VARIATION IN MAN AND WOMAN. 245 



room. These conceptions have been brilliantly developed in the work 

 of recent pathologists.* 



And if it is argued that a mathematician cannot be supposed 

 familiar with the principles of pathology, it must be replied that 

 Mr. Pearson has here ventured along a path which leads immediately 

 up to these principles, and, further, that the principle in question is 

 so simple and elementary that it may already be said to have entered 

 general culture. I take up the latest volume of Nietzsche's works 

 ('Der Wille zur Macht') written more than ten years ago, though 

 only now published and read: "The value of all morbid conditions 

 is that they show us in magnified form certain conditions that are 

 normal, but in the normal condition not easily visible. . . . Health 

 and disease are not essentially different, as the old physicians and 

 some modern practitioners have believed. To regard them as distinct 

 principles struggling for the living organism is foolish nonsense and 

 chatter. ' ' 



On the whole, then, there is no reason for rejecting abnormalities 

 when we are considering the relative variational tendencies of men 

 and women. To the mathematical mind Professor Pearson forces 

 us to admit it is possible to conceive that the laws of pathology 

 may reverse the laws of physiology, but such a conception the biologist 

 regards as absurd. 



More than this must, however, be said. Not only can we not leave 

 anomalies out of account in dealing with this question, but it is pre- 

 cisely the anomalies which furnish us with the most reliable evidence. 

 The word 'abnormality' is apt to mislead, and Professor Pearson 

 somewhat prejudices the matter in unscientific ears by insisting on 

 its use. It is not a scientific term; the so-called anomaly is not 

 abnormal in the sense that it is morbid; it is only exceptional. It 

 merely indicates the extreme swings of a pendulum whose more fre- 

 quent oscillations are popularly regarded as 'normal.' What is com- 

 monly termed an 'anomaly' might really be regarded as the 'variation' 

 par excellence. 



Such an assertion would be by no means arbitrary. It does in 

 fact correspond with the usage of most of the writers who have investi- 

 gated this matter until the present day, and it is possible to justify 

 such usage. If to return to the image of the pendulum we wish 

 to find out whether the male or female pendulums swing farthest, 

 we must so far as possible let them swing freely; the more they are 

 restrained by external forces the less the significance of the results we 



* To those who may wish to gain an attractive insight into modern concep- 

 tions of pathology according to which disease is a relative term and its study 

 a branch of biology I would recommend Professor Woods Hutchinson's highly 

 suggestive 'Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology' (1901). 



