76 Life ami Letters of Ft'dnris (TaJtoii 



times the rati' of the iiiediocre parent. (Jaltoii is very careJ'ul in this paper 

 to compare rates and not totals, and he realises that if we could increase the 

 fertility of the uhle and dieck that of mediocrity, we shonld effectually alter 

 the intellectual standard of our race. It is difficult lor the mind with even 

 a small modicum of statistical intelligence to appreciate how Galton's thesis 

 could possibly l)e upset by showing that a larger total of tiilented men 

 were born from mediocre than from able parents; that is only to proclaim Ihe 

 enormous prevalence of mediocrity I 



"The power of man over animal life, in producing whatever varieties of form he pleases, is 

 enormously great. It would seem as though the physical structure of future generations was 

 almost as plastic as clay, under the control of the breeder's will. It is my desire to show, more 

 pointedly than— s<i far as I am aware — has been attempted before, that mental qualities are 

 equiilly undi-r control. 



A remarkable mis-apprehension appears to be current as to the fact of the transmission of 

 talent by inheritance. It is commonly a-sserted that the children of eminent men art^ stupid; 

 that, where great power of intellect seems to have been inherited, it has descended through the 

 mother's side; and that one son commonly runs away with the tjilent of a whole family. My 

 own inquiries have led me to diametrically opposite conclusions. I find that talent is trans- 

 mitted by inheritance in a very remarkable degree; that the mother has by no means the 

 monopoly of its transmission ; and that whole families of persons of talent are more common 

 than those in which one member only is possessed of it. I justify my conclusions by the 

 statistics I now proceed to adduce, which I believe are amply sufficient to command conviction. 

 They arc only a part of much material I have collected, for a future volume on this subject'; 

 all of which points in the same direction.'' (p. 157.) 



Galton writing in 1864 points out that while we are perfectly certain of 

 the inheritance of qualities in the brute world and breeders have learnt 

 many empirical rules by experience, we have not advanced even to this 

 limited extent in the case of man. It appears to have been nobody's business 

 to study heredity in man, and the facts that oidy two generations are likely 

 to be born in the lifetime of any observer, and that each individual nirely 

 marries more than once, render the study harder in man than in the animals. 

 Still nobody hius doubted that the physical characters of man are equally 

 transmissible with those of brutes. Galton then notes that as far as he is 

 aware no one has bred animals for intelligence, but only for qualities which 

 are useful to man. He suggests that instead of breeding dogs for special 

 aptitudes and points we should try breeding them for intelligence : 



"It would be a most interesting occupation for a country philosopher to pick up the cleverest 

 dogs he could lie»ir of, and mute them together, generation after generation — breeding purely 

 for intellectual power, and disregarding shape, size and every other quality." (p. 158.) 



The reader would have to remember that the wise dog would not always 

 be most sympathetic to man; he might be a dexterous thief, a sad hypocrite 

 or show marked contempt for humanity. As no one has bred for intelligence 

 in animals, so no one has considered the possibility of breeding for intelli- 

 gence in man. Galton's aim is to show that it is feasible because talent and 

 character are inherited. His method is precisely that of his first great lx)ok 

 Hereditary Genius (1809), only therein it is more fully developed. He esti- 

 mates that of the men who receive a fair education about 1 in 3000 reach 



' Uf-redilary Genhis, 1869. 



