102 Life and Letters of Frauci'n Gaftnn 



"I therefore see no reason to believe that the Divines are an exceptionally favoured race 

 in any reepect; but rather, that they are less fortunate tlmn other men." (p. 274.) 



Gallon's .statistical table indicates that the influence of the female line 

 has an unusually large effect in qualifying a man for eminence in the religious 

 world. 



"The only other group in which the influence of the fenmle line is even conijMiralilo in its 

 nia^itude is that of scientiKc men; and I believe the reasons laid down when speaking of them 

 will apply, mulaii* inHtaitdis, to the Divines. It requires unusual qualitications and some of 

 theui of a feminine oust, tu become a leading theologian. A man must not only have appropriate 

 abilities, and zeal, and power of work, but the pustulate.s »f the cn'ed that he professes must 

 be BO 6rndy ingrained into his mind, as to be the equivalents of axioms. The diversities of 

 creeds held by earnest, good and conscientious men, show to a candid UK>ker-on, that there can 

 be no certainty as to any point on which many of such men think ditVerently '. But a. divine 

 must not accept this view; he must be convinced of the absolute security of the groundwork 

 of his peculiar faith, — a blind conviction which can best be obtained through maternal teachings 

 in the years of childhood." (p. 1276.) 



The chapter concludes with a discussion which, whether it be correct or 

 incorrect, is certainly subtle, of the relative views of the pious man and the 

 sceptic. The contented sceptic having no faith in an external power tends 

 to have confidence in himself and is therefore more stable. 



"The sceptic, equally with the religious man, would feel disgust and shame at his miserable 

 weakness in having done yesterday, in the heat of some impulse, things which to-day, in his 

 calm moments, he disapproves. He is sensible that if another person had done the same thing, 

 he would have shunneil him; so he similarly shuns the contemplation of his own self. He feels 

 he has done that which makes him unworthy of the society of pure-minde<l men; tiiat he is u 

 disguised pariah, who would deserve to be driven out with indignation, if his recent acts and 

 resl character were suddenly di.sclosed. The Christian feels all this and scmiething n\orc. He 

 feeln he has committ^nl his faults in the full .sight of a pure God; that he acts ungnitefully and 

 cruelly to a Being full of love and compassion, who died for sins like tho«e he has just committed. 

 Tliese considerations add great poignancy to the sense of sin 



The result of all these considerations is to show that the chief peculiarity in the moral nature 

 of the pious man is it-s conscious instability. He is liable to extremes — now swinging forward 

 into regions of enthusiasm, adoration and self-sacrifice; now backwards into those of sensuality 

 and selfishness. Very devout people are apt to call themselves the most miserable of sinners, and 

 I think they must be taken to a considerable extent at their woiti. It would appear that their 

 dis|)osition is to sin more frequently and to repent more fervently than those whose constitutions 

 are stoical, and therefore of a more symmetrical and orderly character. The amplitude of the 

 moral oscillations of religious men is greater than that of others whose average moral position 

 is the same." (pp. 280-2.) 



On this hypothesis Galton explains the apparent anomaly why children 

 of extremely pious parents occasionally turn out very badly. 



' The agnostic standpoint has rarely been lietter put ; yet while Spencer, Huxley and Clifford 

 have been acknowledged as protagonists in the mid-Victorian contest of science and theology, 

 Galton 8 attitude, in many itjspects more logical, and which caused much opprobrium at the 

 time, has been largely forgotten or overlooked. And yet Galton 's view of n-ligion iti 1869 was 

 that of the Oalton of 1894 and of 1907. He thought that a religion required no ultra-rational 

 sanctions for conduct, and that a passionate aspiration to improve the heritable powers of man 

 would suffice as the basis of a national religion, when the old religious notions and so<:ial practices 

 had avowedly failed. See "llie Part of lleligion in Human Evolution," National Revieii; 1894, 

 pp. 755 «< leq. 



