Social Statistics: Its History and Some Modem Issues

Based on my previous publications and many other sources, I trace the history of social statistics before the 20th century and link it with the development of the statistical method in natural sciences. Many recent statistical issues had scarcely, or not at all existed then, and before Lexis probability theory had hardly entered statistics. Moreover, its introduction met with real and imaginary difficulties. Other topics discussed here are the present situation regarding "mathematical" versus "theoretical" statistics and the similarities and differences between statistics and the theory of errors.