1886.] 



Family Likeness in Stature. 



43 



degree of precision. These constants may provisionally and with 

 some reservation be held applicable to other human peculiarities 

 than stature, while the formulae themselves are, I presume, applicable 

 to every one- dimensioned faculty that all men possess in some degree, 

 but that different men possess in different degrees. 



T selected stature for the subject of this inquiry, for reasons fully 

 set forth in two recent publications,* which dealt with one small 

 portion of the ground covered by the present memoir, and from 

 which it will be convenient that I should make as I proceed occa- 

 sional short extracts, in order to complete the present argument and 

 to save cross-reference. The reasons that combine to render stature 

 an excellent subject for hereditary inquiry are, briefly, the ease and 

 frequency of its measurement, its constancy during adult life, its 

 inconsiderable influence on the death-rate, its dependence on a mul- 

 tiplicity of separate elements, and other points that I shall dwell on 

 as I proceed, namely, the ease with which female statures are trans- 

 muted to their male equivalents, and so enabled to be treated on 

 equal terms with male statures, the-tendency of the parental statures 

 to blend in inheritance, and the disregard of stature in marriage 

 selection. 



Stature-schemes. — It is an axiom of statistics that large samples 

 taken out of the same population at random are statistically similar, 

 and in such inquiries as these which do not aim at minute accuracy, 

 they may be considered identical. Thus the statures in every group, 

 say of 1000 male adults, when distributed in order of their mag- 

 nitudes at equal distances apart and in a row, will form almost 

 identical figures ; it being only towards either end of the long row 

 that irregularities will begin to show themselves. These are unim- 

 portant in the present inquiry and I disregard them. The Diagram S, 

 fig. 1, shows the outline of such a group of statures. It is drawn to 

 scale, each of the statures being supposed to have been represented 

 by a vertical line of proportionate length, standing on a horizontal 

 base, the lines being at equal distances apart, and the whole system 

 being compressed into the space between two termini, which may 

 be set at any convenient distance asunder. The vertical lines in 

 the figure do not indicate these statures, but they are divisions, 

 ten in number, between each of which 100 stature lines are com- 

 pressed. The first and last stature will not touch the termini, 

 but will be removed from them by a half -interval. As it will 

 be convenient to assign a name to this figure, I will call it a 



* (1.) "Presidential Address to the Anthropological Section of the British 

 Association in 1885." (2.) " Eegrossion towards Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature." 

 " Journ. Anthrop. Institute," 1885, p. 246. The latter is a reprint of that portion 

 of the former with which I am now concerned, together with some additional 

 matter ; it contains tables and diagrams, and should be referred to in preference. 



