September 25, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



269 



attentioi] on far more slender evidence than I now 

 possess. 



It is some years since I made an extensive series of 

 experiments on the produce of seeds of different size, 

 but of the same species. They yielded results that 

 seemed very noteworthy ; and I used them as the basis 

 of a lecture before the Koyal institution on Feb. 9, 

 1877. It appeared from these experiments that the 

 offspring did not tend to resemble their parent seeds 

 in size, but to be always more mediocre than they, — 

 to be smaller than the parents, if the parents were 

 large; to be larger than the parents, if the parents 

 were very small. The point of convergence was con- 

 siderably below the average size of the seeds contained 

 in the large bagful I bought at a nursery- garden, out 

 of which I selected those that were sown. 



The experiments showed, further, that the mean 

 filial regression towards mediocrity was directly pro- 

 portional to the i3arental deviation from it. This 

 curious result was based on so many plantings, con- 

 ducted for me by friends living in various parts of 

 the country, — from Nairn in the north, to Cornwall 

 in the south, during one, two, or even three genera- 

 tions of the plants, — that I could entertain no doubt 

 of the truth of ray conclusions. The exact ratio of re- 

 gression remained a little doubtful, owing to variable 

 influences; therefore I did not attempt to define it. 

 After the lecture had been published, it occurred to 

 me that the grounds of my misgivings might be urged 

 as objections to the general conclusions. I did not 

 think them of moment; but as the inquiry had been 

 surrounded with many small diflBculties and matters 

 of detail, it would be scarcely possible to give a brief, 

 and yet a full and adequate, answer to such objections. 

 Also, I was then blind to what I now perceive to be 

 the simple explanation of the phenomenon; so I 

 thought it better to say no more upon the subject 

 until I should obtain independent evidence. It was 

 anthropological evidence that I desired, caring only 

 for the seeds as means of throwing light on heredity 

 in man. I tried in vain for a long and weary time to 

 obtain it in sufficient abundance; and my failure was 

 a cogent motive, together with others, in inducing 

 me to make an offer of prizes for family records, 

 which was largely responded to, and furnished me 

 last year with what I wanted. I especially guarded 

 myself against making any allusion to this particular 

 inquiry in my prospectus, lest a bias should be given 

 to the returns. I now can securely contemplate the 

 possibility of the records of height having been fre- 

 quently drawn up in a careless fashion, because no 

 amount of unbiassed inaccuracy can account for 

 the results, contrasted in their values, but con- 

 current in their significance, that are derived from 

 comparisons between different groups of the re- 

 turns. 



An analysis of the records fully confirms, and goes 

 far beyond, the conclusions I obtained from the seeds. 

 It gives the numerical value of the regression towards 

 mediocrity as from 1 to |, with unexpected coherence 

 and precision; and it supplies me with the class of 

 facts I wanted to investigate, — the degrees of family 

 likeness in different degrees of kinship, and the steps 



through which special family peculiarities become 

 merged into the typical characteristics of the race at 

 large. 



The subject of the inquiry on which I am about to 

 speak was hereditary stature. My data consisted of 

 the heights of 930 adult children, and of their respec- 

 tive parentages, 205 in number. In every case I trans- 

 muted the female statures to their corresponding 

 male equivalents, and used them in their transmuted 

 form ; so that no objection, grounded on the sexual 

 difference of stature, need be raised when I speak of 

 averages. The factor I used was 1.08, which is equiv- 

 alent to adding a little less than one-twelfth to each 

 female height. It differs a very little from the factors 

 employed by other anthropologists, who, moreover, 

 differ a trifle between themselves : anyhow it suits 

 my data better than 1.07 or 1.09. The final result is 

 not of a kind to be affected by these minute details ; 

 for it happened, that, owing to a mistaken direction, 

 the computer to whom I first intrusted the figures 

 used a somewhat different factor, yet the result came 

 out closely the same. 



I shall explain with fulness why I chose stature for 

 the subject of inquiry, because the peculiarities and 

 points to be attended to in the investigation will 

 manifest themselves best by doing so. Many of its 

 advantages are obvious enough, such as the ease and 

 frequency with which its measurement is made, its 

 practical constancy during thirty-five years of middle 

 life, its small dependence on differences of bringing 

 up, and its inconsiderable influence on the rate of 

 mortality. Other advantages which are not equally 

 obvious are no less great. One of these lies in the 

 fact that stature is not a simple element, but a sum of 

 the accumulated lengths or thicknesses of more than 

 a hundred bodily parts, each so distinct from the rest 

 as to have earned a name by which it can be specified. 

 The list of them includes about fifty separate bones, 

 situated in the skull, the spine, the pelvis, the two 

 legs, and the two ankles and feet. The bones in both 

 the lower limbs are counted, because it is the average 

 length of these two limbs that contributes to the 

 general stature. The cartilages interposed between 

 the bones, two at each joint, are rather more numer- 

 ous than the bones themselves. The fleshy parts of 

 the scalp of the head and of the soles of the feet con- 

 clude the list. Account should also be taken of the 

 shape and set of many of the bones which conduce to a 

 more or less arched instep, straight back, or high head. 

 I noticed in the skeleton of O'Brien, the Irish giant, 

 at the College of surgeons, which is, I believe, the 

 tallest skeleton in any museum, that his extraordinary 

 stature of about seven feet seven inches would have 

 been a trifle increased if the faces of his dorsal ver- 

 tebrae had been more parallel, and his back conse- 

 quently straighter. 



The beautiful regularity in the statures of a popu- 

 lation, whenever they are statistically marshalled in 

 the order of their heights, is due to the number of 

 variable elements of which the stature is the sum. 

 The best illustrations I have seen of this regularity 

 were the curves of male and female statures that I 

 obtained from the careful measurements made at 



