New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-09-18

Professor Karl Pearson IS ar eNoiutioiiiS' "''
does not believe that natural selection FURNISHES
an argument for design or for the existence oi
Creator and Manager Of the universe. Not that
he necessarily denies these but chance suIliOeS
20 meet the present conditions Of natural prob
lens for him. Chance Is q calculablc process IN
the whole universe far as man knows IT,
When chance ceases 10 be calcuahle, there II De
comes certain that design has interfered' II
these points are kept I'm mind there VIII he seen
sort Of evolution IN the succession OF the essays
IN these two volumes Tho Chances OF Deah
are treated in the brief first paper. Now de"'h
is the most thoroughly matter OF chahce oi al
events known to humanity. and yet bills OF NOR
tally long ago convinced Addison OF an over Ill
ing Providence. II is no great source or coiisoi@
ton TO the individual man. for whom death must
ever remain purely fortuitous unless ne can ike
Robert Burton or Lord Lyttleton. piocict II lor
himself and then carefully see TO II that his pre-
diction comes true, to know that In general aver
ages death is very uniform. Even PROFESSOR
Pearson cannot tell what day John Smith will
die, though. If he has thousand Smiths to deal
with he can tell very nearly how many OF them
will be alive year or fifty years hence But the
strange thing about death is that, given thou-
sand men born on the same day, no contriVance
will enable a mathematician 20 produce a con-
tinuous curve depicting the life Of these men
from birth to the hour when the last OF them
drops off that famous bridge which Mira saw
in his vision At different periods the prospect
Of life for the survivors can only be calculated
upon a new curve which prolongs the old one IN
its own way Addison had trapdoors and otner
contrivances in Mrzas bridge. and multitude
Of demons rushing about pushing the living INTO
perils which they would have escaped If left TO
themselves. Professor Pearson has his bridge.
l,tt1.t tAy1x hnN Q
simplified the problem to this extent, that he can
do without the trapdoors. and can depend upon
a limited number of skeleton mansayers armed
with various weapons to do away with the multi
tude. There are times early in the history of
thousand contemporary human beings when
Death seems to serve a machine gun. and times
somewhat later when he relapses to the bow and
arrow. But the fact is that his proceedings.
whatever weapon he may use at given moment.
are regular and can be predicted.
This Is chance, pure and simple. and II will
be seen at once that It means something differ
ent from what Is usually supposed. But now
Professor Pearson passes to another phase OF
the problem He takes up the published rec
ords Of the Monte Carlo roulette tables. Here is
professedly a game into which nothing but
chance enters. But chance Is calculable II
a man throws ten pennies together ten thousand
times he can predict the mathematical aspects
OF the record he will make ana plot the curve Of
results 1t is the same If he throws true dice But
the published records of Monte Carlo reveal
something quite different They are not CAL
culable. On the contrary. they are chaotic.
Now either the laws Of chance as worked out
by mathematician are a nullity. or Monte Carlo
roulette is the most prodigious miracle Of the
nineteenth century" The inference Is that
Mente Carlo presents the kind of phenomena TO
ta~rss rracted when design interferes with chance.
Naturally Professor Pearson wants the Casino
abolished and his advice Is to apply the funds
10 "the endowment OF a laboratory Of orthodox
proba billy: In particular of the new branch OF
that study, the application OF the theory or
chance TO the biological problem of evolution.
Then he proceeds to show from the point or
view Of a mathematician how the laws OF chance
apply 10 questions like those Of reproductive
selection socialism and natural selection, Varia-
ton in man and woman, with animadversions by
the way on the science of Lord SALISBURY ana
the metaphysics of Mr. Balfour that far
from complimentary. The essay on variation
in man AMI woman is Of interest statistical
argument against the accepted dictum of Oar
win that variation is greater III man t6an IN
woman. Then in the second volume the ques-
tion of social evolution and particularly wom-
ans share in II is considered from another side,
that of popular love and tradition. IT Is now
familiar theory that once on time when mar
riage was not what II is now and men were also
different IN important respects that woman was
the centre Of the whole social system. sucn as II
was Some have elaborated from this golden
age In which mankind were much better ana
happier than they have ever been since Pro-
lessor Pearson does not view the past in mat
light With his conception Of morality az SUD-
feet to evolution, the primitive age OF group
marriage in all its varieties was better and
no worse. judged by It's own standards than 'he
noe which has succeeded What was moral once
has become immoral under different conditions.
His problem is to reproduce from the fragments
~ nonular tradition the life of a time before
modern civilization began.
To modern superstition the most hateful as
meet in which woman be presented Is that
of the witch. But the witch in these pages Is
only the survival Of a being who was IN 'he uaS
Of her real power benefactor or the race reo-
ple call her bag now, and attach a dlsaefee-
able meaning to the term. But there was
,,ra when this term N a somewhat different
form was word OF honor II described the
mistress Of the pasaded Enclosure where she
dwelt with her kindred and where her "lsuon
IN simples and weather signs and her skill III
ogr,culture and domestic economy were pro-
lection to her naked contemporaries ohe was
a wise woman to them. and they and their de-
scendants owed to her perhaps all those earliest
inventions without which human ne as
human would have been impossibe-the max
ing OF fire. the cooking of food the CORRECTION
OF useful plants. the tanning OF useful animals
the building Of houses or the making OF gar
ments II took centuries TO destroy the reputa-
ton which she had built up and the affection
which she had created in the minds OF the race
toward herself. Even then humanity retained
two contradictory notions Of her. II she was
the original witch, she was also the original
wise woman and good fairy. whose forbidding