German Staatenkunde or French 'Numbers and Equations': Statistics and the Demise of the Dutch Statistical Society

Simon Vissering (1818-1888), the founder of the Dutch Statistical Society, stressed two main geographical roots of statistics. The French emphasised ‘numbers and equations’, the Germans Staatenkunde, i.e. systematic knowledge of nation states. In this paper I will first discuss two Dutch representatives of these different approaches of statistics: in addition to the lawyer Vissering, the mathematician Rehuel Lobatto (1797-1866). Then I go into the history of the Dutch statistical society, its composition and activities. I will demonstrate the dominance of the German approach and the almost complete absence of the French approach. Comparison with the English situation indicates that this can, to a limited extent, explain the fact that from 1891 there was no longer a Dutch statistical society. The dominance of the German Staatenkunde in the early years of statistics was an international phenomenon and it is not always recognized that it influenced statistical developments for a long time.