which are subject to a considerable number of local or occasional disturbing causes. Amongst Frenchmen were included, presumably, Bretons, Provençals, Alsatians, and so on, thus commingling distinctions which, though less than those between French and English, regarded as wholes, are very far from being insignificant. And to these differences of race must be added other disturbances, also highly important, dependent upon varying climate, food and occupation. It is plain, therefore, that whatever objections exist against confusing together French and English statistics, exist also, though of course in a less degree, against confusing together those of the various provincial and other components which make up the French people.
§ 17. Out of the great variety of important causes which influence the height of men, it is probable that those which most nearly fulfil the main conditions required by the 'Law of Error' are those about which we know the least. Upon the effects of food and employment, observation has something to say, but upon the purely (illegible text) causes by which the height of the parents influences the height of the offspring, we have probably nothing which deserves to be called knowledge. Perhaps the best supposition we can make is one which, in accordance with the saying that 'like breeds like', would assume that the purely physiological causes represent the constant element; that is, given a homogeneous race of people to begin with, who freely intermarry, and are subject to like circumstances of climate, food, and occupation, the standard would remain on the whole constant[1].
In such a case the man who possessed the mean height, mean weight, mean strength, and so on, might then be
- ↑ This statement will receive some explanation and correction in the next chapter.
