Süssmilch, Johann Peter
Süssmilch, Johann Peter
Johann Peter Süssmilch (1707-1767), German demographer, was born in Berlin, the son of a corn merchant. He was interested in medicine at an early age, but his parents did not want him to become a physician and sent him to the university at Halle to study Latin and jurisprudence. After he had been there for a while, he decided instead that he would study Protestant theology and enter the ministry. In 1728 he went to the University of Jena to study philosophy, mathematics, and physics.
In 1736 Süssmilch was appointed chaplain to Marshal von Kalckstein’s regiment, and he accompanied the regiment during the First Silesian War. The foreword to his famous book Die göttliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts, aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der Fortpftanzung desselben erwiesen (”The Divine Order in the Changes in the Human Race .. .”) was signed in 1741, “advancing on Schweidnitz.” After the war was over he performed pastoral duties, primarily in Berlin, while he carried on his demographic studies. In 1745 he was elected a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Although Süssmilch wrote on a wide variety of subjects—philosophy, religion, politics, science, and even linguistics—all of his work is profoundly connected with his analytical theory of population. His book on population, Die göttliche Ordnung, is the first complete and systematic treatise on the subject. The work was first published in 1741 and was revised in 1761, but it is best known in the fourth, posthumous edition of 1775.
Süssmilch’s theory of population was influenced by William Derham and by John Graunt and William Petty. From Derham’s Physico-theology, published in London in 1713, Süssmilch took the idea that divine providence has established a balance between the size of the population and the supply of food required for subsistence; from Graunt and Petty he learned that it may be possible to discern an underlying order in vital statistics. Süssmilch’s assertion of a divine order in population trends reflects the desire, shared by most eighteenth-century scientists, to detect the pattern of the “natural order.” He was convinced that if he succeeded in measuring fecundity and mortality, the vital statistics he discovered would agree with the eternal laws of God, whom he compared to an “infinite and exact Arithmeticus . . . who has determined for all things in their temporal state their score, weight, and proportion.”
Although works in political arithmetic exerted a certain influence on Süssmilch, he did not use their rather speculative methods of estimating from faulty or inadequate data. He was one of the first to perceive that the consistency and stability of estimates depends on the number of observations. “One must collect a mass of particular cases over many years and sum up the data for whole provinces before it is possible to detect the concealed rules. Only then does the conformity of these rules to the natural order become apparent” (1741, vol. 1, p. 64).
To obtain reliable estimates, Süssmilch extracted demographic data from many Protestant parish registers. As population mobility was limited and the number of non-Protestants in Prussia was small, the data were fairly representative of the total population. He established the absolute frequencies of births and of deaths and measured the relative growth of population by comparing these quantities, deriving what he called a “rate of special mortality.” Arranging the deaths by age groups and comparing the rates for these groups with the rate for a stationary population, he developed a life table. He measured fertility by comparing the number of christened children to the number of married people; as this proportion proved to be relatively constant, he estimated the “general fecundity” of a state by counting the number of married couples.
Süssmilch’s rate of special mortality averaged 125/100, that is, he found about 125 births per 100 deaths. He used this rate to predict population growth, estimating that the population tended to double every century. This “divine order” of growth might, however, be disturbed by plagues and wars. Climatic or social obstacles might prevent or defer marriage, thus lengthening the period required for doubling the population. Having established the stability of over-all birth rates and mortality ratios, Süssmilch observed that the rate of growth in urban districts was significantly lower than in rural districts. He therefore concluded that urbanization was a social factor restraining growth. He did not see any definite limits to the tendency of population to increase. Estimating the population capacity of the world at 14,000 million and the population of the world of his time at 1,000 million, he judged that population could grow without any difficulties for the next several centuries.
In order to follow the natural order and to obey divine providence, political measures should support the tendency of population to increase. This interpretation of natural and divine order by Süssmilch conformed well with the mercantilist theories of his time, which emphasized the advantages of a large population for the wealth and military power of the state.
Süssmilch was highly respected as a learned man at the court of Frederick n of Prussia. Christian Wolf, in his Preface to the first edition, called Die göttliche Ordnung “a proof that the theories of probability may be utilized for the comprehension of human life.” Süssmilch’s work, nevertheless, did not have much influence. An abbreviated Dutch translation is the only foreign edition, and the last German reprint dates from 1798. There are at least two reasons for this neglect of Süssmilch’s ideas and methods. First, the Achenwall school of statistics rejected Süssmilch’s concern with the philosophical implications of population growth, centering its attention more exclusively on the numerical frequency and stability of vital processes. Second, the pessimistic Malthusian theory of population ran counter to Süssmilch’s optimistic views. It was not until modern statistics had to deal with actual demographic problems that the abundance of ideas and the methodological achievements of Die göttliche Ordnung were finally acknowledged.
I. Esenwein-Rothe
[For the historical context of Süssmilch’s work, see Populationand the biographies of Grauntand Petty
WORKS BY SÜSSMILCH
(1741) 1788 Die göttliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts, aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der Fortpflanzung desselben erwiesen. 3 vols. Berlin: Verlag der Buchhandlung der Realschule. → Translations of extracts in the text were provided by I. Esenwein-Rothe.
1752 Der königlichen Residenz Berlin schneller Wachsthum und Erbauung. Berlin: Haude.
1758 Gedanken von den epidemischen Krankheiten und dem grösseren Sterben des 1757ten Jahres. Berlin: Haude.
1766 Versuch eines Beweises, dass die erste Sprache ihren Ursprung nicht von Menschen, sondern allein vom Schopfer erhalten habe. Berlin: Haude.
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bonak, James (1931) 1966 Theories of Population From Raleigh to Arthur Young. New York: Kelley.
Crum, Frederick S. 1901 The Statistical Works of Süssrnilch. Journal of the American Statistical Association 7:335-380.
Derham, William (1713)1742 Physico-theology: Or, a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, From His Works of Creation. 10th ed. London: Innys.
Elster, Ludwig 1924 Bevölkerungswesen: III. Bevölkerungslehre und Bevölkerungspolitik. Volume 2, pages 735-812 in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. 4th ed. Jena (Germany): Fischer.
Horvath, Robert 1962 L’ordre divin de Süssmilch: Bicentenaire du premier traité spécifique de démo-graphie (1741-1761). Population: Revue trimestrielle 17:267-288.
John, Vincenz 1884 Geschichte der Statistik: Ein quellenmiissiges Handbuch fur den akademischen Gebrauch wie fur den Selbstunterricht. Volume 1: Von dem Ursprung der Statistik bis auf Quetelet (1835). Stuttgart (Germany): Enke.
John, Vincenz 1894 J. P. Süssmilch. Volume 37, pages 188-195 in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
Karlsson, Oskar 1925 Die Bedeutung Johann Peter Süssmilchs fur die Entwicklung der modernen Bevblkerungs-statistik. Dissertation, University of Frankfurt.
Knapp, Georg F. 1874 Theorie des Bevolkerungs-wechsels: Abhandlungen zur angewandten Mathematik. Brunswick (Germany): Vieweg.
Knors, Hermann 1925 Johann Peter Süssmilch: Sein Werk und seine Bedeutung. Dissertation, University of Erlangen.
Landry, Adolphe (1945) 1949 Traité de démographie. 2d ed., rev. Paris: Payot.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 1961 Notes on the History of Quantification in Sociology—Trends, Sources and Problems. Isis 52:277-333. → Also published in 1961 on pages 147-203 in Henry Woolf (editor), Quantification: A History of the Meaning of Measurement in the Natural and Social Sciences. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill.
Meitzel, S. 1926 Johann Peter Süssmilch. Volume 7, pages 1172-1173 in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. 4th ed. Jena (Germany): Fischer.
Mohl, Robert Von (1855-1858) 1960 Die Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften in Monographien dargestellt. 3 vols. Graz (Austria): Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.
Reichardt, Helmut 1959 Süssmilch, Johann Peter. Volume 10, pages 267-268 in Handwörterbuch der Sozialwissenschaften. Stuttgart (Germany): Fischer.
Reimer, Karl F. 1932 Johann Peter Süssmilch: Seine Abstammung und Biographie. Archiv fur soziale Hygiene und Demographic New Series 7:820-827.
Roscher, Wilhelm G. F. (1874) 1924 Geschichte der National-oekonomik in Deutschland. 2d ed. Munich and Berlin: Oldenbourg.
Schulze, Karl 1922 Sussmilch’s Anschauungen über die Bevolkerung. Dissertation, University of Halle.
Die Statistik in der Wirtschaftsforschung: Festgabe fur Rolf Wagenführ zum 60. Geburtstag. Edited by Hein-rich Strecker and Willi R. Bihn. 1967 Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. → See especially “Johann Peter Süssmilch ais Statistiker,” by I. Esenwein-Rothe.
Trippensee, Gottfried G. 1925 Staat und Gesellschaft bei Bielfeld, Süssmilch und Darjes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte des preussischen Staates. Dissertation, University of Giessen.
WappÄus, Johann E. 1859-1861 Allgemeine Bevölkerungsstatistik: Vorlesungen. 2 vols. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Westergaard, Harald L. 1932 Contributions to the History of Statistics. London: King.
Willcox, W. F.; and Crum, F. S. 1897 A Trial Bibliography of the Writings of Johann Peter Sussmilch, 1707-1767. Journal of the American Statistical Association 5:310-314.