I 



Kttrlij AnHirojtuluyical Ktseardw)< ion 



"Tlie imii-iiis im- imlurally gifU-tl with hi^li moral charmotera conilmifu wmi n 

 diiipoMition, hut tht^M^ puc'iilinrilipH arc in no way corrnlaUxl. It iiiuiit, themfonj, i<i 

 that till! chilli will inherit the (iiir iind not tlip other. If his heii' ' ' a jjitta 



without the jjrcat instahility, ho will not feel tho need of exti > , great 



inHtubility without morality, he will Im) very likely to disgrace hiM uuniu." (p. M'l.) 



As T have said it is a very siibtle hypotliesis and to lx> convinced of its 

 adequacy one would nt^ed to examine the facts of the instability with atiitisti- 

 cal ctitegories. Galton had read more than 200 lives of Divines, which is 

 immensely more than his biographer can lay claim to, and Galton had a very 

 shrewd appreciation of character. Still he has not graded his Divines by 

 instability of disposition and compared his graduation with that of other 

 groups in the community, and until that is done his suggestion must remain 

 hypothetical. 



But there is a far more valuable idea at the root of the matter than its 

 application to Divines, and that is where the subtlety arises. We are ac- 

 customed to speak of the (juality or faculty of an individual for a given 

 characteristic and measure it quantitatively if we can on a single occasion, 

 or by a given test. We speak of a man's intellectual power and consider it 

 as exhibited in his actions. But in all his actions he does not necessarily 

 e.\hibit the same degree of wisdom ; his intelligence fluctuates alx)ut a mean, 

 and if we examine a man's life as a whole, it is this mean intelligence that 

 we roughly appreciate. The same applies to all psychical characters, and 

 indeed to many physical. Now Galton asserts that two individuals who 

 have the same mean character will or may have widely different fluctuations 

 from the mean. I tliink no man who has to deal with sttidents or measure 

 them anthropometrically would disj)ute this view. Pereonal equations fluctu- 

 ate round an average and the intensity of the fluctuation or the stability of 

 judgment varies from individual to individual. So far so good, but now 

 comes Galton's subtle suggestion. It is that the magnitude of a character 

 and its stability are independent units and may be inlierited independently. 

 As far as I am aware no attempt has been made to con-elate the magnitude 

 and the stability of any characters, psychical or j)hysical, still less to test 

 their independence in heredity. It should not be a hard piece of investiga- 

 tion and might lead to very valuable results, especially in economic breeding. 

 It is peculiar to Galton's suggestions that they lead one so far afleld. One 

 pjisses almost unconsciously from the moral character of Divines to problems 

 of root-growing and cattle-breeding'! 



Of the chapter on 'Senior Classics' there is little to be said; it marks 

 the grip of our Alma Mater, no less powerful on Galton, than on less con- 

 siderable sons. The final chapters on 'Oarsmen' and 'Wrestlers' show that 

 Galton gave rather a wide meaning to the term 'geniu.s.' The material is 

 interesting for two reasons. The inquiry for it brought Galton, the descendant 

 of Quakers, into touch with that fine old Friend, Dr Kobert Spence Watson, 



' The seed from two turnip plants gives daughter-plants, .say, of the same av«rag« weight, 

 but in one case the fluctuations from the mean are large and in the other small. The st«ble crop 

 would probably be more valuable. Is this stability an indei>endent uniti 



