258 Lift' ami Letters of Francis Galfou 



Terror. Galton asserts, is early learnt and he refers to the manner in 

 which gregarious aiiiiiials learn it from each other. In man, he mentions 

 the inculcation in medieval times by preachers and artists of a belief in the 

 horrible torments of the damned, and suggests that as torture was {M'actised 

 in the judicial proceedings of those days and was considered an appropriate 

 attribute of the highest authority, so there appeared no inconsistency in a 

 supremely powerful ruler, however beneficent, making the freest use of it. 

 Aversion, like terror, is easily taught, and Galton points to the ideas con- 

 cerning clean and unclean of Jews and Mussulmans. He even notes that his 

 sojourn in the East during a very receptive stage of his life (see our Vol. I, 

 Chap, vi) had impressed upon him the nobler aspects of Mussulman civilisa- 

 tion (see Vol. I, p. 207 and ii, p. 28), and that he then adopted .some of their 

 aversions, even 40 years later looking upon his left hand us unclean (p. 216). 



Whatever present-day readers may feel as to the power of nurture in 

 implanting dogmatic belief, or in creating terrors and aversions in the mind 

 of the child which it is not able thereafter to cast off, there is no doubt that 

 the theological readere of 1883 were vastly incensed by Galton's book and 

 gave expression to it in a series of hostile criticisms. 



Galton's final answer' to the problem of the relative strengths of Nurture 

 and Nature is based, as we have indicated elsewhere (pp. 126-29), on the 

 "History of Twins." This subject occupies pp. 216-43 of his treatise, but 

 it is unnecessary to repeat its conclusions here. He finishes his section by refer- 

 ence to the small effect that nurture has on the nature of the young cuckoo. 



Then follows a reproduction of the memoir of 1 865 on the Doniestication 

 of Animals (see our pp. 70-72). Galton claims that the facts cited show 

 the small power of nurture against adverse natural tendencies. By this he 

 means that every wild animal has practically had its chance of being 

 domesticated, but that imrture has in the great bulk of cases failed to 

 achieve domestication. Those who fail, sometimes only in one small particulai", 

 are destined to perpetual wildness so long as their race continues. "As 

 civilisation extends they are doomed to be gradually destroyed off the face of 

 the earth as useless consumers of cultivated produce." Galton infers that 

 because very slight diflferences may make domestication impossible in related 

 species, so very slight differences in the natural disjwsitions of human races 

 may either lead them irresistibly to a certain career or make tliat career 

 impossible (p. 271). Galton's next section is entitled: Possibilities of 

 Theocratic Intervention and here again he commits the unpardonable of- 

 fence of trespassing fearle.s.sly upon the territory of tliose with whom he is 

 at issue (see our p. 249); I fear this practice is luther the rule in the case of 

 warfare, which is not unusually carried even into the enemy's camp. Be 

 this as it may, Galton replies to the criticism tliat it is idle to compare the 

 intensities of nature and nurture, because these may not be the only in- 

 fluences at work. There is the possibility of theocratic interference either 

 on the Deity's own initiative or as a response to prayer. Galton endeavours 



' "There ih no escape from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nurture 

 when the difTerences of nurture do not exceed those ooninionly found among persona of the same 

 rank of society and in the xunie country." (p. '.'41.) 



