t'orrcMj/oiu/nirc iril/i ('/larlfH l)iiniiii 'JOl 



case of Piin^etiPHis, iincoiisciDUsly shackle the fn^e ilevelopnient of (ialton's 

 own idej»«. (ijiltoii would never have a(ltnittt^d such an a8j)ect of the friend- 

 ship. To lum Darwin was the man wlio freed him from superstition and 

 directed his hfe-work into new chainiels'; but nevertheless the onhmker 

 may note, what indivifhial actors cannot apprehend, for he like the dramatist 

 sees the play as a whole. Be this as it may, undouhtedly the year 1882 mai ki-d 

 an epoch iji Galton's career'. As Mre Gallon records, Darwin's death "cast 



' (iiilton did not oidy lu-knowlt'dgo this in llui nicniornble letu-r to I)urwin hinisi-lf in ISC'J 

 (.seo Vol. I, Piute II) l)ut most gracefully in the six-eoh he inrnle at the Royal Society dinner 

 after receiving the gold ine<lal in 1SM6. I will cito a portion of it: 



"The ethnological hs^h-cIh of geography now [IHGO] li<-gan to attract mo more than the 

 physical ones. It was alxiut this time that the fact dawne<l on scieutific men that the key to 

 the origin of society among civilised nations and to many of their unexplained customs was to 

 be found in the habit.s of contemporary barbarians. I can assure you, as a sptrcialist in heredity, 

 that I am not sjwaking without reason when T say that i|ualities which I seem to have inlierit«il 

 through two of my grand parent-s gradually yielded prcceilence to those that I certainly inheritfd 

 from tlie other two. Kecollwt, plea.se, that this nuxial is award(><l to me for 'statistical imjuirieH 

 into biological phenon\ena.' I can account fully Uith for the statistics and the biology. You 

 mu.st please allow me the pleasure of dis.secting myself. On my father's side, I know of many 

 most striking, .some truly comic, instances of statistical pi-oclivity. I have in my jK)8.scssi(m 

 numy pounds weight of ruletl memorandum l)ooks severally allotted to almost every conceivable 

 household purpo.se, which belonge<l to an agetl female relative who died years ago. I also 

 reckon at least five other remarkable instances of a love of tabulation within two degi-eea of 

 kinship of myself. Again, as regards biology, I am sure there is a .similarity between the form 

 of the bent of my mind an<l that of my mother's father, Dr Erasmus Darwin, The resemblance 

 chiefly lies in a strong disposition to generalist^ upon every-diiy matters that conmionly pa.ss 

 unnoticed. I have myself attempte<l son\o of the very in(|uiries to which he had drawn attention, 

 in complete unconsciousness that he hiul done so. It was owing to this hereditary bent of mind 

 that r was well prepared to assimilate the theories of Charles Darwin when thev first appeared 

 in his 'Origin of SjK-cies.' Few can have ls>en more profoundly influenccil than I was bv his 

 publications. They enlargetl the hori/on of my ideas. 1 drew from them the breath of a fuller 

 scieutitic life, and I owe more of my later scientific impulses to the influences of Charles Darwin 

 than I can easily express. I rai-ely approache<l his genial pi-esence without an almost over- 

 whelming sense of devotion and reverence, and I valued his encouragement and approbation 

 more, perhaps, than that of the whole world liesides. This is the simple outline of my scientific 

 history." (The Time», Dec. 1, 188(5.) 



^ (ialton's last tribute prolmbly to Darwin was paid at the- Darwin-Wallace celebration of 

 the Linneaii Society on July 1st, li)08. The present writer saw him to and from the meeting 

 and knew that he was feelitig unwell; his few words were a great etfort. After thanking the 

 President for his kind i-emarks, Oalton turned to the main point on which he felt our genera- 

 tion's gratitude to Darwin should \>c keenest — the fi*eeflom Darwin gave us fi-om theological 

 bt)ndage; "You have listentxl today to many sjK'akers and 1 have little new to say, little 

 indeed that would not be a refn-tition, but I may add that this occasion hits called forth vividly 

 my recollection of the feelings of gratitude that I had towards the originators of the then new 

 doctrine which burst the enthraldoin tif the intellect which the advocates of the argument from 

 design had woven i-ound us. It gave a sense of freedom to all the people who were thinking of 

 these matters, and that sense of freedom was very i-eal and very vivid at the time. If a future 

 Auguste Comte arises who makes a calendar in which the days are devotetl to tlie memory of 

 those who have been the beneficent intellects of mankind, I feel sure that this day, the 1st of 

 July, will not be the least brilliant." Th« Dartcin-Wailace Crl<bration...hy the Linifan 

 Society of Lotidon, 1 908, pp. 25-6. 



It is characteristic of Francis Galton that it wiws not the enormous influence of Darwin on 

 the biological sciences that he thought of in the first place, but the emancipation of the human 

 intellect from its centuries-old ntiolithic traditions — the common gain of the average man, only 

 indirectly alFected by the spread of scientific knowledge — that he wished to see emphasised. 



p II 2« 



