PART IP 



SOME RECENT MISINTERPRETATIONS OF THE 

 PROBLEM OF NURTURE AND NATURE 



BY KARL PEARSON, F.R.S. 



One of the strange sequels to real human service is the not 

 infrequent spectacle of a man of transcendent power being made a 

 hero after his death by those who disregard the chief purpose of his 

 life, often in fact by those who have not the faintest conception of 

 what he aimed at, or indeed of what he actually achieved. Our intel- 

 lectual leaders even to-day are treated as was Karl der Grosse, who 

 within a few years of his death became the fabulous being who played 

 with serpents, rather than the master, who had controlled and inspired 

 men. There was this excuse in the case of Karl der Grosse he left 

 no writings of his own to indicate what his aims, his methods and his 

 actions had been. The present day is the day of the printed word, 

 when every man of mark leaves his message to be read by those who 

 will, and yet and possibly because of the superabundance of the 

 written word that message is not studied and we continue to fable 

 about our heroes, as our forebears fabulated one thousand to two 

 thousand years ago. 



It would be an interesting psychological study in the birth of 

 fable, if to-day we could first ask Francis Galton what he considered 

 the main feature of his life-work, and we could then independently 

 ascertain from a few of those who now celebrate his name what they 

 suppose his chief aim and principal achievement to have been ! 



1 This lecture was delivered at the Galton Laboratory, March 17, 1914. A portion 

 of it amplified from the analytical side was issued in Biometrika, vol. x, pp. 181 187, 

 in a paper entitled: "On certain errors with regard to Multiple Correlation occasionally 

 made by those who have not adequately studied the Subject." The correlation 

 coefficients cited are chiefly due to Ethel M. Elderton and will be published with 

 a detailed account as opportunity offers in the Eugenics Laboratory Memoir Series. 



