April 10, 1903.J 



SCIENCE. 



593 



tivity. We do not call upon them all to re- 

 turn to school and learn mathematics. What 

 we do say is that, in a certain part of that 

 field, their past conclusions have been based 

 on inadequate reasoning, and we place at the 

 disposal of those who are willing or able to 

 use it a new instrument of investigation. 

 For the many who have not a taste for statis- 

 tics or mathematics, we have endeavored to 

 provide with each number of our journal a 

 brief summary of what our contributors con- 

 sider their investigations to demonstrate. A 

 brief examination of these summaries will 

 show the unprejudiced that, on the one hand, 

 no attempt has been made to exaggerate the 

 value of the work done, nor, on the other, has 

 biometry failed to achieve something in the 

 first year during which it has possessed an 

 organ of its own. In the case of the mathe- 

 matician we have even more to offer than to 

 the biologist; we ask him to see that his sci- 

 ence has far wider applications than he has 

 hitherto dreamt of; that a door has been 

 opened to him which quite doubles the space 

 to which he has so far had to confine himself. 

 That in future he may revel in vital phe- 

 nomena as he has hitherto revelled in the 

 physical universe. That perfect correlation, 

 the causal nexus of the physicist, is only a 

 special case of the general theory of correla- 

 tion which covers organic as well as inorgan- 

 ic relationships. The older mathematicians 

 worked only under the category of causation, 

 the moderns can also work under that of cor- 

 relation. In the light of our present knowl- 

 edge the chapters in treatises on scientific 

 method, which center round ' causation ' as 

 the fundamental idea, seem as inadequate as 

 the formal logic of the schools is when com- 

 pared with ' the numerically definite syllo- 

 gism.' The mathematician who sees causa- 

 tion as merely a special case of correlation 

 passes — to use a not entirely fanciful geo- 

 metrical analogy — from space of two 'to space 

 of three dimensions. Anthropology, craniol- 

 ogy, psychology and child study and peda- 

 gogy, as well as biology, become fields of work 

 crowded with new problems for the mathema- 

 tician to tackle; nor must the workers in 

 those fields look upon him as an ' undesirable 



alien.' He comes to enrich their own do- 

 mestic industries with new processes and show 

 them how to handle new and powerful instru- 

 ments of research. There are signs — very 

 hopeful signs — that this broader view of co- 

 operative action is beginning to be realized 

 in America; it will take a generation or two 

 to produce much effect upon the conservative 

 minds of European scientists, who, circum- 

 scribed by an over narrow specialization in 

 field and method, are only annoyed if one 

 suggests that for certain tasks the steam 

 plough is more effective than the spade. In 

 England this great reluctance to adopt new 

 ideas is as manifest in science as in commerce 

 and national defence; it is leaving our race 

 behind in both education and industry. 



My appeal accordingly to the American 

 scientific world would be of a double nature. 

 Our journal must perforce have an uphiU 

 struggle for the first few years of its exist- 

 ence ; we are determined to see it successfully 

 through that struggle, but this task can be 

 made a good deal easier for us by both ma- 

 terial and intellectual sympathy from yoiir 

 side of the Atlantic. There are many grow- 

 ing public and academic libraries in America ; 

 we feel convinced that they will need Bio- 

 metrika ten or fifteen years hence. They wiU 

 make our task lighter if they aid now by sub- 

 scribing in our infancy. I would make a 

 like appeal to both biologists and mathema- 

 ticians; we want additional subscribers, and 

 we want to be studied and read, and not con- 

 demned a priori without examination. In 

 the next place, the Carnegie Trust gives 

 America a splendid opportunity to judiciously 

 foster new phases of scientific work. I would 

 appeal to those who have to manage that trust 

 not to put hindrances in the way of young 

 men or women who may be seeking to do 

 biometric work. Such persons have got to 

 combine two or three usually separated facul- 

 ties; they must be moderate mathematicians, 

 intelligent biologists and observant field natu- 

 ralists. Do not subject them to a severe triple 

 test, or demand that they shall be at the sum- 

 mit of the tree in mathematics and in labo- 

 ratory work and in field observation. The 

 engineer must know some mathematics, some 



