78 MODES OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 



very largely in all statistics, and vitiates them; 

 and as regards coming events, our minds are in a 

 state of expectation rather than of assurance. 

 But events can be more or less probable, errors 

 can be greater or smaller, cumulative or compen- 

 satory, and our expectations may be well- or ill- 

 founded. And so there has arisen the science of 

 Probabilities and of Chances, and the Theory of 

 Error, two subjects intimately interwoven. The 

 former arose in the seventeenth century out of 

 the frivolous or vicious practice of betting and 

 gambling, whilst the latter was founded when 

 astronomical observations accumulated, and the 

 question presented itself how to combine them so 

 as to arrive at the most reliable result." 



Now from these two quotations, which may 

 certainly be considered as fairly stating the case, 

 it is apparent that those circumstances which led 

 men to turn to statistical methods of reasoning 

 and investigation were not such as grow out of 

 an increasing precision and certainty of knowledge 

 about the events or things under consideration, 

 but rather were quite the opposite. In other 

 words, the statistical point of view, in the first 

 instance, was adopted as an admittedly imper- 

 fect means of getting some sort of knowledge 

 about a class of events concerning which it was 

 difficult or impossible to get by other methods the 

 precise or particular kind of knowledge which 

 was wanted. 



