Some years ago when I. assembled a number of general articles and
lectures on probability and statistics, their publication (Essays in
Probability and Statistics, Methuen, London, 1962) received a some- what
better reception than I had been led to expect of such a miscellany. I
am consequently tempted to risk publishing this second collection, the
title I have given it (taken from the first lecture) seeming to me to
indicate a coherence in my articles which my publishers might otherwise
be inclined to query. As in the first collection, the articles are
reprinted chronologically, usually without comment. One exception is the
third, not previously published and differing from the original spoken
version both slightly where indicated in the text and by the addition of
an Appendix. I apologize for the inevitable limitations due to date, and
also for any occasional repetition of the discussion (e.g. on Bayesian
methods in statistical inference). In particular, readers technically
interested in the classification and use of nearest-neighbour models, a
topic raised in Appendix II of the fourth article, should also refer to
my monograph The Statistical Analysis of Spatial Pattern (Chapman and
Hall, London, 1976), where a much more up-to-date account of these
models will be found, and, incidentally, a further emphasis, if one is
needed, of the common statistical theory of physics and biology. March
1975 M.S.B.