NATURE OF STATISTICAL KNOWLEDGE 91 



have an influence in determining just the precise 

 spot where the mule's foot and the man's body 

 come together. These could be investigated 

 statistically and tables drawn up from which one 

 could predict the part of the man which would 

 most probably receive the hoof. But what a 

 silly, futile piece of business this all would be, since 

 clearly the influence of all of these small causes 

 on what happens to the man is stupendously over- 

 shadowed by the results of two factors ; namely, 

 putting himself behind a mule and prodding the 

 animal with a stick. Of course, a vast number of 

 antecedent causes are involved in the setting of 

 the stage, but these are not differential in the 

 determination of the end event of the series. 



The preceding illustration has nothing directly 

 to do with science, but the essential point involved 

 operates in the use of the statistical method as a 

 weapon of scientific research. This method being, 

 as we have seen elsewhere, only a descriptive 

 method, it cannot, any more than any other 

 descriptive method, tell us anything directly about 

 the causes involved in the determination of any 

 events or phenomena under consideration. It 

 may be of great aid, in combination with the 

 experimental method, in helping to arrive at such 

 knowledge, but alone and of itself it cannot 

 directly furnish knowledge of causes of individual 

 events. Yet the statistical method, particularly 

 in that phase of it which we have here under dis- 



