Subject: [HM] Galton quote
From: Richard Mankiewicz (richard@tutorcom.dircon.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 15 2000 - 07:15:25 EDT
Dear list members
a brief request for a source for the well-known quote from Galton.
"I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as
the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of
Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the
Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity
and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The
huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more
perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason. Whenever a
large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshaled
in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful
form of regularity proves to have been latent all along."
Secondary sources all lead back to J. R. Newman (ed.) The World
of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956. but it is
within a chapter by Tippett which does not give the primary source.
Could anybody tell me which Galton publication this originally
comes from?
Thanks very much
Richard Mankiewicz
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