Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

by Various

It does not improve the grace of any such judgments that they are passed fifty years after the occasion; for, in the meantime, the work may have acquired merits which could not belong to it at first:—and so it has happened with the Statistical Account of Sir John Sinclair. Results may be fairly ascribed to that performance which were not intended nor foreseen, and which seem to have come from its very defects, as well as from the defects which it revealed in the condition of the country, and in the means of ascertaining what the condition of the country was. Its population-statistics were extremely imperfect; the census followed in a very few years. Its scanty and unequal notices of agriculture suggested the project of the County Reports; and to these succeeded the General Report of Scotland—a work still useful, and of the first authority in much that relates to the agriculture and other industry of the country. To take advantage of those capabilities which the statistical accounts had shown his country to possess, Sir John Sinclair originated the Agricultural Society. All of those things, and more, appear to have resulted from the Statistical Account. They are honours that have arisen to it in the course of time, and may be fairly permitted to mitigate the notice and recollection of its faults.

After the lapse of fifty years, Scotland had ceased to be the country represented in the old Statistical Account; for the greater part of what is proper to such a work is, as we have said, changeable and changing. It contained not a little, however, which remained as true and as interesting as at first: the topography, the physical characters, the civil divisions of the country were the same; all that had been said of its history, whether local or general, might be said again as seasonably as before. It occurred, then, to those to whom the author had presented the right of this work, to attempt to restore it in those parts which time had rendered useless, preserving those which were under no disadvantage from that cause. This, as we learn, was the plain, unambitious intention of the New Statistical Account of Scotland. It was projected and carried on during ten years by a Society, whose object it is to afford aid, where aid is needed, in the education of the children of the clergy of the Church of Scotland. Nothing could be more foreign to that object than to engage in a work of national statistics; nothing more natural than that, in their relation to the clergy, and with their interest in the first work, they should propose to renew it in the manner mentioned. A society expressly formed for statistical purposes, and not restrained like the Society for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy, would probably have proposed something different—something more new; it might have been expected to produce something more excellent—though, even in that case, the demand of excellence would have been limited by the consideration, that the means of completely investigating the statistics of a country are not at the command of any statistical society that exists. A modernisation, so to speak, of the first work appears to have been the idea of the second.

It has been executed, however, in the freest style, and scarcely admitted, indeed, of being accomplished at all in any other manner. In such cases, it is seldom that the adaptation is effected by mere numerical changes; the whole statement, in form, manner, and substance, behoves to be remodelled. Then, certain parts of the original may have been deficient, and become more evidently so by the changes that have since ensued in the state of the object: here the task is less one of correction than of supplement. For example, the very interesting and full accounts of mining and manufacturing industry which abound in the new work are nearly peculiar to it, and have scarcely an example in the old. One entire section of the latter, that of natural history, has been developed to an extent not attempted in the former, nor indeed in any other statistical work. These are rather noticeable licenses, on the supposition of the aim being as moderate as professed, and they go far to form a new and independent work—having nothing in common with the first, except the parochial divisions and the obligation to the clergy, as respects the plan; and as respects the matter, only the small part of it which is historical, and therefore not obsolete.

We observe, accordingly, that the society who promoted the new work have put it forward as taking some things from the old, for which they are not responsible, but as containing far more which must form a new and separate character for itself. In both respects, we think they have viewed the work with a proper reference to the conditions under which it was produced.

In other points, the new Account has improved upon the old, and might be expected to do so. It has more matter, by a third part, neither less suited to the place, nor more diffuse in the statement; and, as befits a work of reference, the arrangement is more orderly and more uniform. It is, on the whole, more carefully and better written, and shows, on the part of the reverend contributors, a remarkable advance in the many sorts of knowledge requisite to the task. If the comparison were pursued further, it might be said that some contributions to the first are not surpassed in the value of what they contain; while, from the greater novelty of the task at that time, as well as from the greater freedom of the method, they are somewhat fresher and more genial in manner. The later work, if fuller, more exact, more statistical throughout, possesses that advantage at the cost of appearing sometimes more like a collection of returns in answer to submitted points of inquiry,—a character, however, by no means unsuitable to a compilation of the kind. In all other points a decided superiority must be attributed to the new Account.

Our remarks at this time shall be confined to the plan of the new Account, and to the general description of its contents.[6]

The chief feature of the plan is the distinct treatment of each parish—producing a body neither of county nor of national, but merely of parochial statistics. This was the design, and there is much to recommend it. It is the last thing that can take the aspect of a fault in statistics, to view the matter in very minute portions; for thus, and thus only, it is possible to arrive at an accurate knowledge of the whole. There can be no good county statistics which do not suppose inquiries limited, at first, to lesser divisions of the country, and which do not express the sum of particulars taken from subdivisions that can hardly proceed too far. If such minor surveys do not come before the public, they are presumptively carried on in private. But, in the latter case, they are the more apt to be superficial, as they can be so with the less chance of being noticed; they are apt to take aid from mere computation of averages; they are apt, also, to result in that vague description which is the master-vice of statistics. "In this town, there are manufactures which employ many hands; in this district, vast quantities of silk are produced. These," says Schlozer, "are pet phrases of tourists, who would say something, when they know nothing; but they are not the language of statistics." The parochial method stands, then, on two good grounds: it is inevitable either in an open or a latent form; and it favours the collection of sufficient data for those specific enumerations which are the true worth and the characteristic grace of this branch of knowledge.

This plan, however, has some disadvantages; in referring to which we shall find occasion to bring to view some of the proper merits of the work.

In the first place, a work on this plan is inevitably voluminous. The territorial divisions submitted to distinct treatment are about nine hundred in number, and the matter is still further augmented by the occasional assignment to different hands of different parts of the survey of a single parish. In proportion to the descent of the details, is the bulk of the production; which we suppose to be an evil in the same measure in which it exceeds the necessity of the case. Now the New Statistical Account is at once seen to contain not a little matter of merely local interest, and of the smallest value considered as pertaining to a body of national statistics; and here, if anywhere, it is apt to be regarded as at fault. It is right, however, to recollect the privilege of every work to be judged according to the conditions of the species to which it belongs. The present is not set forth as a statistical account of Scotland, but as a collection of the statistical accounts of all the parishes in Scotland; for this, we perceive, is not merely implied in the plan of the work, but is declared in the prospectus, where the hope is expressed that, by exhibiting the actual state of the parishes, with whatever is therein amiss, it may lead to parochial improvements. It does not appear, therefore, to have been from any miscalculation of their worth, that matters of merely local interest have been so liberally admitted; and, all things considered, more of that nature might have been expected. Let us quote again from the best theory of statistics that has ever been produced. "An object may be deserving of remark in the description of some particular portion of a country, and at the same time have no claim to notice in any general account of that country at large. In the former case, the rivulet is not to be omitted; in the latter, any allusion to it would be a defect, for it would be matter of unnecessary and trifling detail."[7] It is recorded, in the New Statistical Account, that "Will-o'-wisp had never appeared in the parish of South Uist previous to the year 1812." Nothing, in a national point of view, can be conceived more insignificant than this fact; but, taken in connexion with a notable superstition in that district, its local importance appears.[8] To the credit of this method, it may be noticed, that the accounts which are most parochial are, at the same time, among those which have been drawn up with the most general intelligence; and, this being the case, it is not a strange wish that the accounts, in general, had been somewhat more parochial than they are.

On this plan, it is certain there is a risk of much repetition, many parishes having some common characterists which, in place of being recounted for each, might be stated once for all. How far does the Statistical Account offend in this manner? It is true that, where the same facts occur in many parishes, a single statement might suffice; though this might be at the cost of violating the plan which for the whole it might be fittest to adopt, upon consideration that the like resemblance is not found among the greater number of the parishes. But it is remarkable, how seldom different parishes have all the similarity requisite for such a common description; for, in statistics, a difference in mere number or quantity is a vital difference, and expresses essentially different facts. Many parishes have the same articles of produce; while no two produce exactly the same quantities. A very short distance often brings to view considerable varieties in climate, soil, and other physical qualities of a country. Now, considering that the object of this work is to present the parishes in their distinguishing, as well as in their common features, we do not see much sameness in the substance of the details which could have been avoided. A sameness there is; but more in form than in substance—each account delivering its matter under the same general heads, recurring in all cases in exactly the same order. This is convenient when the book is used for reference; it may be wearisome to one who reads only for amusement: it is monotonous; but who looks for any "soul of harmony" in such a quarter? We repeat, it is not attended, on the whole, with much importunate reappearance of the same facts, and cannot seem to be so, except to a very careless or distempered eye. But if, perchance, there may be some facts much alike in several parishes, this itself is an unusual fact, and we should not object to its coming out in the usual way of each parish speaking for itself; in which case, there is always a chance of some variety in the description, from the same thing presenting itself to different persons under different aspects. But, on the whole, we think there is less repetition in these accounts, and indeed less occasion for it, than might at first sight be supposed.