CHAPTER III 

 ON THE NATURE OF STATISTICAL KNOWLEDGE 



THERE is a very general tendency, including 

 in its operation not only the layman but also the 

 professional man of science, towards the notion 

 that there is a special virtue, a sort of transcend- 

 ent heuristic worth, in such knowledge as is 

 reached by the examination of large numbers of 

 cases. There seems to be a feeling, sometimes 

 apparently almost mystic in its origin and in its 

 strength, to the effect that statistical knowledge 

 is a higher and better kind of knowledge than 

 any other. Numberless quotations might be 

 cited to show the prevalence of this view. Every 

 one has seen passing, as it were in review, the line 

 of problems, which, if we may trust the assertions 

 of the interested individuals, can "only be solved" 

 by the application of the statistical method. 

 Evolution, and the factors of evolution, variation, 

 heredity, and so on, are conspicuously the bio- 

 logical problems of which this assertion has been 

 made. 



Now this attitude towards statistical knowledge 

 and statistical ideas (which, of course, include 



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