VII 



Some Tables for Illustrating Statistical 



Correlation 



{MancJiester Memoirs, Vol. 51, 1907, No. 16) 



It was not my original intention to preface the description 

 of my new Tables vnth. an account of Weldon's experiment.^ 

 But I was persuaded that without such an account the 

 meaning of my Tables would not be evident to many. It 

 must be understood, therefore, that except in the matter 

 of presentment the first part of this paper makes no claim 

 to originality. 



The second part contains an account of an interesting 

 extension of the experiment described in the first. 



Let us begin at the beginning, so far as we can. In the 

 case of a very great number of vital phenomena we are 

 unable to predict exactly what the result of certain events 

 will be. We know that they will fall within certain limits, 

 but where within those limits we cannot tell. We believe 

 that a duck will not produce a duckUng with a beak as 

 narrow as a snipe's, but the exact breadth of the beak — 

 measured, let us say, in terms of its length — in a given 

 instance, we cannot foretell. 



If these words ever happen to lie before the eyes of a 



1 :00. Weldon, W. F. R., " Inheritance in Animals and Plants," pp. 

 81-109, in " Lectures on the Method of Science." Edited by T. B. Strong. 

 Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906. 



219 



