rding to this table, the average age of 97
members of royal houses was only 64.04, while that of 1,179 members of
the English aristocracy was 67.31, and that of 1,632 gentlemen commoners
70.22; the proportion between the total number of royal, and that of
noble and gentle, personages who died within the period specified, being
apparently supposed to be as 97 to 2811, or as 1 to about 29. Except
upon this supposition, Mr. Galton could not with any consistency have
appealed to these figures, for he had previously announced his intention
to be 'guided solely by broad averages and not to deal with isolated
instances.' He seems, however, to forget this judicious rule when he
comes to treat of the clergy, of whom 945 are compared in the table with
294 lawyers and 244 medical men. Here, he says, 'the clergy as a whole
show a life value of 69.49 against 68.14 for lawyers, and 67.31 for
medical men;' but then, he adds 'this difference is reversed' when the
comparison is made between members of the three classes sufficiently
distinguished to have had their lives recorded in Chalmers'
Biographical Dictionary or the Annual Register, the value of life among
clergy, lawyers, and medical men then appearing as 66.42, 66.51 and
67.34 respectively. Whether, of the distinguished professional men
concerned in this second comparison, the parsons were distinguished for
their prayerfulness and the lawyers and doctors for their
prayerlessness, Mr. Galton omits to state; and still more serious
omissions on his part are those of not mentioning in what part of our
Liturgy we are accustomed to pray that it may be granted to the Queen,
not simply long to live, but also to live longer than other people;
likewise in which of 'the numerous published collections of family
prayers' that have undergone his scrutiny, is to be found a petition
that parsons may live longer than lawyers or doctors; and, yet again,
since an _average_, falling short of threescore years and ten by little
more than three and a half, is so contemptuously rejected by him, what
is the precise number of years that would be accepted by him as a
liberal compliance with prayer for long life?

While deducing his argument from clergymen, Mr. Galton makes repeated
and particular reference to the clerical _sub-genus_, missionaries,
treating it as the more remarkable that these should not enjoy
comparative immunity from disease, because, as he suggests, it would
have been so easy for God to