196 NATURAL . INHERITANCE. [CHAP
accounted for, but the factor of stability of type has to be reckoned with, and this has not yet been adequately discussed.
The ratio of filial Regression is found to be so bound up with co-fraternal variability, that when either is given the other can be calculated. There are no means of deducing the measure of fraternal variability solely from that of co-fraternal, They differ by an element of which the value is thus far unknown. Consequently the measure of fraternal variability has to be calculated separately, and this cannot be done directly, owing to the small size of human families. Four different and indirect methods of attacking the problem suggested themselves, but the calculations were of too delicate a kind to justify reliance on the R.F.F. data. Separate and more accurate measures, suitable for the purpose, had therefore to be collected. The four problems were then solved by their means, and although different groups of these measures had to be used with the different problems, the results were found to agree together.
The problem of expressing the relative nearness of different degrees of kinship, down to the point where kinship is so distant as not to be worth taking into account, was easily solved. It is merely a question of the amount of the Regression that is appropriate to the different degrees of kinship. This admits of being directly observed when a sufficiency of data are accessible, or else of being calculated from the values found in this inquiry. A table of these Regressions was given.
