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102   NATURAL INHERITANCE.   [ciAr.

from Son to Mid-Parent. These and other relations were evidently a subject for mathematical analysis and verification. It seemed clear to me that they all depended on three elementary measures, supposing the law of Frequency of Error to be applicable throughout; namely (1) the value of Q in the General Population, which was found to be 1.7 inch ; (2) the value of Q in any Co-Fraternity, which was found to be 1.5 inch ; (3) the Average Regression' of the Stature of the Son from that of the Mid-Parent, which was found to be e. I wrote down these values, and phrasing the problem in abstract terms, disentangled from all reference to heredity, submitted it to Mr. J. D. Hamilton Dickson, Tutor of St. Peter's College, Cambridge (see Appendix B). I asked him kindly to investigate for me the Surface of Frequency of Error that would result from these three data, and the various shapes and other particulars of its sections that were made by horizontal planes, inasmuch as they ought to form the ellipses of which I spoke.

The problem may not be difficult to an accomplished mathematician, but I certainly never felt such a glow of loyalty and respect towards the sovereignty and wide sway of mathematical analysis as when his answer arrived, confirming, by purely mathematical reasoning, my various and laborious statistical conclusions with far more minuteness than I had dared to hope, because the data ran somewhat roughly, and I had to smooth them with tender caution. His calculation corrected my observed

value of Mid-Parental Regression from - to T;.-6; the