FRANCIS G ALTON 171 



FRANCIS GALTON 



By Dr. J. ARTHUR HARRIS 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 



TO the man of affairs the progress of science must seem monoto- 

 nously methodical. Should he walk through the scientific section 

 of a great library he would find massive walls of books, journals and 

 learned transactions, and would note that year by year the tomes of 

 which these walls are built up become a little thicker and that new and 

 more specialized series are interpolated among the old. 



Blowing the dust from the tops and cutting pages here and there 

 he would soon find himself completely confused. Nowhere would he 

 be able to turn down the page corner and say, " This is fundamental : 

 this represents a real step forward : this is one of the milestones in the 

 advance of science." 



Those who are not visitors in the stacks but work there, know that 

 except in the accumulation of facts the growth of science has by no 

 means been a movement of uniform acceleration. Most scientific in- 

 vestigators are imitative, contributing to detail but setting no new 

 landmark on the horizon. Now and then, however, a man of keener 

 imagination and clearer mental vision sees a new and attractive region 

 for exploration and blazes a trail. Sometimes the new field is reached 

 after great effort, sometimes only an easy ridge has to be crossed. 

 Others at once follow his leadership, clearing, mapping, describing 

 and illustrating. The work of both is essential, but the one we honor 

 as an explorer and the other we respect as a surveyor. Most men of 

 science are surveyors merely. 



On January 17, 1911, one of the great explorers, both literally and 

 figuratively, laid down his active work in the sciences and humanities. 

 Had death come a quarter of a century ago, scientific men would have 

 mourned the loss of an able colleague. To-day, sadness can not be 

 limited by the boundaries of the divisions of the many ologies, for the 

 world has lost another of the great Victorian minds, the peer of Hux- 

 ley, Spencer and his own cousin, Charles Darwin; yet regret must be 

 tempered with a profound thankfulness that a life so rich in achieve- 

 ments and in personal influence could be granted the full term of 

 nearly ninety years. Twenty-five years ago, Mr. Galton had already 

 contributed his " Tropical South Africa " and the " Art of Travel " to 

 the literature of geographical research. His inventive genius and me- 

 chanical ingenuity had been telling factors in the nascent science of 

 meteorology. Human faculty in various phases had interested him, 



