442 



THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



not without interest/ I have the record of 200 wives, 

 who had 452 daughters, or reckoning each birth of a 

 daughter as giving one mother, I have the following table 

 for stature :— 



Thus the difference between mothers and wives = .278 

 with a probable error of .131. This is not a very signi- 

 ficant difference, but enough to indicate that there is very 

 probably a difference in type between wife and mother. 

 The differences between the classes are not individually 

 very striking, but taking the table as a whole the 

 differences are all in the directions of a consistent system. 

 Thus daughters are not taller than " mothers," but they 

 are taller than wives, which is what is popularly meant 

 when we say that " daughters are now-a-days taller than 

 their mothers." The fact being that taller, larger women 

 appear to be more fertile. That daughters have pro- 

 gressed on wives, regressed on " mothers," is in accordance 

 with the general law of regression which we shall deal 

 with when considering heredity. Further, " mothers " are 

 less variable than wives, which is exactly consonant with 

 what we should anticipate from reproductive selection. 

 Finally, that daughters are more variable than wives is 

 what we may expect, if natural and sexual selection 

 intervene between womanhood and wifedom. 



Of course these statistics want amplifying at least five- 

 fold, but they at any rate strongly suggest that among 

 women type in the matter of stature ^has not yet reached 

 the stature associated with maximum fertility, and accord- 



1 Darwin, Cross and Self-fertilisation, p. 154, cites Mr. Masters to the 

 effect that darker-coloured varieties of svi?eet-pea are most fertile, and increase 

 to the exclusion of the lighter varieties. 



