ABSTRACT
Comte resisted such a statistical orientation and, having seen his original suggestions of ‘social mechanics’ or ‘social physics’ used by Quetelet, he coined the name ‘sociology’ to avoid being restricted into seeking regularities and probabilities. Quetelet was, however, the better politician. He organised a world statistical congress and was influential in starting various statistical societies. Quetelet triumphed over Comte: sociology became obsessed with statistics, and to this day perhaps the dominant theme of sociological theory takes it as axiomatic that sociology is searching for social laws, and that these will be cast in a statistical form.
