statistics develops as a "new science" in the mid nineteenth century, "in parallel in France, England, and Germany," alongside "new developments in the social sciences" (economics; sociology)
the social sciences, Hayot argues, "aimed to elucidate economic and social laws that could serve both as explanations for the history of the species and as modes of social and political control"
statistics abets in "both tasks," and Hayot notes that the word statistics itself derives from the German word Staat (the state), "reminding us of the field's orginal motivations and goals"