The Ancestry of Francis Gallon 11 



distinction in your country meant immense resource, activity and 

 mental ability. Men like Alfred the Great, Friedrich Barbarossa, or 

 William the Conqueror, were kings because they were essentially men 

 preeminent in ability in their days ; and to show in the male line a 

 continuous descent of ten generations, as the de Bruces did, signified 

 that the family had craft to gain and strength to hold the acquired. 

 The game at politics meant death to the checkmated, often destruction 

 of their stock and forfeiture of their land. Thus it came about that royal 

 and noble blood, from early mediaeval times almost to the close of the 

 Stuart period, really signified stocks of physical and mental strength ; 

 and the earlier we go back the more certain is this truth. To anyone 

 whose ancestry carries him to such noble or royal lines, there will be 

 little difficulty in linking on to most of the great names of early 

 European history. 



To follow step by step backwards the pedigree of one man like 

 Francis Galton till we can go no further, but find all our lines fail us, 

 is perhaps the most instructive lesson in history that is possible. The 

 biographer has learnt more history, social and political, in the present 

 inquiry than he had ever done before. One sees not only our own 

 times linked up with great names in the past, but one feels that 

 yeoman, squire, noble and king form a more homogeneous whole than 

 we have hitherto appreciated with our narrow class distinctions ; and 

 we realise that the stocks which led to famous men of old may exhibit 

 them to-day in methods more in keeping with our social ends. 



It seems to me that the pedigree showing the noteworthy ancestry 

 of the Barclays is in itself a full reply to those who think it suffices to 

 say that Francis Galton was a grandson of Erasmus Darwin ! Francis 

 Galton owed much to his Darwin descent, but he owed not less to 

 other strains, and notably to the firmness, conviction, toleration, and 

 business aptitude of those Quaker strains of Galton, Button, Farmer 

 and Barclay which formed nearly half his heritage. 



I trust that Pedigree B 1 may show the reader reason enough for 

 taking a wider view than Galton himself has given us of his past family 

 history ; for indicating as he himself has indicated that it is neither to 

 be wholly neglected, nor summed up in any one line of descent. The 

 nurture of comfortable homes, good schools and our leading universities 

 was provided for both Charles Darwin and Francis Galton, but it was 



1 See end of this volume. 



22 



