56 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [chap. 



inside out, as it were, deriving the " arguments " for 

 Tables 7 and 8 from the entries in the body of Table 6, 

 and making other easily intelligible alterations. 



Comparison of the Observed with the Normal Curve. 

 — I confess to having been amazed at the extraordinary 

 coincidence between the two bottom lines of Table 3, 

 considering the great variety of faculties contained in 

 the 1 8 Schemes ; namely, three kinds of linear measure- 

 ment, besides one of weight, one of capacity, two of 

 strength, one of vision, and one of swiftness. It is 

 obvious that weight cannot really vary at the same rate 

 as height, even allowing for the fact that tall men are 

 often lanky, but the theoretical impossibility is of the 

 less practical importance, as the variations in weight are 

 small compared to the weight itself. Thus we see from 

 the value of Q in the first column of Table 3, that half 

 of the persons deviated from their M by no more than 

 10 or 11 lbs., which is about one-twelfth part of the 

 value of M. Although the several series in Table 3 run 

 fairly well together, I should not have dared to hope 

 that their irregularities would have balanced one another 

 so beautifully as they have done. It has been objected 

 to some of my former work, especially in Hereditary 

 Genius, that I pushed the applications of the Law of 

 Frequency of Error somewhat too far. I may have done 

 so, rather by incautious phrases than in reality; but 

 I am sure that, with the evidence now before us, the 

 applicability of that law is more than justified within 

 the reasonable limits asked for in the present book. I 



