THE POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAN BREED 

 UNDER THE EXISTING CONDITIONS OF LAW AND 

 SENTIMENTS 



By Francis Galton, D. C. L., D. Sc, F. R. S., 



London. 



In fulfilling the honorable charge that has been intrusted to me of 

 delivering- the Huxley lecture, I shall endeavor to carry out what 1 

 understand to have been the wish of its founders, namely, to treat 

 broadly some new topic belonging to a class in which Huxley himself 

 would have felt a keen interest, rather than to expatiate on his charactei 

 and the work of his noble life. 



That which I have selected for to-night is one which has occupied 

 my thoughts for many years, and to which a large part of my pub- 

 lished inquiries have borne a direct though silent reference. Indeed, 

 the remarks I am about to make would serve as an additional chapter 

 to my books on Hereditary Genius and on Natural Inheritance. My 

 subject will be " The possible improvement of the human race under the 

 existing conditions of law and sentiment." It has not hitherto been 

 approached along the ways that recent knowledge has laid open, and 

 it occupies in consequence a less dignified position in scientific estima- 

 tion than it might. It is smiled at as most desirable in itself and pos- 

 sibly worths of academic discussion, but absolutely out of the question 

 as a practical problem. My aim in this lecture is to show cause for a 

 different opinion. Indeed, I hope to induce anthropologists to regard 

 human improvement as a subject that should be kept openly and 

 squarely in view, not only on account of its transcendent importance", 

 but also because it affords excellent but neglected fields for investiga- 

 tion. I shall show that our knowledge is already sufficient to justify 

 the pursuit of this, perhaps the grandest of all objects, but that we 

 know less of the conditions upon which success depends than we might 

 and ought to ascertain. The limits of our knowledge and of our 

 ignorance will become clearer as we proceed. 



a The second Huxley Lecture <if the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, delivered October 29, 1901. Printed in Nature, November 1, 1901. 



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