ABSTRACT
When we describe and analyse human society as it existed in the past or as it exists at present, we inevitably make use of numbers and quantities. Age, date of birth, wealth, number of wives, numbers of children – all these are quantitative characteristics of a person which we must discover if we are to give an adequate description of him. In doing this, we measure, compare him with other people, richer or poorer, older or younger, and seek by these means, as well as by a discussion of his thoughts and his work, to place him within the society in which he lived. We do this, normally, by classifying people into groups, people who behave in similar ways or have similar ideas. We use such terms as ‘middle class’, Frenchmen’, ‘Conservatives’, to describe such groups. We must classify and group in this way, because only by such means can we reduce the diversity of human thought and behaviour to a manageable form.
