vi Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



searching. It was only the feeling that, at least in one or two aspects of 

 Francis Galton's later life and of his scientific work, I could perhaps put 

 his contributions to human knowledge moi-e adequately than possibly one 

 or anothei' who might take up the task, if I resigned it, and who would 

 liurdly grasp the bearing of that long and intimate scientific corre- 

 spondence between Galton, Weldon and myself, that I pei'severed in 

 my endeavour to give some account of a life, wherein an important 

 chapter of personal development must I'emain largely unrecorded. 



The last source of delay has been the difficulty of collecting the illus- 

 trative material, with which I determined from the start to accompany 

 this work. The records had to be collected fi'om many sources, and it 

 was soon clear to me that I was collecting as much information bearing 

 on the family history of Charles Darwin as on that of Francis Galton. 

 It seemed desirable to place the two men to some extent in contrast in 

 my volume, showing in ancestry, in methods of work and in outlook on 

 life what they had in common and how they differed. Twenty years 

 ago, no one would have questioned which was the greater man. To-day 

 the work of Darwin is being largely undermined by a new view of 

 heredity. We are told that " the transformation of masses of popula- 

 tion by imperceptible steps, guided by selection, is as most of us now 

 see, so inapplicable to the facts, whether of variation, or of specificity, 

 that we can only marvel both at the want of penetration displayed by 

 the advocates of such a proposition, and at the forensic skill by which 

 it was made to appear acceptable even for a time\" Foremost among 

 such advocates were Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. If 

 the judgment given above be correct, Darwinian evolution is only 

 a fallacy supported for a time by "forensic skill." Its propounders 

 must belong to a school which will leave no permanent mark on human 

 thought. The last twenty years have seen a continual progress, not 

 only in the expansion of the methods initiated by Galton, but in the 

 recognition of the jaurposesto which he desired their application ; above 

 all we have approached nnich closei' to the conscious study of what 

 makes for race efficiency — to the ajiplication of Darwinian ideas to the 

 directed evolution of man. If Darwinism is to survive the open as well 

 as covert attacks of the Mendelian school, it will only be because in 

 the future a new race of biologists will arise trained up in Galtonian 

 method and able to criticise from that standpoint botli Darwinism 



' Problems u/ G'ertelics, by William Batcson, p. 218, New Haven, 1913. 



