*Adolphe Quételet (1796–1874), a Belgian mathematician whose interests included the application of statistical methods to social phenomena. His work on this subject, On Man and the Development of his Faculties, first published in 1835, appeared in an English edition in 1842 and was quite celebrated in its time. Marx’s attitude towards Quételet, in so far as it can be inferred from a few brief references, is interesting and characteristic: the regularities Quételet demonstrates in social phenomena are ingenious, but not particularly significant. Cf. ‘Parties and Cliques’ in Surveys from Exile, p. 279.