ABSTRACT
This chapter presents by drawing the published sources as well as archive material, which evokes Quetelet's realizations as a state statistician. One must concentrate on the organization of exemplary inquiries that conducted in Brussels in 1842 or the 1846 Belgian census, and on the setting up of the central commission of statistics (CCS). It examines the transnational dissemination undergone by certain ideas and models Quetelet put forward, on the occasion of international statistical meetings. The replication of practical models that the national level develops and the ambitious attempts to extend their scope on an international scale constitutes what one designates as the expanded reproduction of statistism, that optimistic and rationalistic belief in the power of statistics to ensure the perfectibility of the mankind. Quetelet's accomplishments as shortcomings with regard to the organization of national and international statistical activities offers a remarkable instance of the cast of mind that characterizes a state statistician well up to the interwar years.
