Rustic Sounds, and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History. Sir Francis Darwin
the grounds of Naworth Castle where it first occurred to him “that the laws of heredity [28] were solely concerned with deviations expressed in statistical units.”
What may be called the final result of Galton’s work in heredity is, I imagine, his ancestral law, namely that “the average contribution of each parent” to its offspring is one quarter, or in other words, that half of the qualities of the child can be accounted for when we know its father and mother. In the same way the four grandparents together contribute one quarter, and so on. He illustrates this by calculating how much Norman blood a man has who descends from a Baron of William the Conqueror’s. Assuming that the Baron weighed 14 stone, his descendant’s share in him is represented by ⅕0 grain. [29]
This side of Galton’s work is, in the judgment of many, his greatest claim to distinction as a master in the science of heredity. How far this is so I shall not attempt to pronounce. It is possibly still too soon to do so. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Mendelism, the main facts of which are no longer in dispute, will compel the world (if it has not already done so) to look at variation in a very different way to that of Galton. The Mendelian does not, and never will, look at variation merely as a “deviation expressed in statistical units.” Nor can he accept the ancestral law, because he has convinced himself that some ancestors contribute nothing in regard to certain characters.
The contrast between Galtonism and Mendelism may be illustrated by an example, which, if not a strict analogy, has in it something illuminating, especially for those who do not know too much of the subject. Galton seems to me like a mediæval chemist, while Mendel is a modern one. Galton can observe, or can follow the changes that occur when two compounds are mixed. But he knows nothing of the mechanism of what occurs. But the Mendelian is like a modern chemist who calls the chemical elements to his aid, and is able to express the result of the experiment in terms of these elements. This is an enormous advantage, and if my analogy is to be trusted, it would seem as though a progressive study of heredity must necessarily be on Mendelian lines.
But it obviously does not follow that the laborious and skilful work of Galton and his school is wasted. Those who wish to have made plain to them how Biometrics may illuminate a problem which cannot as yet be solved in Mendelian fashion, should read Dr. Schuster’s most interesting book on eugenics. I am thinking especially of the question as to the heredity of tuberculosis and cancer. The relation between Galtonism and Mendelism is also well and temperately discussed in the late Mr. Lock’s Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, 1906.
But it is time to speak of Galton as a eugenist—on which if we look to the distant future his fame will rest. For no one can doubt that the science of eugenics must become a great and beneficent force in the evolution of man.
We must be persistent in urging its value, but we must also be patient. We should remember how young is the subject. As recently as 1901 Galton was, in his Huxley Lecture, compelled to speak of eugenics in these terms: [30]
“It has not hitherto been approached along the ways that recent knowledge has laid open, and it occupies in consequence a less dignified position in scientific estimation than it might. It is smiled at as most desirable in itself, and possibly worthy of academic discussion, but absolutely out of the question as a practical problem.” After explaining that the object of his discourse was to “show cause for a different opinion,” he goes on with what, in his restrained style, is strong language: “I shall show that our knowledge is already sufficient to justify the pursuit of this perhaps the grandest of all objects.” [31a]
At the close of the lecture he speaks out as to the difficulties and the pre-eminent value of eugenics, and once more of the oppressive “magnitude of the enquiry.”
No one who reads this lecture of Sir Francis Galton’s is likely to let eugenics go with a smile, and a remark that it is not a practical problem. It is one of the functions of the Eugenics Education Society to spread the sanely scientific views here set forth by Galton, and as far as I am able to judge, the Society has and is doing sound work in this direction.
In another essay, [31b] Galton discusses the meaning of the ‘eu’ in eugenics in a characteristic way. He imagines an attempt among the animals in the Zoological Gardens to establish a code of absolute morality. With customary love of detail he supposes the inquiry to be undertaken by some animal, such as a sparrow or a rat, which is intelligent and has easy access to all the cages, and is therefore able to collect opinions. There would be strongly pronounced differences between the carnivorous animals and those which form their natural prey. There would be a general agreement as to maternal affection, though fishes and the cuckoo would laugh at it. But all would agree on some eugenic principles: That it is better to be healthy and vigorous than sickly and weak—well-fitted for their part in life rather than the reverse—in fact, good specimens of their kind whatever that kind may be.
Sir Francis Galton goes on to give a list of qualities that “nearly every one except cranks would take into account in picking out the best specimens of his class.” The list includes “health, energy, ability, manliness and courteous disposition.” [32a] I wish he had thought of eugenic mothers, and had translated manliness into the feminine equivalents of courage and endurance. When I first read this list it struck me at once how highly distinguished was Galton himself in all these qualities. As we dwell on the qualities one by one, they seem to call up echoes from the image we have of his character. “Ability, manliness, and courteous disposition,” how strong these were in him! I cannot help feeling that he might have added one more quality from his own treasure-house, namely, a sense of humour, which is so priceless an antiseptic to sentimentality, and was markedly present in his character.
In this same lecture [32b] Galton sums up the stages in the development of eugenics. (1) “It must be made familiar as an academic question.” (2) As a practical subject worthy of serious consideration. (3) It must be “introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion.” He recapitulates in an eloquent phrase: “It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for Eugenics cooperates with the workings of Nature, by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.”
Here we see the future of eugenics marked out for us, and the last sentence might well serve as a motto for this Society. How are we to work for the cause?
It is true that our opinions are formed by the daily papers, and our actions as a nation are determined by political parties which come and go largely by chance. But however our opinions originate, if they are strongly and persistently urged by a large majority of Englishmen, great changes in the manner of human life may be effected. Persistence is the great thing in all reforms: in the words of my father’s favourite quotation—“It’s dogged as does it.” Francis Galton has been temperately persistent in a marked degree. His caution and wisdom are illustrated by the dates of his writings on eugenics and heredity, which placed in order suggest a regiment relentlessly advancing, not a bunch of heroes rushing on a breach:—
| Two papers in ‘Macmillan’s Magazine’ | 1865 |
| Hereditary Genius | 1869 |
| ‘Fraser’s Magazine’ | 1873 |
| Human Faculty (word ‘Eugenics’ first employed) | 1884 |
| Natural Inheritance | 1889 |
| Huxley Lecture | 1901 |
| Sociological Society Papers | 1905 |
| `Memories | 1908 |
His temperate advance is all the more striking when we remember the fiery impatience with which in Hereditary Genius he spoke of the harm done by the Church in ordaining that the intellectuals, the literary, and the sensitive should be celibates, and of the wholesale slaughter by the Holy Inquisition of the courageous and clear minded who dared