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xii
Hereditary Genius
statures. Then the difference, according to the law of frequency, between
them and the 63rd man would be the same as that between the 63rd and
the 75th, the 75th and the 84th, the 84th and the 90th. The intervening men
between these divisions, whose numbers are 13, 12, 9, and 6, form a
succession of classes, diminishing as we see in numbers, but each
separated from its neighbours by equal grades of stature. The diminution
of the successive classes is thus far small, but it would be found to proceed
at an enormously accelerated rate if a much longer row than that of 100
men were taken, and if the classification were pushed much further, as is
fully shown in this book.
After some provisional verification, I applied this same law to mental
faculties, working it backwards in order to obtain a scale of ability, and to
be enabled thereby to give precision to the epithets employed. Thus the
rank of first in 4, 000 or thereabouts is expressed by the word “eminent.”
The application of the law of frequency of error to mental faculties has now
become accepted by many persons, for it is found to accord well with
observation. I know of examiners who habitually use it to verify the general
accuracy of the marks given to many candidates in the same examination.
Also I am informed by one mathematician that before dividing his
examinees into classes, some regard is paid to this law. There is nothing
said in this book about the law of frequency that subsequent experience has
not confirmed and even extended, except that more emphatic warning is
needed against its unchecked application.
The next step was to gain a general idea as to the transmission of ability,
founded upon a large basis of homogeneous facts by which to test the
results that might be afterwards obtained from more striking but less
homogeneous data. It was necessary, in seeking for these, to
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