“I would suggest… the idea of a work which should have for its object the analytic examination of the development of our intellectual faculties for each age. Now, I have aimed to present, in the work here reproduced, only an essay, only a particular example, of such an analysis, "which tends to show that the maximum of energy of the passions occurs about the age of twenty-five." The minimum is not then determined; and even when it shall be, by a sufficient number of observations, one will no more be able to apply it to any given individual in particular, than one could make use of a table of mortality to determine the period of his decease.”

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

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Adolphe Quetelet 52
Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociolo… 1796–1874

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