Editorial 
5 
Darwin's ideas fit themselves to algebraic definition. On the contrary — exactly as 
in the like case of the mathematical treatment of Faraday's conceptions of electro- 
magnetism — the symbolic analysis widens our notions, it leads us at once to new 
points of view and it directly suggests — perhaps this is its most important advan- 
tage — fresh points for observation and novel directions for experimental research. 
The danger will no doubt arise in this new branch of science that — exactly as 
in some branches of physics — mathematics may tend to diverge too widely from 
Nature. The biologist, the mathematician and the statistician have hitherto had 
widely differentiated fields of work. Each one of these fields is full of pitfalls, and 
when the worker amid living types wanders among symbolic forms, the mathe- 
matician by profession must give him a helping hand if he stumbles over a 
determinant or gets entangled in a differential. A like j^atience must be extended 
by the biologist to the mathematician when he makes blunders at which the 
morphological tyro would smile. As Mr Francis Galton said a few years ago, for 
these new problems we want a scientific firm with a biologist and a mathematician 
as acting partners and a logician as a consulting partner. Patient endeavour to 
understand each other's methods, and to bring them into harmony for united ends 
and common profit — this is the only method by wliich we can win for biometry a 
recognised place in the- world of science and in the accepted academic curricula of 
the universities. The day will come —is, perhaps, already dawning with the 
younger workers — when we shall find mathematicians who are competent biologists, 
and biologists who are competent mathematicians, but our universities both as to 
teachers and laboratories are not yet adapted for the training of such men, and for 
some time to come we can in the main only hope for effective partnership and not 
for the all-round biometrician. We have a splendid, almost untraversed field to 
work in, and a great task to perform in winning not only full recognition from the 
scientific world, but public support for our work. If these conditions are kept 
in view the diverse degrees of mathematical and biological knowledge exhibited 
in our pages will not oppress our readers. We shall publish careful biometric 
observations, even if they be accompanied by only the most elementary statistical 
treatment ; we shall look forward to our mathematical workers supplementing such 
fundamental observations by more elaborate statistical calculations. For this 
reason we shall not only print as copious observational and experimental data as 
possible, but endeavour to form a manuscript collection of such data available for 
further research. We hope that every number of Biometrika will present statistical 
material ready for the mathematician to calculate and to reason upon. All such 
investigations ancillary to data appearing in our pages we shall receive gladly 
and publish at the earliest opportunity. 
On the other hand the biologist will find in our pages algebraic analysis which 
may repel him. We would still ask his attention for the general conclusions and 
for the formulte reached by the mathematician. The biologist will find that they 
frequently suggest observations and experiments which he alone is in a position to 
undertake satisfactorily. We shall aid the more arithmetical part of his work by 
