Correlation and Application of Statistics to Problems of Heredity 81 



poured scorn on statistical methods even while they rejoiced in being ignorant 

 of the mathematical processes, which would alone have enabled them to 

 understand and criticise them effectively.- Other biologists contented them- 

 selves with asserting that material collected by " non-biologists " could not 

 possibly be of biological value. Many rash statements were made which would 

 hardly now be maintained by the most ardent mutationist or Mendelian*. 

 The controversy over Galton's method of dealing with heredity became a 

 logomachy, or as some would say a tauromachy, and contributed little of 

 permanent value to science. It was idle because the fundamental questions 

 as to whether " variations proper " could serve as a basis for selection, and 

 whether and to what extent sports bred true, were not investigated by 

 agreed critical experiments. No one who has tried or even thought over 

 such experimental work — bound to be of a secular nature — will be in the 

 least likely to minimise the difficulty of devising and carrying through a 

 crucial experiment. Nevertheless that was and remains the sole satisfactory 

 method of settling a scientific dispute as to natural phenomena. The opinion 

 that no real conclusion could be reached, except by direct experiment, was 

 the actual reason why Galton's lieutenants ultimately retired from the 

 controversy concerning the application of his methods to the measurement of 

 heredity. Galton himself for another decade endeavoured to provide means 

 for secular experimentation. What was the outcome of his attempts we shall 

 see later on. 



Again when Galton came to study finger prints, he was struck by the 

 scarcity of transitional types ; further his evidence indicated that there was 

 little if any correlation between type and any bodily or mental characteristics, 

 or that the types were peculiar to any human races. 



" It would be absurd therefore to assert that in the struggle for existence, a person with, 

 say, a loop on his right middle finger has a better chance of survival, or a better chance of early 

 marriage, than one with an arch. Consequently genera and species are here seen to be formed 

 without the slightest aid from either Natural or Sexual Selection, and these finger patterns are 

 apparently the only peculiarity in which Panmixia, or the effect of promiscuous marriages, 

 admits of being studied on a large scale. The result of Panmixia in finger markings corroborates 

 the arguments I have used in Natural Inheritance and elsewhere, to show that 'organic stability' 

 is the primary factor by which the distinctions between genera are maintained ; consequently 

 the progress of evolution is not a smooth and uniform progression, but one that proceeds by 

 jerks, through successive ' sports ' (as they are called), some of them implying considerable 

 organic changes; and each in its turn being favoured by Natural Selection. 



"The same word 'variation' has been indiscriminately applied to two very different con- 

 ceptions, which ought to be clearly distinguished ; the one is that of ' sports ' just alluded to, 



by a committee of incompatihles. I shall return to his attempts later, but their first foreshadow- 

 ing appears in the 1892 preface to Hereditary Genius: 



" It has occurred to others as well as myself, as to Mr Wallace and to Professor Romanes, that the time 

 may have arrived when an institute for experiments on heredity might be established with advantage. A farm 

 and garden of a very fewacres, with varied exposure, and well supplied with water, placed under the chargeof intelli- 

 gent caretakers, supervised by a biologist, would afford the necessary basis for a great variety of research upon in- 

 expensive animals and plants. The difficulty lies in the smallness of the number of competent persons who are 

 actually engaged in hereditary inquiry, who could be depended upon to use it properly." (p. xix.) 



* For example, that two-factor dominant and recessive Mendelian hypotheses would account 

 for the heredity of coat-colour or eye-colour. Or that albinotic eyes were those without any 

 granular pigment, and individuals possessing them would breed true. 



POIII- 11 



