约翰·亚毕诺John Arbuthnot

约翰·亚毕诺的父母是Margaret Lammie和Alexander Arbuthnott。他的父母都与教会有联系，父亲是Arbuthnott的牧师，母亲是Farnell牧师和Brechin教长的女儿。Alexander Arbuthnott受过良好教育，曾在阿伯丁的马里沙尔学院学习。他可能给了儿子弗瑞兹·约翰良好的拉丁语和希腊语基础。约翰是他父母七个存活孩子中最年长的。他有两个弟弟，Robert生于1669年，Alexander生于1675年，还有四个姐妹。Alexander Arbuthnott的妻子Margaret去世后，他再婚Catherine Ochterlony，他们有一个儿子George生于1688年（当时约翰21岁）。

亚毕诺于1681年进入阿伯丁的马里沙尔学院，在那里他学习了当时所有学生都修读的标准艺术课程。它包含相当数量的数学和自然哲学（当时物理学被称为自然哲学，事实上当我[EFR]在20世纪60年代在圣安德鲁斯学习自然哲学时，它仍然如此命名）。亚毕诺于1685年毕业，没有记录显示他在接下来的六年里做了什么。事实上，接下来的几年在苏格兰是戏剧性的，特别是对亚毕诺家族来说。

这个家族是詹姆斯党支持者，意味着他们支持罗马天主教徒詹姆斯·韦德尔·亚历山大成为英格兰和苏格兰国王的权利。1689年，被称为“Bonnie Dundee”的Dundee子爵领导了一场支持James的起义。Robert Arbuthnot，像他的兄弟约翰一样是马里沙尔学院的毕业生，加入了Bonnie Dundee的军队，并在Killiecrankie战役中与Hugh Mackay将军作战。Dundee的部队完全胜利，但他被杀。8月，苏格兰抵抗在Dunkeld战役中被粉碎，Robert Arbuthnot逃往法国。当然，约翰没有参加军事行动，有一些证据表明他在爱丁堡与大卫·格雷戈里学习数学。1690年，由于苏格兰的动荡，大卫·格雷戈里离开爱丁堡前往牛津，亚毕诺可能在牛津度过了一段时间。

1689年9月，亚毕诺的父亲亚历山大拒绝向战胜詹姆斯党人的统治者威廉和玛丽宣誓效忠，因此被免去教区职务。然而他并未悄然离去，而是带走了教会会议记录簿。1691年他去世后，他的儿子们被要求归还会议记录簿，亚毕诺照办了，以便父亲得以安葬。然而，约翰为父亲墓地立墓碑的请求仅在被严格限定碑文内容的条件下获准，在这种情况下，最终没有立碑。

处理完父亲的事务后，亚毕诺去了伦敦，在那里靠教数学谋生。他翻译了克里斯蒂安·惠更斯关于probability的小册子De ratiociniis in ludo aleaeⓉ（《赌博游戏中的推理》），并通过加入一些其他的机会游戏如十五子棋、皇家橡树彩票、抽彩、惠斯特以及掷骰子游戏对其进行了扩展。他于1692年以Of the Laws of Chance为名匿名出版。这是第一部用英语出版的概率论著作，其中提到：-

……概率量的计算。

这似乎是“概率”一词首次出现在印刷品中。

随后，亚毕诺成为杰弗里哈罗德·杰弗里斯的私人教师，后者是伦敦一位重要人物的儿子。他们一同前往牛津，在那里亚毕诺再次与他的朋友大卫·格雷戈里相聚。在牛津，亚毕诺于1694至1696年间私下学习医学，随后在圣安德鲁斯大学取得医学学位，并于1696年9月11日入学当天进行了论文答辩。

1695年，William Woodward出版了Essay towards a natural history of the Earth，亚毕诺两年后以出版An examination of Dr Woodward's account作为回应。他还出版了一本短小册子Essay on the usefulness of mathematical learning，于1701年问世。1702年安妮女王登基后，亚毕诺获得恩宠，以医生身份受雇于宫廷。大约此时，他与玛格丽特·韦姆斯结婚，他们的第一个孩子乔治于1703年出生。1704年，他当选为皇家学会会士。次年，他成为由皇家学会设立的委员会成员，负责监督约翰·佛兰斯蒂德星表Historia coelestisⓉ（天国的故事）的出版。

1705年10月30日，他被任命为安妮女王的御医。他开始发挥重要的政治作用，尤其参与了关于英格兰与苏格兰联合法案的争论。1706年夏提出了一份详细条约，亚毕诺出版了一本小册子A sermon preach'd to the people at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh on the subject of the union，明确表明作者是一位相信联合能带来经济利益的斯格特。苏格兰议会于1707年1月通过了该条约，英格兰议会随后通过，3月6日获得御准，1707年5月1日联合生效。

亚毕诺继续他的科学工作，于1710年向皇家学会提交了一篇论文，讨论1629年至1710年间男性出生数略多于女性出生数的现象。这篇发表在Philosophical Transactions上的论文，也许是概率论应用于社会统计学的首次尝试，并包含了首次正式显著性检验。在这篇论文中，亚毕诺声称证明了支配出生性别比的是神圣天意，而非偶然。在[12]中，Shoesmith探讨了由亚毕诺的论文引发的争议，考察了威廉·雅各布·葛洛夫桑德和尼古拉·伯努利一世在1712年以及Nieuwentijt在1715年所采取的立场。

然而，亚毕诺的主要名声在于他作为机智人物和讽刺作品作家的声誉。他成为Jonathan Swift的朋友，两人合作撰写了讽刺政治小册子。亚毕诺出版了五本畅销的约翰 Bull小册子[3]：-

这些作品对整个[西班牙王位继承战争]进行了滑稽讽刺——它的联盟、目的、花费、徒劳。

这些小册子中的人物约翰 Bull成为英国性格的象征。他还出版了A treatise of the art of political lying，其中提出了一个至今仍困扰政治家的问题：-

……谎言是被真相还是另一个谎言最好地反驳。

1713年，他与Alexander Pope、Jonathan Swift、约翰 Gay和Thomas Parnell共同创立了Scriblerus俱乐部，其宗旨是讽刺糟糕的诗歌和迂腐习气。该俱乐部存在时间不长。

1714年8月1日安妮女王去世后，尽管亚毕诺在女王临终时侍奉在侧，他还是去了法国一段时间。之后他返回英国，成为其他重要人物的医生。

除了讽刺作品外，他在最后几年还发表了一些严肃的医学著作。其中第一部是1731年的An essay concerning the nature of aliments。由于患有肾结石和哮喘，加之生活优裕导致严重超重，他的健康在1734年开始衰退。Johnson博士写道：-

[亚毕诺]是一位理解力极强的人，精通自己的专业，通晓各门科学，熟悉古代文献，并能以明亮而活跃的想象力赋予其渊博的知识以生气；他是一位才华极为出众的学者；也是一位才子，在纷繁的生活中仍保持并展现出一种高尚的宗教热忱。

插图：Arbuthnott.jpeg ↗
安格斯A90公路上的一块路标，指向亚毕诺的出生地以及该家族以其命名的村庄。

John Arbuthnot's parents were Margaret Lammie and Alexander Arbuthnott. Both his parents were associated with the Church, with his father being the minister of Arbuthnott and his mother being the daughter of the minister of Farnell and dean of Brechin. Alexander Arbuthnott was well educated having studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He probably gave his son John a good grounding in Latin and Greek. John was the oldest of his parents seven surviving children. He had two younger brothers, Robert born in 1669 and Alexander born in 1675, as well as four sisters. After Alexander Arbuthnott's wife Margaret died, he remarried Catherine Ochterlony and they had one son George born in 1688 (when John was 21 years old).

Arbuthnot entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1681 where he studied the standard arts course taken by all students at this time. It contained a reasonable amount of mathematics and natural philosophy (as physics was called at that time, and in fact it was still so named when I [EFR] studied natural philosophy in St Andrews in the 1960s). Arbuthnot graduated in 1685 and there is no record of what he did in the next six years. In fact the next few years were dramatic ones in Scotland, and in particular for the Arbuthnot family.

The family were Jacobite supporters, meaning they supported the right of the Roman Catholic James II to be King of England and Scotland. In 1689 Viscount Dundee, known as "Bonnie Dundee", led an uprising in support of James. Robert Arbuthnot, who like his brother John was a graduate of Marischal College, joined Bonnie Dundee's army and fought against General Hugh Mackay at the Battle of Killiecrankie. Dundee's forces were completely victorious, but he was killed. In August the Scottish resistance was crushed at the Battle of Dunkeld and Robert Arbuthnot fled to France. Certainly John did not take part in the military campaign and there is some evidence that he was in Edinburgh studying mathematics with David Gregory. In 1690, because of the unrest in Scotland, David Gregory left Edinburgh and went to Oxford and Arbuthnot may have spent time in Oxford.

In September 1689 Arbuthnot's father, Alexander, refused to sigh an oath to the rulers William and Mary who had been victorious over the Jacobites, and he was dismissed from his parish. He did not go quietly, however, for he took the session book with him. After he died in 1691 his sons were required to return the session book which John Arbuthnot did in order that his father might be buried. However John's request to erect a headstone at his father's grave was only granted with strict conditions as what might be inscribed on the stone and in the circumstances no stone was put up.

After settling his father's affairs, Arbuthnot went to London where he earned his living giving lessons in mathematics. He translated Huygens' tract De ratiociniis in ludo aleae Ⓣ on probability and extended it by adding to it a few further games of chance such as backgammon, the Royal Oak lottery, raffling, whist, and games with dice. He published it anonymously as Of the Laws of Chance in 1692. It was the first work on probability published in English and refers to:-

... the calculation of the quantity of probability.

This appears to be the first time the word "probability" appears in print.

Arbuthnot then became a private tutor to Jeffrey Jeffreys, the son of an important London man. They went together to Oxford where once more Arbuthnot was with his friend David Gregory. At Oxford Arbuthnot studied medicine privately during 1694-96, then took a medical degree at the University of St Andrews defending his theses on the day that he enrolled on 11 September 1696.

In 1695 William Woodward published Essay towards a natural history of the Earth and Arbuthnot responded with publishing An examination of Dr Woodward's account two years later. He also published a short pamphlet Essay on the usefulness of mathematical learning which appeared in 1701. After Queen Anne came to the throne on 1702, Arbuthnot gained favour being employed in his capacity as a medic at Court. At around this time he married Margaret Wemyss and their first child, George, was born in 1703. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1704. In the following year he became a member of the committee set up by the Royal Society to oversee the publication of Flamsteed's star catalogue Historia coelestis Ⓣ.

On 30 October 1705 he was appointed physician to Queen Anne. He began to take a prominent political role and was particularly involved with the arguments which went on concerning the Act of Union between England and Scotland. A detailed treaty was proposed in the summer of 1706 and Arbuthnot published a pamphlet A sermon preach'd to the people at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh on the subject of the union which made clear that its author was a Scot who believed in the economic benefits of a union. The Scottish Parliament passed the treaty in January 1707, the English Parliament passed it shortly after, royal assent was given on 6 March and the union came into effect on 1 May 1707.

Arbuthnot continued his scientific work submitting a paper to the Royal Society in 1710 discussing the slight excess of male births over female births in the years from 1629 to 1710. This paper, published in the Philosophical Transactions, is perhaps the first application of probability to social statistics and includes the first formal test of significance. In this paper Arbuthnot claims to demonstrate that divine providence, not chance, governs the sex ratio at birth. In [12] Shoesmith explores the controversy which arose from Arbuthnot's paper, looking at the positions taken by 'sGravesande and Nicolaus(I) Bernoulli in 1712 and Nieuwentijt in 1715.

Arbuthnot's main fame, however, rests on his reputation as a wit and on his satirical writings. He became a friend of Jonathan Swift and the two produced satirical political pamphlets. Arbuthnot published five best selling John Bull pamphlets [3]:-

These burlesque the [war of the Spanish succession] as a whole - its alliances, its purposes, its expense, its futility.

The character in these pamphlets, John Bull, became a symbol of the English character. He also published A treatise of the art of political lying which asks a question which still worries politicians:-

... whether a lie is best contradicted by truth or another lie.

With Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay and Thomas Parnell he founded the Scriblerus Club in 1713, whose purpose was to satirise bad poetry and pedantry. The club was short-lived.

After Queen Anne died on 1 August 1714, despite Arbuthnot attending her in her final illness, he went to France for a while. He then returned to England to become a physician to other important people.

In addition to satirical works he also published some serious medical work in his last few years. The first of these was An essay concerning the nature of aliments in 1731. Suffering from kidney stones and asthma, and being very overweight through good living, his health began to fail in 1734. Dr Johnson wrote:-

[Arbuthnot] was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliancy of wit; a wit, who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.

插图：Arbuthnott.jpeg ↗
A sign on the A90 in Angus pointing to Arbuthnot's birthplace as well as the village after which the family is named.