ON THE PHYSIQUE AND ABILITY OF OFFSPRING 25 



now describes as of 'marvellous excellence', and "approach- 

 ing more nearly than anything else I know in any language, 

 covering so large an area in so few words, to the ideal which 

 Le Play set up for social investigations '*, should have to 

 wait to be introduced to his notice by the studies made on 

 it by 'mathematical outsiders', who acclaimed it within 

 a year of its publication as one of the most valuable social 

 researches of the day ? We might almost have anticipated 

 that it would be the economists, and not the mathe- 

 maticians, who would have hastened to extract social 

 nuggets from such a mine ! 



Nay, with the utmost respect and a deep sense of 

 obligation and affection for my Alma Mater, may I not 

 venture to carry my * upbraiding ' a little further and 

 assert that it is a trifle absurd if the Cambridge economist 

 can term the classification of trades of the temperate and 

 intemperate, on which the whole argument turns, a sub- 

 ject which has ' no bearing on any question in which I am 

 interested ' ? Had the Cambridge economists devoted 

 the last fifteen years to the development of an adequate 

 theory of statistics, and the last ten largely to its application 

 to the study of man in his social relations, they would 

 probably have less hostility and use slightly more re- 

 strained language when they find ' mathematical out- 

 siders ' venturing to attack problems for the solution of 

 which those economists have neither themselves provided 

 adequate data nor devised instruments by which they 

 might handle effectively the material collected by others. 



The members of the Galton Laboratory have far too 

 much work in hand to seek controversy ; they have 

 disregarded the large amount of heedless criticism which 

 their memoir on alcoholism has produced. But some reply 

 to critics of distinction must occasionally be made, because 



D 



