They are very hard ideas to get to grips with
The renewed resistance to the dark arts reminds me of the consternation & protestations expressed by some in the C19th who objected to the cold, scientific & statistical studies of Quetelet, the replacement of the Common Man by the Average Man.
Man did not behave according to statistical laws – he had free will
How then could those two supreme examples of acts freely entered into of ones own free will - the decision to end one’s own life or to marry – show such temporal & spatial regularity when expressed as rates – so many per 1000 population?
On the other side however, the similar expression of death and, particularly, infrctious disease as rates played a role in helping the middle classes to appreciate that these ills can afflict us all – not just the poor, dirty & feckless, so that they appreciated the benefit to all of cleaning up the slums & investing in public health initiatives such as sewers & clean water
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