An Introduction to a Biology 



in a fixed laboratory after a uniform tradition of work has 

 been established. Mendel clearly showed that there were 

 such things as alternative atomic characters of equal po- 

 tency in descent. How far characters generally may be 

 due to simple, or to molecular characters more or less 

 correlated together, has yet to be discovered." The grace 

 and simplicity of this, the delicate manner in which Mendel 

 is associated with Charles Darwin and the soundness of the 

 critical estimation are very characteristic of Galton. It is 

 often said that the course of Charles Darwin's work and 

 thought would have been very diSerent if Mendel's work, 

 had come under his notice. It is curious to speculate as 

 to w^hat might have been the course of hereditary inquiry 

 if Galton himself had made the experiments actually carried 

 out by Mendel. 



Galton's claim to fame, however, does not rest only on 

 his pioneer work in the investigation of heredity. He will 

 be perhaps longer known, and he is at present more widely 

 known, as the champion of the application of such know- 

 ledge of heredity as we possess to the improvement of the 

 human race ; in other words, as the founder of Eugenics. 



His interest in this question first found expression in two 

 articles on " Hereditary Talent and Character," published 

 in MacmillaTi's Magazine in 1865, which, curiously enough, 

 is the year in which Mendel published the results of his own 

 classical researches. The width of Galton's interests at this 

 time may be gathered from the fact that the publication 

 which preceded this was one on " Spectacles for Divers, and 

 the Vision of Amphibious Animals," the one which succeeded 

 it being that on the " Conversion of Wind-charts into Passage- 

 charts." But the actual investigation of the problem of 

 race improvement was 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 char- 

 acter upon which the possibility of Race Improvement de- 

 pends." Moreover, he himself was " too much disposed to 



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