I would suggest... the idea of a work which should have for its object the analytic examination of the development of our intellectual faculties for … - Adolphe Quetelet

Even in respect to those crimes which seem perfectly beyond human foresight, such as murders committed in general at the close of quarrels, arising without a motive, and under other circumstances to all appearance the most fortuitous or accidental; nevertheless, experience proves that murders are committed annually, not only pretty nearly to the same extent, but even that the instruments employed are in the same proportions. Now, if this occurs in the case of crimes whose origin seems to be purely accidental, what shall we say of those admitted to be the result of reflection.

The more advanced the sciences have become, the more they have tended to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a sort of center towards which they converge. We can judge of the perfection to which a science has come by the facility, more or less great, with which it may be approached by calculation.

I have always comprehended with difficulty... how persons pre-occupied doubtless by ideas, have seen any tendency to materialism in exposition of a series of facts deduced from documents. In giving to my work the title of Physics, I have had no other aim than to collect, in uniform order, the phenomena affecting man, nearly as physical science brings together the phenomena appertaining to the material world. If certain facts present themselves with an alarming regularity, to whom is blame to be ascribed? Ought charges of materialism to be brought against him who points out that regularity?