CoiTexpoiiflrnci- irlth A/p/ionm' ih Camlolli- 145 



It is not possible to say now what form De CandoUe's I/intoiif des 

 Sciences et des Savants would have taken, had he not seen Galton's chapter 

 on men of science in the Hereditary (ienins, but I doubt wlu-ther I)e Can- 

 dolle WDuld iiave empha«is»>d, even as much jvs he did, the hereditary factor 

 as a "pre-etKcient of eminent men'." At any rate only crass ignorance could 

 allow a man to do what a German does, namely speak of l)e Candoile as 

 the pioneer and Ualton as a later, but indej)endent, worker' I When Galton 

 started his investigation of Kmjlish Men of Science, it really was on very 

 different lines to I)e Candoile; the latter tcnik as his field the foreign members 

 of scientific academies and sought what facts he could tuscertain al)out them. 

 Galton issued a questionnaire to the Fellows of the Royal Society, and lie did 

 this because he had studied De CandoUe's work, 



"finding in it many new ideas and much confirmation of my own opimoiiH; also not a little 

 criticism (supportwl, as I conceive, hy very imperfect bioj;raphical evidence) of my puldished 

 views on heredity. I thou;;ht it Ix'st to test the valuta of this dissent at once, by limiting my 

 first publication to the same field as that on which M. de Candoile had worked — namely to the 

 history of men of science, and to investigate their sociologj' from wholly new, ample, and trust- 

 worthy materials." (Preface, p. vi.) 



Galton had been leisurely working on an extended investigation as regards 

 men of ability of all descriptions, to supplement his Hereditary Genius, when 

 De Candoile s work appeared, and it was the latter's criticism of Galton's 

 prior work that produced Entj/ish Men of Science', a book which Galton 

 held justified the utmost claims lie had ever made for the recognition of the 

 importance of hereditary influence. Galton's work was thus a defence of 

 his own pioneer writings, and cannot possibly l)e regarded by any careful 

 historian jis a later and mdependent product in De CandoUe's original field. 



As a matter of fact the influence w;is essentially the other way roinid. 

 In the 1873 first edition the title of De CandoUe's book is: Histoire des 

 Sciences et des Savants depuis deux siecles, with the additional words : " Suivie 

 d'autres Etudes sur des sujets scientifiques en particulier srR l.v selection 

 DANS l'esi'kck UUMAINK." But iu the edition of 1885 the additional words are 

 changed to "Pr^cedee et suivie d'autres Etudes sur des sujets scientifiques, 

 en particulier sur L' HPUiflDITf: ET LA SfJLECTIOX. pans l'f^^pkce 

 nuMAiNE," the words "L'lleredite et la Selection" now standing out in the 

 manner of a sub-title. In fact, while De Candoile minimi.sed the effect of 

 heredity in his first edition, he had not, as (Jalton very properly observes, 



' A term introduced by Galton to denote anything "which has gone to the making of": see 

 Etujlish Men of Science, Preface, p. vi 



■' Ostwald in the preface to his German edition of De Candollo's book writes: " Um das was 

 Alphouse de Candoile niit so grossom Ei-folge lx>gonnen hatte und was seitdem namentlich von 

 Francis Galton in England unabhiingig geleistet worden ist u.aw." Preface, S. vi, Edition 

 1911. If Ostwald hatl known the relative dates of Hereditary Grtiins and the Histoire des 

 Sciences, he could hardly have said 'seitdem'; if he had opene<l A'ny/wA Men of Science he 

 surely would have avoided the woixl 'unabhiingig.' If "the Gennans in Greek, are sadly to 

 seek," then in history their searchings ait- deserving of birchingsl 



' As early as Feb. 27, 1874 Galton gave a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution 

 "On Men of Science, their Nature and their Nurture." 



V 11 II 19 



