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It has been assumed in these rules that the titration has yielded proportional results; but these are not always obtained. There can be no doubt that in any actual re-action the proportion between any two re-agents is a fixed one, and that if we double one of these then exactly twice as much of the other will enter into the re-action; but in the working it may very well be that no re-action at all will take place until after a certain excess of one or of both of the re-agents is present. In titrating lead with a chromate of potash solution, for example, it is possible that at the end of the titration a small quantity of the lead may remain unacted on; and it is certain that a small excess of the chromate is present in the solution. So, too, in precipitating a solution of silver with a standard solution of common salt, a point is reached at which a small quantity of each remains in solution; a further addition either of silver or of salt will cause a precipitate, and a similar phenomenon has been observed in precipitating a hydrochloric acid solution of a sulphate with baric chloride. The excess of one or other of the re-agents may be large or small; or, in some cases, they may neutralise each other. Considerations like these emphasise the necessity for uniformity in the mode of working. Whether a process yields proportional results, or not, will be seen from a series of standardisings. Having obtained these, the results should be arranged as in the table, placing the quantities of metal used in the order of weight in the first column, the volumes measured in the second, and the standards calculated in the third. If the results are proportional, these standards will vary more or less, according to the delicacy of the process, but there will be no apparent order in the variation. The average of the standards should then be taken.

Darwin was characteristically frank and generous in admitting that the principle of Natural Selection had been independently recognised by Dr. W. C. Wells in 1813 and by Mr. Patrick Matthew in 1831, but he had no knowledge of these anticipations when he published the first edition of _The Origin of Species_. Wells, whose "Essay on Dew" is still remembered, read in 1813 before the Royal Society a short paper entitled "An Account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro" (published in 1818). In this communication, as Darwin said, "he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.'"[29] Thus Wells had the clear idea of survival dependent upon a favourable variation, but he makes no more use of the idea and applies it only to man. There is not in the paper the least hint that the author ever thought of generalising the remarkable sentence quoted above.

Behind the lady who is bringing in the eggs is the under-under-nurse who is at the fire warming a towel. In the foreground we have the regulation midwife holding the regulation baby (who, by the way, was an astonishingly fine child for only five minutes old). Then comes the under-nurse--a good buxom creature, who, as usual, is feeling the water in the bath to see that it is of the right temperature. Next to her is the head-nurse, who is arranging the cradle. Behind the head-nurse is the under-under-nurse's drudge, who is just going out upon some errands. Lastly--for by this time we have got all round the chapel--we arrive at the Virgin's grandmother's-bodyguard, a stately, responsible-looking lady, standing in waiting upon her mistress. I put it to the reader--is it conceivable that St. Joachim should have been allowed in such a room at such a time, or that he should have had the courage to avail himself of the permission, even though it had been extended to him? At any rate, is it conceivable that he should have been allowed to sit on St. Anne's right hand, laying down the law with a "Marry, come up here," and a "Marry, go-down there," and a couple of such unabashed collars as the old lady has put on for the occasion?

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