FRANCIS GALTON 533 



the one which succeeded it being that on the "Conversion 

 of Wind-charts into Passage-charts." But the actual investiga- 

 tion of the problem of race improvement was then laid aside 

 for many years because he felt that " popular feeling was 

 not then ripe to accept even the elementary truths of hereditary 

 talent and character upon which the possibility of Race 

 Improvement depends." Moreover he himself was "too much 

 disposed to think of marriage under some regulation and not 

 enough of the effects of self-interest and of social and religious 

 sentiment." The term Eugenics was first applied by Galton to 

 the scientific attempt to ameliorate the human race in his 

 Human Faculty, which appeared in 1883 ; and his interest and 

 inquiries up to date were gathered up into his " Huxley 

 Lecture" before the Anthropological Institute in 1901 on the 

 " Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under the existing 

 conditions of Law and Sentiment." 



The active prosecution of eugenic inquiry has been handed 

 over to the professed representatives of the Biometric school. 

 How this has been done may best be told in Galton's own 

 simple words. After referring to the foundation by Professor 

 Karl Pearson of a Biometric laboratory in University College 

 and the institution of Biometrika and his connection with it 

 as Consulting Editor, he says {Memories of My Life, p. 320), 

 " The ground had thus become more or less prepared for 

 further advance ; so after talking over matters with the 

 authorities of the University of London and obtaining their 

 ready concurrence, I supplied sufficient funds to allow of a 

 small establishment for the furtherance of Eugenics, The 

 University provided rooms and gave the sanction of their 

 name and various facilities and I provided for a Research 

 Fellow and a Research Scholar. The Eugenics laboratory 

 of the University of London is now situated in University 

 College, in connection with Professor Karl Pearson's Biometric 

 laboratory, and I am glad to say he has consented to take it 

 for the present at least under his very able superintendence ; as 

 I am too old and infirm to look properly after it." Eugenics, it 

 may be well to remind the reader at this point, is officially defined 

 in the minutes of the University of London as " The study 

 of agencies under social control that may improve or impair 

 the racial qualities of future generations either physically or 

 morally." 



