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iv.] SCHEMES OF DISTRIBUTION AND OF FREQUENCY. 41

position will be exactly Middlemost, after the Strengths of all the men in the group have been marshalled in the order of their magnitudes. In other words, he is of mediocre strength. The accepted term to express the value that occupies the Middlemost position is "Median," which may be used either as an adjective or as a substantive, but it will be usually replaced in this book by the abbreviated form M. I. also use the word " Mid " in a few combinations, such as " Mid-Fraternity," to express the same thing. The Median, M, has three properties. The first follows immediately from its construction, namely, that the chance is an equal one, of any previously unknown measure in the group exceeding or falling short of M. The second is, that the most probable value of any previously unknown measure in the group is M. Thus if N be any one of the measures, and u be the value of the unit in which the measure is recorded, such as an inch, tenth of an inch, &c., then the number of measures that fall between (N - -1u) and (N + 2u), is greatest when N = M. Mediocrity is always the commonest condition, for reasons that will become apparent later on. The third property is that whenever the curve of the Scheme is symmetrically disposed on either side of M, except that one half of it is turned upwards, and the other half downwards, then M is identical with the ordinary Arithmetic Mean or Average. This is closely the condition of all the curves I have to discuss. The reader may look on the Median and on the Mean as being practically the same things, throughout this book.