EXCEPTIONAL PHENOMENA. 321 



the principles of probability, sometimes to deeper reasons. 

 Among every large collection of persons, we shall probably 

 find some persons who are remarkably large or remark- 

 ably small, giants or dwarfs, whether in bodily or mental 

 conformation. Such cases appear to be not mere lusus 

 natures, since they usually occur with a frequency closely 

 accordant with the law of error or divergence from an 

 average, as shown by M. Quetelet and Mr. Gal ton (vol. i. 

 p. 446). The rise of genius, or the occurrence of extra- 

 ordinary musical or mathematical faculties, are attributed 

 by M. Galton to the same principle of divergence. 



Under this class of exceptions I am inclined to place 

 all kinds of remarkable events arising from an unusual 

 conjunction of many ordinary tendencies. When several 

 distinct forces happen to concur together, we may have 

 surprising or alarming results. Great storms, floods, 

 droughts and other extreme deviations from the average 

 condition of the atmosphere thus arise. They must be 

 expected to happen from time to time, and will yet 

 be very unfrequent compared with minor disturbances. 

 They are not anomalous but only extreme events, 

 exactly analogous to extreme runs of luck. There seems, 

 indeed, to be a fallacious impression in the minds of many 

 persons, that the theory of probabilities necessitates uni- 

 formity in the happening of events, so that in the same 

 space of time there will always be closely the same 

 number, for instance, of railway accidents and murders. 

 Buckle has superficially remarked upon the comparative 

 constancy of many such events as ascertained by Quetelet, 

 and some of his readers acquire the false notion that 

 there is a kind of mysterious inexorable law producing 

 uniformity in natural and human affairs. But nothing 

 can be more opposed to the teachings of the theory of 

 probability, which always contemplates the occurrence of 

 extreme and unusual runs of luck. That theory shows 



VOL. II. Y 



