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Biometry 
that are unfavourable to its speedy recognition, and those who labour in it must 
abide for some time in patience before they can receive much sympathy from the 
outside world. It is astonishing to witness how long a time may elapse before new 
ideas are correctly established in the popular mind, however simple they may be 
in themselves. The slowness with which Darwin's fundamental idea of natural 
selection became assimilated by scientists generally, is a striking example of the 
density of human wits. Now that it is grown to be a familiar phrase, it seems 
impossible that difficulty should ever have been felt in taking in its meaning. 
But it was far otherwise, for misunderstandings and misrepresentations among 
writers of all classes abounded during many years, and even at the present day 
occasional survivals of the eai-ly stage of non-comprehension make an unexpected 
appearance. It is therefore important that the workers in this new field who are 
scattered widely through many countries, should close their ranks for the sake of 
mutual encouragement and support. They want an up-to-date knowledge of what 
has been done, and is doing, in it. They seek for opportunities of receiving 
judicious help from one another, sometimes in circulating questions, sometimes in 
discussing the preliminaries of new plans of campaign. Immense labour has too 
often been wasted in statistical research through a mistaken judgement of the 
value and real significance of the data employed. The fresh opinion of skilled 
onlookers is the safest test of the value of materials and affords a ready means 
of obtaining timely warning of the presence of vitiating conditions before an 
inquirer commits himself to any new statistical enterprise. Every investigator 
stands in need of expert criticism, for no pursuit runs between so many pitfalls 
and unseen traps as that of statistics. 
This Journal, it is hoped, will justify its existence by supplying these require- 
ments either directly or indirectly. I hope moreover that some means may be 
found, through its efforts, of forming a manuscript library of original data. Expe- 
rience has shown the advantage of occasionally rediscussing statistical conclusions, 
by starting from the same documents as their author. I have begun to think 
that no one ought to publish biometric results, without lodging a well arranged 
and well bound manuscript copy of all his data, in some place where it should be 
accessible, under reasonable restrictions, to those who desire to verify his work. 
But this by the way. There remains another cogent reason of a very practical 
kind for the establishment of this Journal, namely that no periodical exists in 
which space could be allowed for the many biometric memoirs that call for publi- 
cation. Biometry has indeed many points in common with Mathematics, Anthro- 
pology, Zoology, Botany, and Economic Statistics, but it falls only partially into 
each of these. An editor of any special journal may well shrink from the idea 
of displacing matter which he knows would interest his readers, in order to make 
room for communications that could only interest or even be understood by a 
very few of them. I am tempted to illustrate, or rather to over-illustrate, the 
coldness of welcome often afforded to a new departure in science, by an anecdote 
concerning the cause that really led to the foundation of the Geological Society 
