48 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [chap. 



several into the list of failures and distributed the rest, 

 with the result that the number of cases in the successive 

 classes, amounting now to the full total of 1,000, became 

 28, 80, 616, 151, and 125. This differs, I should say, 

 a little from the inferences of the author, but the matter 

 is here of small importance, so I need not go further into 

 details. 



If a Scheme is drawn from these figures, in the way 

 described in page 39, it will be found to have the 

 characteristic shape of our familiar curve of Distribution. 

 If we wished to convey the utmost information that this 

 Scheme is capable of giving, we might record in much 

 detail the career of two or three of the men who are 

 clustered about each of a few selected Grades, such as 

 those that are used in Table II. , or fewer of them. I 

 adopted this method when estimating the variability of 

 the Visualising Power {Inquiries into Human Faculty). 

 My data were very lax, but this method of treatment 

 got all the good out of them that they possessed. In 

 the present case, it appears that towards the foremost 

 of the successful men within fifteen years of taking 

 their degrees, stood the three Professors of Anatomy 

 at Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh ; that towards 

 the bottom of the failures, lay two men who committed 

 suicide under circumstances of great disgrace, and lowest 

 of all Palmer, the Eugeley murderer, who was hanged. 



We are able to compare any two such Schemes as the 

 above, with numerical precision. The want of exactness 

 in the data from which they are drawn, will of course 

 cling to the result, but no new error will be introduced 



