534 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The actual investigation of eugenic problems is thus cared 

 for. But there has also sprung into existence the Eugenics 

 Education Society, which acts the part of a middle man whose 

 function is to exhibit the results of those investigations so that 

 they shall be intelligible and palatable to the lay mind. 



The institution of the eugenic movement was evidently 

 regarded by Galton as his life-work, for he concludes his 

 autobiography with a restatement of his views concerning it. 

 "I take Eugenics very seriously, feeling that its principles 

 ought to become one of the dominant motives in a civilised 

 nation, much as if they were one of its religious tenets." Here 

 is a life-work of which any man might well be proud. 



Galton practised the principles which he preached in his 

 marriage with the daughter of Dr. Butler, for many years 

 Headmaster of Harrow and then Dean of Peterborough. Dr. 

 Butler was not merely an able classicist and mathematician 

 himself but transmitted his qualities in full measure to his 

 children and grandchildren. The remarks which follow the 

 reference to his marriage and to his wife's family are perhaps 

 the most interesting, because the most intimate, of his eugenic 

 pronouncements. 



"... The Butler family well deserve study as an instance of 

 hereditary gifts, but this is hardly the place for it. 



" Neither can I enlarge as I could have done on the far 

 greater importance of being married into a family that is good in 

 character, in health and in ability, than into one that is either 

 very wealthy or very noble but lacks these primary qualifica- 

 tions. . . . 



" I protest against the opinions of those sentimental people 

 who think that marriage concerns only the two principals ; it 

 has in reality the wider effect of an alliance between each 

 of them and a new family." 



It is a happy circumstance that Galton lived long enough 

 to complete that vivid and detailed picture of himself, Memories 

 of My Life. This is by no means a piece of elaborate self- 

 analysis. The picture presented to us of the author is con- 

 veyed by his own simple unaffected style and seen in the 

 mirror of his varied environment. The dominant note in 

 Galton's personality was his simplicity ; to the last he preserved 

 a childlike delight in trivialities which is an attribute of only 

 very great men. His delight at having 3. genus of plants related 



