who
bear the maiden surname of the mother, and more than five times as
numerous as either of the other two, the _fa me fa_ and _me me fa_,
whose surnames differ from both, unless it be through some accident,
whether of a cross marriage or a chance similarity of names. It is
just the same with the great-uncles. Now, the figures for
great-grandfathers and great-uncles run so closely alike that they
may fairly be grouped together, in order to obtain a more impressive
whole--namely, two sorts of these kinsmen, bearing the same name as
the Subject, contain between them 23 noteworthies, or 11.50 each; two
sorts having the mother's maiden surname contain together 11
noteworthies, or 5.50 each; four sorts containing between them 7
names, or an average of 1.75 each. These figures are self-consistent,
being each the sum of two practically equal constituents, and they
are sufficiently numerous to be significant. The remarkable
differences in their numbers, 11.50, 5.50, 1.75, when they ought to
have been equal, has therefore to be accounted for, and the
explanation given above seems both reasonable and sufficient.

CHAPTER X.--CONCLUSIONS.

The most casual glance at Table VII. leaves no doubt as to the rapid
diminution in the frequency of noteworthiness as the distance of
kinship to the F.R.S. increases, and it would presumably do the same
to any other class of noteworthy persons.

In drawing more exact conclusions, the returns must be deemed to
refer not to a group of 207 F.R.S., because they are not a fair
sample of the whole body of 467, and, for reasons already given, they
are too rich in noteworthiness for the one and too poor for the
other. They will, therefore, be referred to the number that is the
mean of these two limits--namely, to 337. I am aware of no obvious
guidance to any better hypothesis.

The value of the expectation that noteworthiness would be found in
any specified kinsman of an F.R.S., of whom nothing else is known,
may be easily calculated from Table VII. on the two hypotheses
already mentioned and justified: (1) That the figures should be taken
to refer to 337, and not to 207; (2) that 1 per cent. of the
generality are noteworthy--that is to say, there are 3.37
noteworthies to every 337 persons of the generality.

TABLE VII.--NUMBER OF NOTEWORTHY KINSMEN RECORDED
IN 207 RETURNS.
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