He thought that there were such social laws. He thus developed his famous notion of the "average man."

Quételet's concept of the average man was intended to be a construct of the mind or a model which would enable social "scientists" to express the differences among individuals in terms of their departure from the norm. This theory led to his "theory of oscillation." According to this hypothesis, as social contacts increase and racial groups intermarry, differences between men will decrease in intensity through a process of social and cultural oscillation, resulting in an ever-increasing balance and, eventually, international equilibrium and world peace. Thus, as Quételet saw it, the task of the academic and scientific communities in the immediate future was to develop a new social science, based on empirical observation and the use of statistics. This new science of "social physics" would discover the laws of society upon which human happiness depends. Quételet's subsequent works represent an attempt to formulate this new field of social physics.

To accomplish this goal, it was necessary to refine the techniques used in the collection of statistical data, since Quételet believed that through the analysis of such data empirical regularities or laws could be discovered. He was a moving force behind many of the governmental agencies and professional organizations involved in the gathering of statistical data, and he exerted an international influence on

this area. His application of quantitative methods and mathematical techniques has been judged as anticipatory of the guiding principle of contemporary social science, especially his efforts to change statistics from a mere clerical function into an exact science of observation, measurement, and comparison of results.

Several of Quételet's major works are available in English translation. The best study in English of his significance is Frank H. Hankins, Adolphe Quételet as Statistician (1908), which includes a biographical sketch. See also George Sarton, Sarton on the History of Science, edited by Dorothy Stimson (1962), for the reasons why Sarton considers Quételet rather than Auguste Comte as the "founder of sociology, " and Quételet's work On Man and the Development of His Faculties as "one of the greatest books of the nineteenth century."