10 MODES OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 



which his own inherited instinct for the statistical 

 method in general must, in all his thinking about 

 the matter, have strongly urged him. By attack- 

 ing the problem on the statistical side Galton 

 felt that it would no longer be necessary "to em- 

 barrass ourselves with any details of theories of 

 heredity beyond the fact that inheritance either 

 was particulate or acted as if it were so." l 



What Galton specifically attempted to do in 

 attacking the problem from the statistical side was 

 to measure precisely the degree of resemblance 

 which obtains, in respect of different somatic 

 characters, between individuals related in different 

 ways in the genetic series. His primary object 

 was to determine the proportionate contribution 

 of each ancestor to the individual's inherited 

 make-up. The only practical way of doing this 

 appeared to be to measure the degree of resem- 

 blance between individuals. This remains to-day 

 the point of view of the biometric school of genetic 

 study. While Pearson has introduced many 

 refinements of method, and has taken account of 

 various modifying factors, such as assortative 

 mating, selection and the like, it still remains the 

 fact that in his studies on heredity what he has 

 primarily been concerned in doing is to measure, 

 by the method of correlation, the degree of re- 

 semblance which exists between relatives of dif- 

 ferent sorts. 



1 Galton, F. "Natural Inheritance," p. 193, 1889. 



