Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg’s 1882 journal article argues that statistics becomes explanatory only through historical inquiry. Moving from a methodological justification through criticism of historical evidence to a programme of institutional reform, it makes historical statistics indispensable both to social science and to administration. Official statistical bureaux have already established their practical task: exact observation of social mass phenomena, supported by qualitative explanation. The unresolved question is how this work can disclose causes rather than merely describe present conditions.
Denn jeder Zustand ist zum kleinen Theile nur ein Product gerade der ihn umgebenden gleichzeitigen Verhältnisse; zum weitaus grösseren Theile ist er eine Aeusserung des Gesammtlebens und Wirkens der gesellschaftlichen Kräfte einer früheren Zeit.
English translation: For every condition is only to a small extent a product of the contemporary circumstances surrounding it; to a far greater extent it is an expression of the entire life and activity of the social forces of an earlier time.
Present-day description is therefore preparatory. Statistics must reconstruct developmental series extending back beyond prevailing influences, seeking causal connections and ultimately laws of social evolution. Its historical character follows from both its changing objects and its principal instrument: continuous registration. Questions about population growth, mortality, sex ratios, or relations between prices and social conduct cannot be settled from contemporary observations alone. What appears natural may instead be historically produced.
Registers supply continuity that isolated surveys cannot guarantee. Even repeated censuses may change their categories with administrative priorities. International agreements on comparability thus protect the scientific value of observation, not merely its convenience. Inama-Sternegg extends this argument into the archive, identifying parish registers, older censuses, land and rent records, guild registers, accounts, and price lists as resources for longer series. Scattered documentary notices have a supplementary role, provided their accuracy withstands criticism.
Historical extension nevertheless requires more than accumulating old numbers. He distinguishes three difficulties: estimates and rounded figures, incompatible classifications, and inadequate knowledge of accompanying circumstances. Rounded figures must not be indiscriminately combined with exact counts, but may still support defensible comparisons. Categories demand an equally discriminating approach:
Die Incongruenz des älteren und des modernen Materials ergibt also zweifellos auch die Incompatibilität, wenn wir die Kategorien der modernen Statistik als etwas Unabänderliches hinnehmen wollten.
English translation: The incongruity of the older and the modern material thus undoubtedly also entails incompatibility if we were to accept the categories of modern statistics as something unalterable.
The remedy is not to force older evidence into present classifications. Modern data can instead be regrouped to correspond with historical categories; earlier perspectives may also reveal neglected features of contemporary family and communal life. Comparability becomes a reciprocal criticism of classifications. Wars, epidemics, economic crises, and legal changes must likewise enter interpretation, requiring historically trained specialists rather than numerical expertise alone.
The article’s institutional proposals follow from these evidentiary distinctions. Universities should cultivate historical-comparative statistics through small research institutes linking archival recovery with official results. Scholars should reconstruct patterns from dispersed individual records. Central bureaux, by contrast, should process older material already produced through systematic mass observation: its public custody, geographical dispersal, scale, and technical demands require administrative cooperation.
Die Statistik dient daher der Staatsverwaltung immer in dem Maasse, in welchem sie die Masse der statistischen Daten geistig durchdringt und beherrscht.
English translation: Statistics therefore serves state administration in proportion to the extent to which it intellectually penetrates and masters the mass of statistical data.
Scientific interpretation is, on this account, an administrative duty rather than an optional scholarly pursuit. Long population and price series can inform legislation, salaries, and public expenditure. Yet this defence also carries a political premise: legitimate action should develop existing institutions continuously, with historical knowledge correcting abrupt reform. The search for developmental laws supports an ideal of historically grounded government.
Inama-Sternegg closes with concrete measures: suspend destruction of registers, inventory surviving sources, prepare extraction forms, compensate supplementary clerical labour, and prioritize work carefully. Preservation is urgent; processing can proceed steadily. State funding and contributions from learned academies would sustain the undertaking. Recalling the price-history exhibition at Vienna in 1873 and subsequent congress resolutions, he presses for implementation. The article’s enduring methodological force lies in joining causal explanation to historical continuity, source criticism, revisable classifications, and the institutions capable of making evidence usable.
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