This was likely more a result of the European tradition of a Platonic ideal of man, and the Christian doctrine that man ought to be virtuous. The two intertwine, and you have a Platonic ideal of a man who is both naturally and spiritually virtuous. Many scholars spent their careers showing that spiritual impurity effects natural deformity and vice versa. Not only bodily defects were understood to be errors, they were thought to be either a natural result of the person&#x27;s viciousness, a deserved supernatural punishment, or a Jobian trial. Either way: ideal = good, deviant = not good.<p>So it makes sense that there is an ideal physical form of a man, which is definite (quantifiable) and unchanging (i.e. no evolution). I have never heard of Quetelet, but I doubt he did anything more than put a series of numbers to this preëxisting notion.