74 Life and Letters of Francis iialton 



and tend to reduce it into « closely united b<xly with a single wet I- protected leader. The do- 

 velopniput of in(lc|)endenc«* of character in cattle tH thus i*up|)n»J>.s«d far Ix'low its healthy 

 natural standard hy the inlluence of wild beasta, lui is shown by the greater display uf self- 

 reliance among cattle whose ancestry for some generations have not been exposed to such 

 danger." (p. 3.57.) 



It would be impossible in a resume like this to cite all Galton's acute 

 observations on the cattle herds of Damaraland, but the paper is well worth 

 reading even to-day. He then jiroceeds to apply its lesson with certain 

 modifications to savage man, but he insists 



"on a close resemblance in the particular circumstance that moat savages are so unamiable 

 and morose as to have hardly any object in ii.ssociating together besides that of mutual 

 support." 



As in the case of cattle herds there is a definite size in a given environment 

 which is best suited to the human herd. A very large tribe is deficient in cen- 

 tralisiition or is straitened for food and falls to pieces; a small tribe is sure to 

 be overrun, slaughtered or driven into slavery. The law of natural selection 



"must discourage every race of barbarians which supplies self-reliant individuals in such large 

 numbers as to cause their tribe to lose its blind de.sire of aggregation. It must equally dis- 

 courage a breed that is incomi>etent to supply such men, in a sufficiently abundant ratio to the 

 fMt of the population, to ensure the existence of trilies of not too large a size." (p. 357.) 



Galton now proceeds to his ' moral' : All through primaeval times, the 

 steady influence of social condition summed up in the clan, the tribe, the 

 petty kingdom tended to exterminate a supei-fluity of self-reliant men. 



"I hold that the blind instincts evolved under those long-con tinuetl conditions have 

 been deeply ingrained into our breed, and that they are a bar to our enjoying the freedom 

 which the forms of modern civilisation could otherwise give us. A really int<'lligent nation 

 might Ix; held together by far stronger forces than are derivetl from the purely gregarious 

 instincts. It would not l<e a mob of slaves, clinging together, incjipable of self-government, 

 and bi'gging to Ije le<l; but it would consist of vigorous, .self-reliant men, knit to one another 

 by innumerable attractions, into a strong, tense and elastic organisation. Our j)re8ent natural 

 dispositions make it simply impossible for us to attain this ideal standard, and therefore the 

 slavishness of the mass of men, in morals and intellect, must be an admitted fact in all schemes 

 of regenerative policy. The hereditary taint due to the ])rirnaeval barbarism of our race, and 

 maintained by later influences, will have to Ix; bred out of it Ixifore our descendants am rise to 

 the position of free members of a free and intelligent society; and I may add, that the most 

 likely nest, at the present time, for self-reliant natures, is to be found in the States founded 

 and maintained by emigrants." (p. 357.) 



Wonderful, is it not, how Darwinism liad already gripped Galton? How 

 he thought in terms of heredity and natural selection and was ready to apply 

 them to the past history of man in order to explain its present and suggest 

 it« future ! The notion that it is nece.ssary for human j)rogre.ss to l)reed out 

 the men of slavi.sh morals and intelligence— tiie cssonti.-il foinuliition of 

 eugenics — is already a truth to him. 



Democracy — moral and intellectual ])iogi-ess— is impcts-sildc wliilf man is 

 l)urdene<l with the heritage of his past history. It has bc^und mankind to a 

 few great leaders ; it has produced a mass of servile intelligences ; and oidy 

 mans insight — man breeding man as his domesticated animal — can free 

 mankind. This was Galton's view. Possibly the historian of man in the 

 dim future may grasp that man in the age of nations was as much a product 



