Sir William Petty (1623-1687), the founder of the method of “political arithmetick,” was a trained physician and anatomist. Receiving medical education both in England and on the continent, he later turned away from an academic career and a medical practice in favour of dealing with political and social matters, becoming one of the first advocates of quantifying social phenomena in order to better govern a population. Offering his services to both Oliver Cromwell and Charles II, Petty sought to reform and transform society (in Ireland in particular), while considering the physician’s treatment of natural bodies and the political advisor’s treatment of the body politic to be analogous enterprises. In doing so, he did not refrain from suggesting serious interventions into social life – something that his contemporary peers did not consider compatible with their medical backgrounds. This article attempts to investigate how Petty’s proposals could have differed so much in their scope and content from those of his colleagues, while remaining true to their largely shared Baconian and Harveyan origins.

中文翻译：

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复活身体政治——生理学对威廉·佩蒂爵士政治算术的影响


威廉佩蒂爵士 (1623-1687) 是“政治算术”方法的创始人，他是一位训练有素的医生和解剖学家。在英格兰和欧洲大陆接受医学教育，后来他放弃了学术生涯和医疗实践，转而处理政治和社会问题，成为量化社会现象以更好地管理人口的最早倡导者之一. 佩蒂为奥利弗·克伦威尔和查理二世提供服务，试图改革和改造社会（特别是在爱尔兰），同时将医生对自然体的处理和政治顾问对政治体的处理视为类似的事业。在这样做，他并没有不建议对社会生活进行严肃的干预——他的当代同龄人认为这与他们的医学背景不符。本文试图调查佩蒂的提议如何在范围和内容上与他的同事的提议有如此大的不同，同时仍然忠于他们在很大程度上共享的培根和哈维起源。