Letters to the Editor

In a number of valuable and interesting contributions to this Journal, Dr. W. A. Shewhart has made an extended use of the infinite series of Gram. With all the controversy that at present is going on between the pure empiricists, attempting on the one hand to dragoon statistical analysis into a mere inductio per simplicem enumerationem, and the a priori theorists on the other hand, who claim that statistical methods so-called are nothing more than simple and evident applications of well-known principles of the probability calculus as formulated by Laplace, it has been a source of satisfaction to me to note that Dr. Shewhart apparently has given the latter methods a place of preference over the methods of the out and out empiricists.