196 REPORT 1871. 



of its constitulion, exclude hazardous lives, except, at least, at extra premiums. 

 The raulc of life, prolmbly, of parties eftecting: insurances may also Ijenefit the oillco ; 

 hut if married men are to a certain extent to he considered as selected lives, this 

 also, I should think, must tell in favour of the office, as I presume that, from family 

 reasons, more married men effect insurances than unmarried men. 



In general, of course, it is impossible to derive any good result from statistical 

 facts or apparent coincidences except by comparison. A high official person con- 

 nected with Scotland was summoned before a Committee of the House of Lords to 

 give evidence in connexion with the new Divorce court proposed for England, and 

 was asked whether, in his opinion, the facility of divorce existing in Scotland was 

 unfavourable to the morality of man-ied persons there. The judicious answer was, 

 "I have not sufficient experience of the comparative morality of married persons in 

 different countries to be able to give an opinion on that question." 



Matters not yet Reduced to Statistics. 



The subjects to which statistics may be extended seem to be innumerable, and 

 new ones are cropping up every day. In the pages of ' Nature ' tliero lately ap- 

 peared a letter of a somewhat curious kind, which may perhaps engage the attention 

 of our fellow-associate member Mr. Tyler. The suggestion in that letter was that 

 the degree of civilization existing in any country is connected with the quantity of 

 Soap there consumed. The writer gave as a formula the equation of 



X being the amount of civilization inquired for, S being the soap consumed, and P 

 the population consuming it ; so that the amount of civilization depended on the 

 proportion of S, the numerator, to P, the denominator. If S is large in proportion 

 to P, then the civilization is great, and vice versa. How the civilization of Scotland 

 in the olden time would come out according to this test I shall not inquire ; but if 

 tliere is any truth in the proposition, it gives additional relevancy and interest to 

 the question which is sometimes vulgarly put by some people to their friends as to 

 how they are provided with that commoditj'. I have not yet seen any tables 

 framed upon this principle, but I have no doubt that the Registrar-General will 

 keep it in view. 



An inquiry of a more serious nature, and indeed peculiarly important and impres- 

 sive, is connected with one of the most remarkable phenomena in human nature — 

 I mean the occasional appearance in the world of men of great genius. From time 

 to time men have arisen whose mental powers have far transcended the ordinary 

 standard of human intellect, and who have thereby been enabled within the space 

 of a single life, and by the eflbrt of a single mind, to give an impulse to science and 

 discovery wliicli they could not have received through long generations of average 

 mediocrity. Whetlier this singular boon and blessing to maukind can be traced to 

 any law is a natural but mysterious inquiry. Some persons have considered the 

 production of exceptional genius as quite an insulated fact; and Savage Landor 

 declared that no great man had ever a great son, unless Philip and Alexander of 

 Macedon constituted an exception. Mr. Galton, however, in his interesting work 

 on ' Hereditary Genius,' lias endeavoured to prove that genius runs in families, or, 

 at least, that men of genius have generallj' sprung from a stock where great mental 

 power is conspicuous ; and he adheres to the view commonly taken as to the 

 importance of the maternal character and influence in the formation of genius. I 

 do not venture to give any opinion upon Mr. Galton 's theory, but his book contains 

 an important collection of facts beaiing on the subject, and a great deal of curious 

 collateral speculation. Mr. Galton attributes gi'eat power in many ways to the 

 principle of Jiercditi/, as it seems now to be called. He does not, indeed, go so far 

 as the Irish statist, wlio, as mentioned by Sidney Smith, announced it as a fiict 

 tliat steriUty was often hereditary; but he states that comparative infertility is 

 transmitted in families ; and adduces as a remarkable example, a fact not generally 

 known, if it be a fact, that in the case, that frequently happens, of Peers marrying 

 heiresses, the family is apt to die out very soon, the heiress being naturally, in the 

 general case, an only child, and bequeathing to her descendants a tendency to pro- 



