelley.
On the whole, they are fonder of good books than most people. They
have to read so many bad books as a duty, that many of them ultimately
get a taste for literature as a blessed relief. But, as for attacking
men of genius, why, nine out of ten of them would not attack a mouse,
unless the prejudices of the public they reverence drove them to it.
They are very nice and affable, like the gentleman in _You Never Can
Tell_--the nicest and most affable set of human beings that ever
manufactured butter outside a dairy.

XXVIII

ON THE BEAUTY OF STATISTICS

One of the most unexpected pages in Sir Edward Cook's _Life of
Florence Nightingale_, is that in which he describes Miss Nightingale,
in a phrase Lord Goschen once used about himself, as a "passionate
statistician." Somehow one did not associate statistics with Florence
Nightingale. She had already taken her place in the sentimental
history of the world as the angel of the wounded soldier. It is a
disturbance to one's preconceptions to be asked to regard her as the
angel among the Blue Books. As Sir Edward Cook reveals her to us,
however, she is ardent in the pursuit of figures as other women in
pursuit of a figure. We read how she helped one of the General
Secretaries of the International Statistical Congress of 1860 to draw
up the programme for the section dealing with sanitary statistics, at
which, indeed, her own pet scheme for uniform hospital statistics was
the chief subject of discussion. Her faith in statistics, however,
went far beyond that of statistical congresses. She believed that
statistics were in a measure the voice of God. "The laws of God were
the laws of life, and these were ascertainable by careful, and
especially by statistical, inquiry." That is how Sir Edward Cook
explains his remark that her passion for statistics was "even a
religious passion."

It is by no means to be wondered at that the religion of statistics
made its appearance in the nineteenth century. The surprising thing
is, that no church has yet been founded in its honour. In the history
of religion, philosophy and magic, numbers have again and again played
a leading part; and what are statistics but numbers on regimental
parade? Pythagoras found