A rejoinder to Mr. A. B. Biggs's criticism on observations made in respect of the "observed periodicity of the death rate." etc.

Abstract

I am glad to see that so able a critic as Mr. Biggs has taken up the important subject of the " Death rate in its observed coincident relation to super-terrestrial phenomena," which was recently introduced by me in a paper read before this Society ; although, at the same time, it is to be regretted that he has based his remarks upon a brief abstract from a newspaper rather than upon the paper itself, for it has greatly misled him as regards the nature and scope of my argument. In Mr. Johnston's rejoinder he states that: "It appears to me to be very clear that Mr. Biggs' difficulty is caused chiefly by erroneously assuming that the relations commented upon are simple instead of complex, and that belief in a more or less striking observed coincidence seems to be regarded by him as synonymous with a like belief in a corresponding mutual inter-dependence between the matters which have been observed to coincide. Now there is a very wide difference between the conception or conviction of a known agreement or coincidence and the conception of an underlying casual relation."