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434 or that it furnishes a body of evidence against his (Weismann's) cardinal rule that acquired characters are never inherited."

is a proposed quarterly publication, and is edited, in consultation with Francis Galton, by W.F.R. Weldon, Karl Pearson, and C.B. Davenport. It is an expression of the advanced study of evolution, and a recognition of the mathematical argument that may be employed in its exposition. "It is intended that 'Biometrika' shall serve as a means not only of collecting under one title biological data of a kind not systematically collected or published in any other periodical, but also of spreading a knowledge of such statistical theory as may be requisite for their scientific treatment." On these grounds alone this new publication will be welcomed; but it possesses a still higher credential, as expressed in its editorial preface, which we must quote in full:—"Evolution must depend upon substantial changes in considerable numbers, and its theory therefore belongs to that class of phenomena which statisticians have grown accustomed to refer to as mass-phenomena. A single individual may have a variation which fits it to survive, but unless that variation appears in many individuals, or unless that individual increases and multiplies without loss of the useful variation up to comparatively great numbers—shortly, until the fit type of life becomes a mass-phenomena—it cannot be an effective factor in evolution." Hence the cogency and value of the study by mathematics of large numbers. The value of this method applied to the many guesses, theories, and suggestions which the term evolution has inspired, but for which real evolutionary study is not answerable, cannot be ignored. It can be expressed in the words of Darwin: "I have no faith in anything short of actual measurement and the Rule of Three."

To many like ourselves, to whom abstruse figures are repellant, and all machinery abhorrent—and there is a fear that we are a large number—we shall scarcely follow the process, though we cannot neglect the conclusions. It will be well for all to