G NATURAL INHERITANCE. [CHAP.
beings as the Father and the Mother ? How can we appraise the hereditary contributions of different ancestors whether in this or in any other quality, unless we take into account the sex of each ancestor, in addition to his or her characteristics ? Again, the same group of progenitors transmits qualities in different measure to the sons and to the daughters ; the sons being on the whole, by virtue of their sex, stronger, taller, hardier, less emotional, and so forth, than the daughters. A serious complexity due to sexual differences seems to await us at every step when investigating the problems of heredity. Fortunately we are able to evade it altogether by using an artifice at the outset, else, looking back as I now can, from the stage which the reader will reach when he finishes this book, I hardly know how we should have succeeded in making a fair start. The artifice is never to deal with female measures as they are observed, but always to employ their male equivalents in the place of them. I transmute all the observations of females before taking them in hand, and thenceforward am able to deal with them on equal terms with the observed male values. For example : the statures of women bear to those of men the proportion of about twelve to thirteen. Consequently by adding to each observed female stature at the rate of one inch for every foot, we are enabled to compare their statures so increased and transmuted, with the observed statures of males, on equal terms. If the observed stature of a woman is 5 feet, it will count by this rule as 5 feet" + 5 inches ; if it be
