340 Life ami Letters of FrauctH Galfoii 



it is more probable that the products of the contributory cause-groups are 

 correlatetl. That is to say, that the first contribution influences later ones'. 



As far as 1 am aware, however, Gallon was the fii-st to endeavour to 

 unriddle something of nature's method of working from the frequency 

 distribution of a given variate. We may see now-a-days that his solution of 

 1874 is not valid, but we have to confess that we have not got much farther 

 than he did'. 



In the remainder of the memoir Galton discus-ses 



" how a medley of snmll and minute cniises iiiny, as a first approximation to the trutli, be 

 looked upon as an aggregate of a moderate number of 'small' and equal influences." (p. 42.) 



He considers that small disturbing influences would weld the binomial blocks 

 into a continuous ogive. He concludes by showing that the sum of three 

 symmetrical binomials taken in certain proportions may lead to a result 

 indistinguishable from a single binomial. He justifles the exponential law, 

 or normal curve, on the ground that it is very close in the results it gives to 

 any binomial ogive, and would propose to use it for intercomparison n\ cases 

 where no scale of equal parts has been or can be applied. As we have 

 endeavoured to show the paper is extremely suggestive, but not every reader 

 will Ije induced by the arguments to accept its conclusions. 



Galton, influenced by his own motto : " Whenever you can, count," seldom 

 went for a walk or attended a meeting or lecture without counting something. 

 If it was not yawns or fidj^ets, it was the colour of hair, of eyes or of skins. 

 But the record of several cnaracters involves a considerable eifort of memory, 

 and using a pencil invites attention to the work of the recorder. The Galton 

 Laboratory pos.sesses no less than five implements of a type which Galton 

 later termed "registrators." One consists of a pair of cotton gloves; on the 

 palmar face of one glove across the fingers is a pocket capable of containing 

 a cai-d, about the size of a gentleman's visiting card ; just below the tip of 

 the thumb is a thin piece of wood or metal sewn into the inside of the glove 

 and carrying a needle point projecting very slightly through the material of 

 the glove. If the thumb be pressed against the palmar surface of any one of 

 the four fingers a fine hole is recorded on the card. "A great many holes 

 may be pricked at haphazard close together without their running into one 

 another or otherwise making it difticult to count them afterwards." Another 

 registrator consists of a tlnmble which being pressed against a card or even 

 a newspaper makes a pinhole by aid of a needle point which projects on the 

 thimble being pressed. A third registrator is a single dotter and contains a 

 guarded neeale-point which on a slight .squeeze stabs a strip of jiaper, the 

 action of the instrument being siich that a 'stab' slightly pulls the strij) of pa|>er 

 forward, so that a liiie of dots is made; the instrument can be held in the 

 palm of the hand in the pocket of an overcoat. Another simple pocket 



' Nature prefers a hypergeometrical series to a binomial scries ! 



• No gtreas whatever, in my opinion, can be laid on the n'sults of those writers who believe 

 that the direction of evolution of a character can be determined from the asymmetry or skew- 

 new of itM distribution, or of those who assert that certain forms of distribution connote 

 "inntability" in the character. 



