ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 607 



The progress of modern science has, however, given 

 a great impetus to the development of statistical or 

 enumerative methods, and notably to the graphical 

 registration of these results, through the importance 

 which the phenomena of variation attained in all theories 

 of evolution, and chiefly in those based upon natural 

 selection. Quetelet had already pointed to the study of 

 the maxima of the possible deviations from the mean and 

 average, as of special interest and value. Nevertheless, 

 the centre of gravity of the aspect unfolded in the 

 writings of Quetelet and his followers was the idea of 

 uniformity and average sameness. The conception of 

 change and development did not fit naturally and logi- 

 cally into their scheme. 1 It was not till after the 



35. 



Sameness 

 and vari- 

 ation. 



(' JSther and Matter,' p. 288) : 

 "The processes by which our con- 

 ception of the uniformity of Nat- 

 ure is obtained essentially involve 

 averaging of effects, and lose their 

 efficacy long before the individual 

 molecule is reached. Mechanical 

 determiuateness thus need not in- 

 volve molecular determiuateness ; 

 then why should either of them 

 involve determination in the en- 

 tirely distinct province of vital 

 activity ? . . . Every vital process 

 may conceivably be correlated with 

 a mechanical process, as to its pro- 

 gress, just to that extent to which 

 it is possible experimentally to 

 follow it, without lending any 

 countenance to a theory that would 

 place its initiation under the control 

 of any such system of mechanical 

 relations. In other terms, there is 

 room for complete mechanical co- 

 ordination of all the functions of an 

 organism, treated as an existing 

 material system, without requiring 

 any admission that similar prin- 

 ciples are supreme in the more 



remote and infinitely complex 

 phenomena concerned in growth 

 and decay of structure." 



1 A fate overtook the theories and 

 writings of Quetelet and Buckle 

 similar to that which I had occasion 

 to notice above in referring to the 

 great work of A. von Humboldt. 

 Through the influence of the evolu- 

 tionist movement, prepared by 

 Lamarck, von Baer, Spencer, and 

 others, centring in Darwin, the 

 statical or morphological view had 

 in every department of science to 

 give way to the kinetic or genetic 

 view. This explains why some 

 names, once celebrated, like Hum- 

 boldt and Buckle, sank rapidly 

 into oblivion. Grant Allen, in 

 his somewhat one-sided but spirited 

 monograph on Darwin (' English 

 Worthies,' 1888), has drawn atten- 

 tion to this. I give here the 

 striking passage, reserving for the 

 sequel of this work the liberty to 

 differ in detail from much in it 

 that is too drastically expressed : 

 " There is no department of human 



