56 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [CHAP.
inside out, as it were, deriving the "arguments" for Tables 7 and 8 from the entries in the body of Table 6, and making other easily intelligible alterations.
Comparison of the Observed with the Normal Curve. -I confess to having been amazed at the extraordinary coincidence between the two bottom lines of Table 3, considering the great variety of faculties contained in the 18 Schemes ; namely, three kinds of linear measurement, besides one of weight, one of capacity, two of strength, one of vision, and one of swiftness. It is obvious that weight cannot really vary at the same rate as height, even allowing for the fact that tall men are often lanky, but the theoretical impossibility is of the less practical importance, as the variations in weight are small compared to the weight itself. Thus we see from the value of Q in the first column of Table 3, that half of the persons deviated from their M by no more than 1.0 or 11 lbs., which is about one-twelfth part of the value of M. Although the several series in Table 3 run fairly well together, I should not have dared to hope that their irregularities would have balanced one another so beautifully as they have done. It has been objected to some of my former work, especially in Hereditary Genius, that I pushed the applications of the Law of Frequency of Error somewhat too far. I may have done so, rather by incautious phrases than in reality ; but I am sure that, with the evidence now before us, the applicability of that law is more than justified within the reasonable limits asked for in the present book. I
