586 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



extremes of abnormally short and tall persons group themselves in either di- 

 rection from the middle. Now, Galton finds as a result of his heredity research 

 a variation towards the mean value, the children of the tallest groups of 

 parents having become tall, but not so tall as the parents; those of the short- 

 est parents, on the other hand, having become short, but not quite so short 

 as the parents themselves. From this Galton infers that there is a heredity 

 variability in a certain direction, which natural selection, of course, influ- 

 ences. This result, seeing that it first came to light when Darwinism was at 

 the height of its popularity, was bound to win many supporters, as also did 

 Galton's principle that it is necessary to deal statistically with as large a 

 number of cases as possible, seeing that law-bound necessity in isolated cases 

 is effaced by incidental circumstances. This principle was bound to attract a 

 generation that preferred to regard humanity collectively and placed but little 

 value on what was purely individual. Later, however, it has been found that 

 this collectivism actually constituted Galton's most serious weakness; it is 

 practically an impossibility to draw conclusions regarding the individual case 

 from statistical mass-calculations, and if it is attempted, it leads to absurd re- 

 sults. On the other hand, Galton's service lies in the fact that he introduced 

 exact measurements and mathematical calculations into the theory of evolu- 

 tion; his method of expressing the details of development graphically by 

 means of curves has since been applied with great success by students who 

 were able to isolate well-defined phenomena and to follow them up through 

 different generations. For Galton's chief weakness was really this, that he 

 believed that he could deal with practically anything statistically; he never 

 realized that an object which is to be examined must first have its true essence 

 determined. Thus, in his above-mentioned work he tried to determine statisti- 

 cally the laws governing "marriage selection" — inter alia, whether persons 

 of different dispositions feel attracted to their likes or vice versa. From one of 

 his tables it appears that 46% of married men are ill-tempered; of these, again, 

 2.7.% have had good and X4% bad-tempered wives. ^ Statistics of this sort 

 seem far more suited to a comic paper. The fact that Galton seriously tried 

 to solve such a problem testifies to his extraordinarily dilettante mind, which 

 cannot be excused by the fact that even at a later period an occasional stu- 

 dent of heredity has sought to ascertain the existence and transmission of 

 equally vague and indefinite human qualities. As a matter of fact, Galton 

 applied his method not only to human beings; he also experimented in hor- 

 ticulture, dealing with the results thus obtained by the same statistical 

 method. He bequeathed his fortune to an institute for heredity research in 

 London, which afterwards worked in accordance with the principles that 

 he had laid down. Galton had human welfare very much at heart; he wanted 



^ See "Appendix D" in chat work. 



