Among recent developments of statistical method in which the society has taken part may be mentioned the use of index-numbers for affording a standard of comparison between statistics of different years, and a means of correction of errors that would otherwise arise; and the increasing use of the higher mathematical analysis in determining the probabilities of error and defining the curves of frequency in statistical observations. Professor Edgeworth, Messrs. Bowley, Yule, Hooker, and others, have made contributions to the _Journal_ of the society on these matters.
In 1844 an Ethnological Society was established, under the presidency of Sir Charles Malcolm. Dr. Richard King, the founder, became its secretary. In 1846 Dr. J. C. Prichard became president, and he and Dr. King fulfilled respectively the same functions in an ethnological sub-section of the section of zoology of the British Association, which then met for the first time. In Prichard's first anniversary address to the society, he defines ethnology as "the history of human races or of the various tribes of men who constitute the population of the world. It comprehends all that can be learned as to their origin and relations to each other." Prichard died in 1848, and Sir C. Malcolm resumed the presidency, which he held until his death on November 12, 1851. In that year ethnology was transferred from the zoological to the geographical section of the British Association. Sir B. C. Brodie became the next president of the society. He retired in 1854, and was succeeded by Sir James Clark. The fourth and last volume of the first series of the society's _Journal_ was published in 1856, and a series of _Transactions_ begun in 1861. At that time Mr. John Crawfurd was president of the society, and he retained the office until his death in 1868, when he was succeeded by Professor Huxley.
In 1862 Dr. James Hunt, the Honorary Foreign Secretary of the Ethnological Society, withdrew from it, and founded the Anthropological Society of London, which held its first meeting on February 24, 1863, under his presidency. In his inaugural address, he defined anthropology as the science of the whole nature of man, and ethnology as the history or science of nations or races. The new society was active and aggressive. It published translations of works of such writers as Broca, Pouchet, Vogt, and Waitz, and of the famous treatise of Blumenbach. Some of the papers read before it attracted much attention, and were thought to have a political bias. Many men whose names were well known in the scientific world adhered to the Ethnological Society, and that society, under Mr. Crawfurd, entered upon a more active career. The rivalry between the two societies was prosecuted with great vigour until January, 1871, when Professor Huxley effected an amalgamation between them.