342 
On the Fundamental Conceptions of Biology 
the two elaws of a crab an " even clearer illustration " of homotyposis than digits 
III and IV in a Deer ! I suppose it must be in some way because he supposes 
" bilateral symmetry " to be really the basis of homotyposis. 
In summing up my results on homotyposis and fraternal correlation Mr Bateson 
writes : 
" Professor Pearson attaches importance to the rather close similarity between 
the two average values. We are bound, therefore, to remark as a suspicious 
circumstance that the range of values is so wide, and that the average value 
should so nearly approach the mean of the whole possible range ; but upon this 
point I do not propose to dwell, preferring to deal with more general aspects of the 
problem " (p. 196). 
Naturally I do propose to dwell upon it, because the paragraph contains two 
things : (i) a hint that destructive criticism could be raised at this point, if 
Mr Bateson pleased, and (ii) a hint as to the assumptions that Mr Bateson is 
willing to make with regard to heredity and to homotyposis. He is apparently 
prepared for fraternal correlation having witlt equal probahUity any value between 
•2 and "7. Unless there is no clustering of fraternal correlations round a definite 
point of the range Mr Bateson's remark about the mean of the whole possible 
range is purely idle. Hence we must be prepared for a very agnostic state of mind 
Cases 
■05— -15 
0 
■15— -25 
1 
■25—35 
4 
■35— -^5 
6 
'Jf5 — '55 
20 
■55—65 
7 
■65 — "75 
4 
•75— -55 
0 
Total 
42 
Scale of Frequency 
on the subject of heredity in Mr Bateson. He has no views as to what fraternal 
relationship is like at all ; it may lie indifferently anywhere between '2 and '7 ! It 
seems rather late in the day for this sort of opinion, especially in one who has 
expressed his mind rather definitely on the importance of the statistical treatment 
of heredity. Here are the total series — 42 cases, the majority running to 1000 
