EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



Thomas and Matthew Arnold, the Bach family, 

 or the hundreds of instances which might be 

 quoted. 



But let us, in this connection, glance at the 

 recent history of the subject. It had its beginning 

 in Mr. Galton s mind decades ago doubtless under 

 the influence of Plato s discussion of the subject 

 in the Republic. Mr. Galton first invented the 

 term stirpiculture, now popular in America. But 

 latterly the inchoate idea has developed in Mr. 

 Galton s mind, and was the subject of his Huxley 

 Memorial Lecture, delivered before the Anthro 

 pological Institute, London, three years ago. 

 Now, Mr. Galton is not only the student of finger 

 prints whose work is now invaluable to the police, 

 not only the author of Hereditary Genius, but 

 he is the first to apply mathematics to biology, 

 the first exact student of heredity. This new 

 study his disciple, Professor Karl Pearson, has 

 called biometrics, and it was fitting that Mr. Gal 

 ton s Huxley Lecture should be followed by Pro 

 fessor Pearson s, which proved, by the use of the 

 Galtonian method, that mental and moral char 

 acters are as surely transmitted by heredity as are 

 the physical. But this is not all my answer to 

 those who declare that heredity is incalculable 

 and that we had better let well alone. Since 

 Mr. Galton was drawn from his retirement by the 

 Sociological Society in the summer of 1904, and 

 read his initial paper on eugenics, he has instituted 

 an inquiry of the utmost interest among the fel- 



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