10 
Biometry 
of a human lifetime. Moreover the forms by which distribution is expressed in 
the new method are excellently fitted to bring to light any survivals of a less 
advanced type, which may serve as evidence of recent change. Also they quickly 
indicate incipient changes, through their power of isolating aberrant forms, and 
then of measuring the degree in which any of these may be favoured by natural 
selection. The organic world as a whole is a perpetual flux of changing types. 
It is the business of Biometry to catch partial and momentary glimpses of it, 
whether in a living or in a fossil condition, and to record what it sees in an 
enduring manner. It is an after-process to combine those glimpses into a con- 
tinuously changing scene, much as some tumultuous procession is made to live 
and move again by means of a "biograph." Each biometric investigation may be 
compared to a solitary boring in a level plain, whose underlying geology has to be 
ascertained. A comparison of the cores brought up, will supply evidence of the 
depths of each of the buried strata and will justify many interpolations of un- 
seen portions between the borings. For instance, it may not require many 
investigations to establish statistical laws of heredity on a secure basis, by ascer- 
taining the limits within which those that have been already observed may hold 
good in a moderate number of widely different types of plant and animal life. 
Biology could soon be raised to the status of a more exact science than it can 
as yet claim to be, if each of many bioinetricians would thoroughly work out his 
own particular plot, although those plots may be very far indeed from occupying 
the whole of the area that admits of being directly explored. 
