Here the statistical elements under consideration are, as regards their origin at any rate, optional or brought about by human choice. They would, therefore, be commonly described as being mainly artificial, but their results ultimately altogether a matter of chance.
Again, in the second place, we might take the accurate measurements—i.e. the actual magnitudes themselves,—of a great many natural objects, belonging to the same genus or class; such as the cases, already referred to, of the heights, or other characteristics of the inhabitants of any district. Here human volition or intervention of any kind seem to have little or nothing to do with the matter. It is optional with us to collect the measures, but the things measured are quite outside our control. They would therefore be commonly described as being altogether the production of nature, and it would not be supposed that in strictness chance had anything whatever to do with the matter.
In the third place, the result at which we are aiming may be some fixed magnitude, one and the same in each of our successive attempts, so that if our measurements were rigidly accurate we should merely obtain the same result repeated over and over again. But since all our methods of attaining our aims are practically subject to innumerable imperfections, the results actually obtained will depart more or less, in almost every case, from the real and fixed value which we are trying to secure. They will be sometimes more wide of the mark, sometimes less so, the worse attempts being of course the less frequent. If a man aims at a target he will seldom or never hit it precisely in the centre, but his good shots will be more[1]
- ↑ That is they will be more densely aggregated. If a space the size of the bull's-eye be examined in each successive circle, the number of shot marks which it contains will be successively less. The actual number of shots which strike the bull's-eye will not be the greatest, since it covers so much less surface than any of the other circles.
