THE CAUSE OF CHARACTER. 831 



and went from my study into the adjoining room for an intercalary 

 cup of five o'clock tea with the members of my family. (After all, 

 we are all vertebrate animals and human beings ; why attempt to con- 

 ceal the fact out of consideration for the dignity of literature '?) The 

 talk turned, as it often does turn under such circumstances, on the 

 subject about which I had just been writing. I expounded these my 

 views on the origin of character to the attentive ears of a critical do- 

 mestic audience. To my utter dismay and discomfiture, I found that 

 they of mine own household were firmly opposed to me. " Why," 

 said the person, who, of all others on earth, ought to back me up most 

 surely in my worst heresies, " look at So-and-so and So-and-so ! You 

 know they're twins ; and yet how utterly unlike one another they are 

 in character ! " Now, will you believe me, as it so happened. So-and- 

 so and So-and-so were two of the very cases on which I most relied in 

 my own mind when making some of my present generalizations about 

 twins and their identity ! This, of course, conclusively shows that 

 people sometimes differ in opinion. Some of us see differences more 

 acutely, and some of us likenesses. To some of us the So-and-so fam- 

 ily are all as like as two peas ; while to others of us there is abso- 

 lutely nothing common to all of them. Depend upon it, neither side 

 is right ; the So-and-so's are in some ways very much alike, and yet in 

 other ways very different. The family face and the family character 

 run pretty impartially through them all ; but each wears it in his own 

 fashion and with his own special combination of peculiarities. One 

 side has a keen eye for the resemblances ; the other has a keen eye for 

 the differences. Mr. Galton's method, by taking the mean of many 

 observations, effectually gets rid, so far as possible, of this little natu- 

 ral " personal equation." 



A single example will make this matter clearer than pages of ab- 

 stract argument could make it. One of the instances I cited above 

 was that of two brothers so identical in fiber that each did exactly the 

 same thing, at times, with exactly the same minute touches of feeling 

 and expression. They recognized the absolute identity themselves ; 

 it was often to them a cause of some laughter, and not infrequently of 

 some confusion and suspicion also. Each knew a trifle too well what 

 the other was likely to do and think of. Yet I have on paper a let- 

 ter from one of their acquaintances, saying, in so many words, " James 

 has been staying here for some weeks ; we like him very much, in- 

 deed, but oh, how different he is from our Mr. Trois Etoiles ! " Now 

 the fact is, that was probably the judgment of every one everywhere 

 who knew them both only superficially. The younger brother, whom 

 I have ventured here to call James, because James is a good solid 

 Christian name, implying honest industry and business ability, had 

 been put to work at his father's occupation early in life, and was 

 known to most men as a quiet, sober, steady-going man of affairs. 

 The elder brother, whom I will christen Percy, because the name Percy 



