1 1 4 Lift' and Lrthm of Fninritt (,'ol(on 



''«ll K^-iifratioii is pliysi<iliii;icAlly the saiiio, luul thon-forv the reflections ntiaud liy what has been 

 st*t4<d of tish are e«|ually applicable t<> the life of man." (p. 37^.) 



"Nature teonis with lat-ent life, which man has larjje powers of evoking under the forms 

 *nd to the extt-nt which lie desires. We must not permit ourselves U> consider each human or 

 other pers^niality as something supernaturaliy a<ided to the stock of nature, but rather as a 

 s^p^egation of what already existed, under a new sha)>e, and as a regular con8e<juence of 

 previous conditions. Neither must we l)c misled by the woiil 'individuality,' liecause it 

 apfHvirs fn>m many facta and arguments in this book that our jH>rsoniilities are not so inde- 

 pendent as otir seifconsciousne-ss loads us to l>elieve. We may look upon each individual as 

 ■omething not wholly detached from its parent source — as a wave that has Ikvu lifted and 

 8ha()ed by the normal c<inditions of an unknown, illimitable ocwin. There is di>cide<lly a soli- 

 darity as well as a se|>arat«ness in all human, and prolmbly in all lives whatsoever, 



It pointjs to the wmclusion that all life i.s single in it« es-sence, but various, ever varying and 

 interactive in its manifestation.s, and that men and all other animals are active workers and 

 sharers in a vastly more extende<l system of casmic action than any of oursehes, much less of 

 them, can possibly comprehend. It also .suggests that they may contriliute, more or less con- 

 sciously, to the manifestation of a far higher life than our own, somewhat as — I do not propose 

 to push the metAphor too far — the individual cells of one of the more complex animals con- 

 tribute to the manifestation of it* higher onler of personality." (p. 376.) 



This wonderful final passage of Galton's work foreshadows the doctrine 

 of the continuity of the germ-plasm, the one eternal, amid transitory 

 individual bearers of the life-giver. But it goes further, it reminds us that 

 on the theory of evolution all present forms of germ-plasm are ancestnilly 

 related, are all descended from a single primary form of plasma to which 

 we can give the name Life. This is the solidarity of all living forms which 

 Galton refers to, and which leads him to look upon the living Universe as 

 a pure theism — if indeed lie did not mean a pure pantheism. It needed the 

 imagination of a great scientist to give such a turn to the inspiration of the 

 poet: 



Was war' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse, 



Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse, 



Ihm ziemt's, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 



Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen, 



So dass, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist, 



Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst'. 



How many men have talked glibly of the continuity of the germ-phism 

 without realising the solidarity of all life which flows from it ! How few 

 residing CJalton's views on the ?r/i</i'o»s nature of eugenic belief have grasped 

 how closely his doctrine of race-betterment was associated with the pan- 

 theism, to which his view of the germ-plasm had led him. For Galton the 

 Deity was synonymous with Life in its entirety and he asked us to aid Life 

 struggling to fuller e.xpression by elevating the race of man. Georgians 

 may term this idea the sentimentality of a mid-Victorian ; but after all it 

 is less of a dogma than that of some of their number, who tell us that the 

 Deity is limited in his powers and ask us to come — in some unexplained 

 manner — to his assistance. 



Hereditary Genitis is one of the great books of the world, not so nuich 

 by what it j>rove8, as by what it suggests. Detailed proof wivs to come 

 afterwards, step by step. Its publicition formed the cetitral epoch of (Jalton's 

 life and nearly all his later work may be seen therein to take its origin. If 



 Goethe, GoU und Wdt. Ptoemioti. 



