of error to which a statistical discussion is liable that treats
everyone who ranks as noteworthy at all on equal terms. The problem
resembles a familiar one that relates to methods for electing
Parliamentary representatives, such as have been proposed at various
times, whether it should be by the coarse method of one man one vote,
or through some elaborate arrangement which seems highly preferable
at first sight, but may be found on further consideration to lead to
much the same results.

In order to test the question, I marked each noteworthy person whose
name occurs in the list of sixty-six families at the end of this book
with 3, 2, or 1, according to what I considered his deserts, and soon
found that it was easy to mark them with fair consistency. It is not
necessary to give the rules which guided me, as they were very often
modified by considerations, each obvious enough in itself, but
difficult to summarize as a whole. Various provisional trials were
made; I then began afresh by rejecting a few names as undeserving any
mark at all, and, having marked the remainder individually, found
that a total of 657 marks had been awarded to 332 persons; 117 of
them had received 3 marks; 101, 2 marks; 104, 1 mark; so the three
subdivisions were approximately equal in number. The marks being too
few to justify detailed treatment, I have grouped the kinsmen into
first, second, and third degrees, and into first cousins, the latter
requiring a group to themselves. The first degree contains father and
brothers; the second, grandfathers and uncles; the third,
great-grandparents and great-uncles. The results are shown in Table
VI. The marks assigned to each of the groups are given in the first
line (total 657), and the number of the noteworthy persons in each
group who received any mark at all is shown in the third line (total
329). In order to compare the first and third lines of entries on