2O THE ERRORS OF PRECISION. 



principle by a mere experiment in which we overlook 

 one missing condition, the lack of absolute equality in fact. 

 This error of common dice came to our knowledge when 

 making experiments on the law of probability more than 

 thirty years ago. 



The Exact Scientist should be Tested First. 



When we try to test Nature, let us not forget to test 

 ourselves and our toolsyfrs/. 



When making our extended experiments on the laws of 

 probability thirty years ago, we found it impossible to get 

 exactly equal balls for the urn from which the draws were 

 made; we did, however, not ascribe these errors to the laws 

 of probability, but to the imperfections of our own means 

 at hand. 



The Greatest False Scientist. 



i - 



If modern chemists did not suppose Stas perfect, the 



atomic weights of modern chemistry would not present the 

 mysterious muddle they do. 



Our modern chemists, under the leadership of Stas, have 

 corrupted chemical science by their assumption of a perfec- 

 tion and exactness in experimentation that existed necessarily 

 only in their own imagination ; as a result, the atomic 

 weights actually in use for years are all false, contrary to 

 nature, as we shall prove beyond the possibility of a doubt. 

 X 



IV. THE CONSTANT ERROR OF THE MEAN. 



But if we cannot use the mean of a large number of 

 simple weighings of actual coins in circulation as the true 

 value of such a coin, how dare we assume that the mean 

 value of a very few determinations of the atomic weight of 

 a chemical element will give us its true value, or that we 

 shall approach it more closely by taking the mean of the 

 mean values of a few series of such determinations? 



The unavoidable errors in the different chemical pro- 

 cesses made use of in these determinations are much more 



