I 



^^^p Karbj Anthnnmlogical Reaearckes 113 



life by the liberal help of the cxIiibitionH nnd HcholarahipN which he hnH (jninH in hii «irly 

 yuulli : where niiiri-iu<,'f wiis licid in >i.m high honour on in an' ,>• pride 



of moo wiiH pncoiir(if{''<l ("^ courup I do not refer to the ri' inscnt 



(lny thnt f^ooN under thiit mime); where the weak could Knd a welionio and ii .' ite 



monoMtericH or sixterhoods, and liuitly, where the better sort of eini){ranta uiu. ..:..„.... .;um 

 other landfi were invited and welcomed, and their descendanta naturalined." (p. 362.) 



Such was the gospel of national welfare that Galton taught in 18C9 — 

 more llwm halfa century ago — then ns now indicating a funrlainental truth. 

 What progress have we made towarfls his ideal in the Hfty intervening 

 years ? Well, we have the educational ladder, and men can and actually do 

 to some extent mount it. But wealth, especially in these last years, ha« 

 grown a still more destructive factor of social stability, and the relatively 

 low fertility of the abler families has been emphasised, not reduced. Yet, 

 if the need for race-betterment has become greater, the recognition of that 

 need has undoubtedly become more widespread ; and that recognition we 

 owe, not a little, to the labours of Galton in the last ten years of liis life. 



The last chapter of Galton's work reads somewhat (puiintly now, partly 

 in the light of later researches by others, and partly l>ecause of the progress 

 Galton himself made later in hereditary theory. He adopts Darwin's theory 

 of Pangenesis which was clearly much exercising his mind at this time. He 

 speaks twice of the " gemmules "—i.e. the germs thrown off by each cell 

 and carrying its hereditary qualities — as "circulating in the blood" (pp. 363 

 and '.^(il) and even propagjiting there*. Darwin did not at this time correct 

 the error, if error it was, in Galton's interpretation, although he wrote very 

 enthusiastically about the book, (ialton illustrates what he considers would 

 be the results of the theory of Pangenesis by a series of rather (juaint 

 analogies in the midst of which we find his theory of stability — later more 

 fully developed — illustrated by the oscillations of a rockiug-stone stable 

 until violent movement throws it over into a new position of equilibrium. 

 In a footnote, pp. 371-2, we find Galton, on the basis of Pangenesis, feeling 

 his way towards the T.rfiw of Ancestral Heredity — namely that the influence 

 of an individual ancestor in the nth generation diminishes in geometrical 



? regression. He states that the treatment of heredity on the basis of 

 'angenesis 



"seems well within the grasp of analysis, but we want a collection of facttf, such as the 

 breeders of animals could well supply, to guide us for a few steps out of the region of pure 



hypothesis." (ftn. p. 372.) 



Herein lies the germ of the quantitative or statistical theory of heredity. 

 Again Galton points out that the artificial breeder of fish by taking milt 

 from the male and allowing it to fall on the ovunj deposited by the female 

 can produce a new individual life, and that the characteristics of this 

 individual are largely under his control, if he has studied the parents. But 



' "Mr Darwin maint«ins, in the theory of Pangenesis, that the geminules of innumerable 

 qualities, derived from ancestral source.s, circulate in the blood, and propagate themaalvn, 

 generation after generation, still in the sUte of gemmules, but fail in developing theinaelvet 

 into cells; because other antagonistic gemmules are prei>otent and ovenwaster them, in the 

 struggle for poiut-s of attachment, etc."' (p. 307.) 



p u II >• 



