60 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



XXXVIII) ought to be suflScient evidence of Galtou's sense of huuiuur! 

 Or consider his account of how, not daring to ask the privilege of 

 measuring a steatopygous lady, the wife of a Hottentot chief, he hit 

 upon the idea of taking from a distance, by aid of his sextant, a 

 trigonometric survey of her person ; this more than establishes an 

 inheritance of ancestral Galton humour. 



Lastly, the gift of mechanical ingenuity, which was such a marked 

 feature in Galton's nature, and helped him so largely in his work — 

 whence did he derive this sense ? In the first place the business of 

 an ironmaster and gunsmith cannot be developed by mere business 

 capacity. We find whether we turn to the Strutt and Arkwright, the 

 Boulton and Watt or the Wedgwood firms that for success mechanical 

 ingenuity must supplement the business aptitude. I have little doubt 

 that this applies also to Galton and Farmer, and that one or both 

 contributed this factor, a very needful factor indeed, to their successful 

 gunmaking. But we must not neglect from this aspect Erasmus 

 Darwin's mechanical instincts as evidenced by his colour grinding-mill 

 (see p. 16), the ferry from his house to his orchard, or his commonplace 

 book which still exists and deals with numerous mechanical problems 

 (see p. 16, ftn. ^). Nor has Erasmus been the only Darwin distinguished 

 by mechanical ingenuity. We think, therefore, that we have probably 

 here a case of intensified heritage from Farmer and Darwin stocks. 



Thus as most men Francis Galton was physically and mentally 

 a blend of many ancestral traits. Whether they were " unit characters " 

 or not concerns us little here. What we do realise is that they were not 

 the product of environment, whether of home or school or college. 

 Few men have had more noteworthy ancestry in many lines than 

 Francis Galton ; that such ancestry should produce, not several, but 

 one brother alone of this marked social value can puzzle only those 

 who have not considered the wide range of possible variations which 

 arise as we rotate the kaleidoscope of heredity. If on the average 

 only one in four brothers of distinguished stock reaches first-class 

 eminence, can we not quite well understand how Charles Darwin and 

 Francis Galton stand alone, but also appreciate how greatly the 

 chances of perpetuating ability are reduced, when men of able stocks leave 

 in modern conditions but one or two children to preserve their name ? 

 Let the reader remember that with our modern views as to parental 

 responsibility neither Charles Darwin nor Francis Galton would have 



