262 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



th»t cover more viiru'tics than (1) very heavy, (2) rather heavy, (3) moderate, (1) rather light, 

 (5) very light'. I once took ooiisiderahle pnins in the Htlein|)t to dnvw up verlwl sciiles of 

 more than tive orders of iim^'nitude, usin;j those expressions only that any cultivatod jxTson 

 would understand in the saine i>enst>; but I did not succeed. A series that satistietl one person 

 waa not interpreted in the same sense by another." (p. 33. ) 



The general aim of" tli is section of (Jal ton's work is to sliow that the range 

 of sense di.scriniination in man is wide, that cU'licate (liseriuiination is an 

 attribute of a high race, and that it is not, as some have supposetl, necessarily 

 associated with nervous irritahility. 



The author next emphiusi.ses the imjx)rtance of family anthropometric 

 roisters, a matter to which we shall shortly return. We may note his 

 concluding remarks : 



"The investigation of human eugenics — that is, of the conditions under which men of a 

 high tyjie are producid — is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, 

 both medical and general, extending over three or four generations. There is no sucii difficulty 

 in investigating niiinial eugenics, because th(! generations of horses, cattle, dogs etc. arc brief, 

 and the breeder of any such stock lives long enough to aci|uire a large amount of ex|>i-rience 

 from his own personal oli.si'rvation. A man, however, can rarely Ik> familiar with more tlian 

 two or three generations of his contemporaries liefore age has begun to clieck his powers; his 

 working experienct^ must therefore be chietly bastHi upon reconls. Believing, as 1 do, that 

 human eugenics will become recognistnl bt^fore long as a study of the highest prai-tical im- 

 portance, it seems to me that no time ought to be lost in encouraging and directing a habit of 

 compiling |)ersonal and family hi.stories. If the necessary materials l>e brought into exisUnice, 

 it will refjuire no more than zeal and pt!rsuasivene.ss on the part of the future investigator to 

 collect as large a store of then) as he may require." (pp. 44-5.) 



Then follows a discussion of statistical methods, in particular of the 

 "ogive curve" (see om* Chapter XII); it is followed by a study of character 

 (see our pp. 208-27 1), by a discussion of the criminal (see our pp. 229-231) 

 and the insane, and their heredity; and then we have the salient points of the 

 paper on gregarious and slavish instincts reproduced (see our pp. 72-74). 

 Galton next turns to the great variation in the visualising power of man and 

 summarises, and to some extent expands, the memoirs we have already dis- 

 cussed (see our pp. 236-45). He refers in more detail to blindfolded chess- 

 players, who play several games at once, and notes c-uses of orators mentally 

 reading manuscript in making speeches. 



"One statesman has assured me that a certain hesiUition in utt<'rance, which he has at 

 times, is due to his being phigued by the image of his manuscript speech with its original 

 erasures and corrections. He cannot lay the ghost, and he puzzles in trying to decipher it. 



Some few persons see mentally in print every word that is uttered; they attend to the 

 visual equivalent and not to the sound of the words, and they read them off usually as from a 

 long imaginary slip of fwper, such as is unwound from telegraphic instruments. The ex- 

 periences differ in detail as to size and kind of type, colour of paper, and so forth, but are 

 always the same in the same person." (p. 96.) 



Galton next deals at some length with the visualising power of uncivi- 

 lised races; he notes that Bu.shmen and Eskimo are an exception to the rule 



' Five categories are usually adequate for the statistician; he has unfortunately often to 

 content hims«!lf with three. But if seven are desirable then not unreasonable results may lie 

 oV>tain<Ml by such a system as (1) extn-mely heavy, (2) heavy, (3) mther heavy, (4) medium, 

 (."») rather light, (6) light, (7) extremely light, — provided personal equation is considered, 

 eliminated, or standardised. 



