I 



Earhj Aut/iropolofficul Itrxfarcliex 87 



from Frank Buckland, to whom, I think, Galton must have sent an advanced 

 copy of his piipor, for Tiurkland says that lie cannot thank Galton wifticiently 

 for the copy of MncmiUan's Mdynzine. 



"Your theory is most fxi'ollt'tit. and I shall endeavour to collect fact* for vmi with a view 

 its elucidation." 



And sonic facts IJiickluiid does t(ive, especially with regartl to hi« experi- 

 ence of soldiers, but they are scarcely scientific observations. One point may 

 be noted, because it carries us back into the age in which Galton was working. 



"I have heard," Hucklnnd writes, "that when a fino-loolcing Englixhinan travelii in the 

 S»nithern States the slaveowners offer him the Ijcst-lookiiig girls, as n cn»w bt'twccn a tall 

 strong iMiglishnian anil a fine nuulo Black girl produces a good useful slave worth money." 



The son of the Dean makes no comment, however, on the originality and 

 heterodoxy of Gallon's standpoint; it is probable that he had not yet sft-ii 

 the second half of the paper'. While Galton always dated his letters fully. 

 Darwin rarely, if ever, did ; and it has taken a good deal of consideration 

 and labour to pljice these letters in approximate order. I cannot, however, 

 hnd out that Galton sent a copy of this paper to Uarwin, although he sent 

 tmost of his publications. It would, indeed, be of interest to have seen 

 r)ar\vin's connnents upon it, if he made any. What Galton himself wrote in 

 iyU8 is indeed the best general comment : 



"I published my views as long ago as 186.'), in two articles written in Macmillnn't Miujasine 

 while preparing materials for my book, Hfredilaiij GeniiiK. But I did not then realise, an now, 

 the powerful intluenee of Small Causes upon statistical results. I was t*X) niuch dispose<l to 

 think of marriage under some regulation, and not enough of the effects of self-interest and of 

 social and religious sentiment. Popular feeling was not then ri|ie to accept even the elementary 

 truths of hereditary tjilent and character, upon which the |)Ossibility of Race Improvement 

 depend.s. Still less was it prepired to consider dispossicmately any propo-sals for practical 

 action. So I laid the subject wholly to one side for many ywirs. Now I see my way U-tter, and 

 an appreciative audience is at last to lie hiwl, though it be small'." 



(Jalton laid it aside as propagantla, but a.s I have said it is the key to 

 nearly the whole of his work lor twenty years. 



B. IlKRKUITARY GENIUS, 1869 (Second Edn. 1892) 



We now turn to the first step Galton took in the scientific demonstration 

 of his creed — -the study of the heredity of the mental and moral diameters as 

 a basis for Race Improvement. It was the first of four fundamental treatises 

 in whole or great part devoted to the inheritance of the mentnl aptitudes in 

 man. The other three are: English Men of Science, their Nature and Xur- 

 tvre, 1874; Human Faculty, 1883 and Natural Inheritance, 1889, and round 

 these four greater works a whole swarm of memoirs and minor researches 

 group themselves like flotillas of destroyers about a battle-fleet. A bio- 



' Of some intei-est for the history of journalism is Buckland's statement that "in order 

 to give the public numerous facta connected with Natural History I propose to start a new 

 paper of my own to he. cidleil Tlie Land and the Water." 



* Memories, p. 310. 



