The Abbé de Saint-Pierre and the Emergence of the 'Quantifying ...

Abbé Saint-Pierre and the “Quantifying Spirit” 14
application of the reasoned methods of the natural sciences to the practices of statecraft. As he
described the change of direction at the time:
After spending three or four years studying physics, I read the Pensées of M. Pascal.
Afterwards I understood that the progress I could make in studying morality would be
more useful in increasing my well-being and that of the others with which I lived. Thus I
gave up the study of physics and began to study and meditate upon morality. … After
various readings, however, … I perceived that the well-being increases or decreases most
dramatically with respect to laws. … It was this realization that led me to apply myself to
the study of government. … The reflection returned again and again to my mind, and it
persuaded me that moral science is not the most important for the well-being of men.
Instead, it is politics or the science of government since a wise law can render
incomparably more people happy than a hundred good moral treatises. Therefore, with
the goal of becoming more useful to society, I abandoned the study of morality for the
study of politics. 34
The move from the scientific training of his twenties to the new political science of his thirties
was a natural one for Saint-Pierre, and the science which he created bore the deep traces of his
earlier experiences, especially his connections to advanced mathematics.
Quantification in Saint-Pierre’s Science Politique
Three themes dominate Saint-Pierre’s political science-- information, circulation, and
quantitative calculation. Each was a product of the abbé’s formative experiences in Paris in the
final decades of the seventeenth century, especially his dual encounter with the new natural
sciences of the period and the new practices of administrative monarchy. The imperative toward
information in Saint-Pierre’s thinking derived from his appreciation of the role of direct
observation and empirical facts in the new physical science of the seventeenth century. The
emphasis upon circulation, especially the public dissemination and discussion of political
knowledge, likewise derived from Saint-Pierre’s experiences within the new culture of public
scientific practice characteristic of the same period. Finally, the bias toward quantification and
the belief that a true political science would result in a rational calculus of political decision-