Quetelet followed the same line of reasoning with regard to humanity as a whole, claiming that every one of us is a flawed copy of some kind of cosmic template for human beings. Quetelet dubbed this template the “Average Man.”25 Today, of course, we often consider someone described as “average” to be inferior or lacking—as mediocre. But for Quetelet, the Average Man was perfection itself, an ideal that Nature aspired to, free from Error with a capital “E.” He declared that the greatest men in history were closest to the Average Man of their place and time.
