Essays in Statistics. 185 



Hegel somewhere says : ' Quantity is quality suppressed ' a 

 somewhat obscure way of saying that quantity is the canvas on 

 which quality is embroidered. To understand this, let us observe, 

 in the ^first place, that what we call quality comes to us originally 

 by sensation and feeling, that is to say, under an agreeable or 

 disagreeable form, which is consequently subjective. If I feel any 

 sensation that, for instance, of heat it has the property of affect- 

 ing me in a certain way ; but, further, I notice that it may increase, 

 or diminish, or vary indefinitely. There is, then, in it a greater 

 and a less, a something measurable, or quantity. It is the same 

 with all sensations. If, then, in any quality I suppress, by the 

 power of thought, all that is agreeable or disagreeable all that 

 is simply affective, all that depends* on the constitution of our 

 organs there remains a possibility of indefinite variation to greater 

 or less ; in other words, what belongs specially to quality having 

 been suppressed, there remains what belongs to quantity. 



Thus under all quality lies quantity. The category of quantity 

 is the more general, consequently the more simple, and so the 

 more measurable. If, then, we can transform quality into quantity, 

 we make quality measurable; -and this transformation is sometimes 

 possible. If it be found that some variations of quality in a class 

 of phenomena correspond regularly to variations of quantity, then 

 every mathematical formula that is applicable to the variable 

 quantities may be applied to the corresponding qualities. Thus it 

 has been proved by experiment that every variety of sound corre- 

 sponds to a distinct and determinable variety of motion. Thus 

 the physicist, in regard to light and heat, can eliminate all that is 

 purely qualitative, and see only a movement of vibration subject 

 to mechanical laws. Thus, too, mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, 

 acoustics, and thermology, have gradually become mathematical. 

 But this transformation grows, as is natural, more and more 

 difficult in proportion as we ascend from simple qualities to com- 

 plex existences. In the world of life and thought number is as 

 yet powerless, and there is no reason to suppose that it can hold 

 dominion there for some time to come. 



We now apply what has been said to the special question of 

 heredity. 



We began by collecting a large number of facts belonging to the 



