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'''Johann Peter S&Uuml;SSMILCH'''

b. 3 September 1707 - d. 22 March 1767

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'''Summary.''' Pastor S&uuml;ssmilch was the German ancestor of demographic
statistics.

The life and career of Johann Peter S&uuml;ssmilch, minister of St.
Peter's church in Berlin-K&ouml;lln, were closely related to
religious currents in Prussia during the 18th century.  A churchman
of strict evangelical allegiance, he rose in the hierarchy of the
Lutheran church, while at the same time developing his scientific
opus as a demographic statistician.  He has gradually
acquired an international reputation which is well deserved.  One may well
ask to what an extent he was a representative of the
"Aufkl&auml;rung" (Enlightenment), and how much his researches
were inspired by his faith as a man of God. 

S&uuml;ssmilch was born in Zehlendorf near Berlin.  His father Elias
S&uuml;ssmilch had travelled in France, England, the Netherlands and
most of the German states; he spoke several living languages, but
having become a brewer, he devoted himself to his business.  It was
his maternal grandfather Peter Blell, who probably played the most
important role in the development of the future author of "Die g&ouml;ttliche
Ordnung (The
Divine Order)''.  S&uuml;ssmilch spent his earliest years in
Brandenburg-am-Havel, with his grandfather, who gave him the
rudiments of education and enrolled him in the  Neust&auml;dtische
Gymnasium directed by the pietist\footnote {Pietism was a reform movement 
in the German Lutheran Church
during the 17th and 18th centuries, designed to renew the
devotional ideal of Protestantism.}
Caspar Gottschling, who was very
close to August Hermann Francke, the inspirer of the pietist
movement.

In 1716, S&uuml;ssmilch studied at the "Grey Cloister" Gymnasium in
Berlin; one of his teachers was the co-rector Johann Leonhard
Frisch, philologist, naturalist, member of the Academy of Sciences,
correspondent of Leibniz and disciple of Philipp Jacob Spener,
founder of Berlin pietism.  In an autobiographical sketch which
appeared shortly before his death, S&uuml;ssmilch thanked Frisch for
awakening his interest in the observation of nature, as a
manifestation of God's works.  These two forms of knowledge,
knowledge of the Creator, and knowledge of his creatures remained
indissolubly connected in the works of the minister.

S&uuml;ssmilch was attracted by medicine, and attended the 
Theatrum Anatomicum, reorganized by Friedrich-Wilhelm I; he
successfully passed an examination in osteology in 1724.  But his
parents preferred law, and were rather discouraging about their
son's medical vocation, so that he gave it up; nevertheless, his
work bears the traces of this ``repression" of his
natural interests.  Medicine was replaced
by another passion: for it was at this stage that S&uuml;ssmilch met the
Berlin minister Michael Roloff, his first mentor in theology.

Somewhat reluctant to study law, S&uuml;ssmilch left for Halle,
a centre of pietism, in 1727.  He became personally
involved with Francke, pursued theological studies and made up his
deficiency in oriental languages, particularly Hebrew.  His education
continued in Jena:  S&uuml;ssmilch familiarized himself
with Wolffian philosophy, and defended a thesis on the cohesion of
physical bodies under the direction of the medical doctor Georg
Erhard Hamberger.

Although his time in Jena was of great importance in his scientific
development, S&uuml;ssmilch did not abandon the pietist
influences of his childhood and of Halle.  From 1728 to 1730, the
future minister frequented a community of Herrnh&uuml;ter \footnote {The name 
Herrnh&uuml;ter is derived from Herrnhut,
a village whose name means ``Guardian of the Lord." It was here that the 
first community of
Herrnhuters, a pietistic group, was founded by von Zingendorf.}, and
became involved in teaching and evangelising the poor.  It was
because of his ties with the pietist circle that he became,
through Roloff, the tutor of one of Marshal Christoph von
Kalckstein's sons, the Marshal being  a familiar of the Court.

After this appointment, S&uuml;ssmilch's career was secure.  In 1736,
he became chaplain to the von Kalckstein regiment; 
it was he who  preached the
last sermon attended by the dying Friedrich-Wilhelm I.  He was
appointed to the parish of  Etzin, took part in the first Silesian
war, and in 1742, against the wishes of Friedrich II who had
finally rallied to the evangelical cause, became  Pastor
Primarius of St. Peter.

Meanwhile, in 1741, S&uuml;ssmilch had published the first version of
his major work "Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung in den Ver&auml;nderungen
des menschlichen Geschlechts, aus der Geburt, Tod, und
Fortpflanzung desselben erwiesen (The Divine Order in the Changes
of the Human Species, as Demonstrated by its Birth, Death and
Propagation)''.

In this work, S&uuml;ssmilch declared himself explicitly a follower of
English physico-theology, more specifically of William Derham, the
author of ''Physico-Theology'' (1713).  The entire 
training and development of
S&uuml;ssmilch effectively led him to uphold the traditional
argument on Divine Providence, and the incontestability of the Divine Word
as revealed by Scripture. He sought to demonstrate through a careful
examination of empirical data, that the laws governing humanity were
as formal and undeniable as those of Newtonian mechanics.
Thus, three major currents of thought of 18th century Europe
combined in the minister's work: Lutheran faith coloured by
pietism, Anglo-Dutch physio-theology born of Newtonian
philosophy and demographic statistics. S&uuml;ssmilch was fully aware of his
predecessors in statistical research, and his concerns were
never far removed from
those of the "political arithmeticians".  But he was not an
innovator; rather he was a compiler. 
The publication of "Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung'' resulted in the author's
election to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.  He contributed
regularly to the activities of this learned society. The Memoirs
which he read there, some of which were published, revealed his
three interests: history, linguistics and demographic statistics.
For S&uuml;ssmilch, it was clear that these three areas of knowledge
sprang from a single idea:  God ruled over the world through the hand of
His Providence.

The minister indulged in some polemics, launched into some business
deals such as the Berlin-Potsdam-Berlin stagecoach, and a
plantation of mulberry trees in Friedrichshagen, and he became a censor.
Armed with his numerical data, of which he could never have
enough, he tried to act as a private councillor to Friedrich II on
questions of population.  This was vain, for the king ignored his
"reprimands" and S&uuml;ssmilch had to content himself with 
ecclesiastical preferment, first becoming inspector of parishes, then
"Konsistorialrat'' \footnote {Councillor of the Higher Consistory of his
Church.}.

But the statistician in him never lost sight of his magnum opus. He
continued to collect data and gathered his academic contributions
to publish, 20 years after its first edition, a corrected and
considerably augmented second edition of ''Die g&ouml;ttliche
Ordnung'' in 1761-62.  This work is a vast  compendium of demographic
data, socio-economic analyses, and polemics against the great
thinkers of the day, among them Montesquieu.  While maintaining the
essence of his fundamental theses, this rich compilation, even more
than his youthful work, can be thought of as the illustration of
the divine commandment: Increase and Multiply. For S&uuml;ssmilch
the peopling of the
earth was one of the realisations of the Divine Goal for man, God's
privileged creature.  The minister had himself contributed to this
goal with his wife Charlotte Dorothea Lieberk&uuml;hn, whom he had
married in 1737, by fathering 10 children, of whom 9 survived, a
remarkable feat for that period.

The last published work of S&uuml;ssmilch in 1766 (he died within a year)
was the important
''Versuch eines Beweises, dass die erste Sprache ihren Ursprung
nicht vom Menschen, sondern allein vom Sch&ouml;pfer erhalten habe.
(Essay on the Proof that the First Language did not Originate with
Man, but with God Alone)''. Three years before, the minister had
suffered a stroke and was half paralyzed.
A third edition of ''Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung'' similar to the second had
been published in 1765. Eleven years later, in 1776, S&uuml;ssmilch's
nephew by marriage, Christian Jacob Baumann, published the book
again, with a number of "additions and complements" in which he
made use of the minister's data in a somewhat idiosyncratic fashion.

While he never made any discoveries in the area of statistical
method, S&uuml;ssmilch, by bringing together the most extensive set of
available data of his time, was known in his lifetime to German
speaking Europeans, and in particular recognized by the Dutchman Struyck 
and the
Swede Wargentin, both important figures in the history of
demographic statistics. "Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung'' of 1761-62, translated
into Dutch in 1770, discussed in England, tolerably well known and
respected in Germany, where S&uuml;ssmilch may be justly regarded as
the father of demographic statistics, was translated in part and
published in France by Jacqueline Hecht of the Institut National
d'&Eacute;tudes D&eacute;mographiques (INED) in 1978.  The appearance in 1998
of an annotated edition with commentaries of this opus
princeps of 1741, extends her effort,
so essential to the history of demography and statistics, of which
S&uuml;ssmilch was undoubtedly one of the main founders.

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====References====
{|
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|valign="top"|{{Ref|1}}||valign="top"|  Elsner, E. (1986). Kurzer &Uuml;berblick &uuml;ber das Leben und Wirken des Johann Peter S&uuml;ssmilch (1707-1767). In H. Birg (hrsg.) ''Urspr&uuml;nge der Demographie in Deutschland, Leben und Werk Johann Peter S&uuml;ssmilch (1707-1767)''. Institut f&uuml;r Bev&ouml;lkerungsforschung und Sozialpolitik, Bielefeld, Frankfurt/New York, Campus Verlag. pp. 143-151. 
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|valign="top"|{{Ref|2}}||valign="top"|   Porter, T.M. (1986). ''The Rise of Statistical Thinking 1820-1900''.  Princeton University Press, Princeton. Chapt.I and II, pp.18-69. 
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|3}}||valign="top"|  S&uuml;ssmilch, J.P. (1761-2). ''Die g&ouml;ttliche Ordnung in den Ver&auml;nderungen des menschlischen Geschlechts, aus der Geburt, dem Tode, und der Fortpflanzung erwiesen von Johann Peter S&uuml;ssmilch, K&ouml;nigl. Preu\ss. Oberconsistorialrath, Probst in C&ouml;lln, und Mitglied der K&ouml;nigl. Academie der Wissenschaften, Zwote und ganz umgearbeitete Ausgabe''. Im Verlag des Buchladens der Realschule, Berlin.  2 vols. 
|-
|valign="top"|{{Ref|4}}||valign="top"|   S&uuml;ssmilch, J.P. (1998). ''L'Ordre divin dans les changements de l'esp&eacute;ce humaine, d&eacute;montr&eacute; par la naissance, la mort et la propagation de celle-ci''. INED, Paris [Integral text of the 1741 edition translated and annotated by Jean-Marc Rohrbasser], 
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|valign="top"|{{Ref|5}}||valign="top"|  Wilke, J. (ed.) (1994). ''Johann Peter S&uuml;ssmilch: Die k&ouml;nigliche Residenz Berlin und die Mark Brandenburg im 18. Jahrhundert, Schriften und Briefe''. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin.
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Jean-Marc Rohrbasser

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