106 



Life niul Lettrrx tnj' Fruiii!.^ CulUni 

 Vari'idiujv 



This result is well within Galton's limits if we suppose the nunilnT ol' sons 

 born to an eminent father to average 18. With more sons, we could afford to 

 give somewhat less credit to the mothere or increase the standard of emi- 

 nence in the fathers, or take partly lx)th these steps. I believe that the points 

 just referred to: ( 1 ) under-estmiate of the number of sons of men of eminence ; 

 (2) over-estimate of the rarity of the ability of many men, which flowed from 

 Galton's intense admiration for all forms of intellectual power and all grades of 

 originality; and (3) due appreciation of the extent to which sissortative mating, 

 or marriage within the caste, alr«idy exists among men of ability, suffice to 

 bring the statistical results of Galton's book into line with more recent work. 

 Let it be rememljered that what Galton's researches really show is not that 

 talent is under-inherited, but, if his treatment were correct, that it is markedly 

 over-inherited as compared with other characters we know of. Genius must 

 in that case be a sport and inherited in a peculiar and intense fashion. 

 Galton felt considerable doubts as to his data of the number of relatives of 

 a man (pp. 318-19), and many years later the Biometric Laboratory provided 

 him with more ample material. He recognised (3), but at that time was not 

 able adequately to measure its effect. While as to (2) I know from personal 

 experience that he was apt to exaggerate the intellectual ability of men, who 

 by a certain brilliancy of expression and adequate self-assertion, obtained 

 temporary notoriety'. 



Galton's next chapter on "The Comparative Worth of Different Races" 

 is, at the same time, more sketchy and more suggestive than the last. He 

 compares the intellectual ability of various races; he places a difference of 

 three grades between Anglo-Saxon and Negro, one being due to relative 

 demerits of native education and two to natural ability. He j)uts the Aus- 

 tralian native one grade below the African negro, and North of^ England and 

 Lowland Scottish a fraction of a grade above the ordinary English. 



' I do not mean that Galton could not discriminate a charlatan, but where there was 

 »omf orij^itiality, ho wan apt to pxaggerate it into nil originality ; it seenuHl a natural conwH|uence 

 of his own tiiudeiity, of his gi^niulity and alxive all of tlie wt-iglit he laid on any originality. 



