Statutiral fnvcstigations 



foriiuxl who mot fruqiienlly iit my house, whore tho IkwIc wag nioHtly compomHl. But the result 

 did not at all satiHfy mysitlf, iioitlior do I think it gatiHtiwI tho othcm. It wok Um bulky and 

 illarraiigod. In fact it woh omphatically a ca«o of too many cookH. Fju;h had his own views, 

 and r boliove that any one of uh acting alone would have produced a Imtter balanced bcK)k than 

 wo (lid working togothor." 



Soon after tlie issue of" the fii*8t edition Dr Miiliorned died and none of* 

 tlie remaining medical members of the committee concerned liimself" much 

 further with the work. Accordinf^ly when Galton in 1902 was presst^l for a 

 second edition lie largely rearranged and rewrote it. Thus the second edition 

 and not the first really represents the book as Galton had originally planned 

 it nearly twenty years earlier. It alone will l)e considered here'. 



While the author in his LUroductory Remarks states that the Album may 

 he started at any age in life and if then filled in as far as records are available 

 will l)o of considerable interest, he notes that the Ixiok is especially suitable 

 as a present in readiness for infants expected to be born, or for very young 

 children. It should be handed over by the parent to the child only when the 

 latter is old enough to appreciate its importance, to take charge of it and to 

 continue the record for himself 



"The futurti of eacli man is mainly a direct consequence of the pa-st — of his own biological 

 hi8t<iry, and of those of his ancestors. It is therefore of high importance when planning for the 

 future to keep tho past under frequent review, all in its just proportion, and this is exactly 

 what this album is intended to help him to do." (p. 2.) 



Much of what Galton writes about filling in the details of the individual 

 in the Allmm need not detain us; it is more or less a development of the 

 information given in the Record of Family Facultiex. Ample space is lefl for 

 })hotographs in the standard positions and even for pictures of the homes and 

 for finger-prints. The actual scale of coloured wools is omitted in this edition, 

 although the heap of bits of variously coloured wools is still suggested as a 

 test for colourblindness. An appendix gives tests for keenness of vision. Two 

 paragraphs to illustrate the wise inferences that our sage of eighty could 

 draw from his experiences may be reproduced here. The first relates to 

 memory : 



"Memory alone is an imperfect and deceitful guide ; it preserves only a trifling part of the 

 events of early life, and that part far from correctly. The extreme vividness with which a few 

 childish incidents arc usually recalled gives a very cxaggerate<l view of the power of its grasp. 

 Anylxwly who attt^mpts to compile a sustained history of his early years will six>n be persuaded 

 of the truth of this remark, for he will surely become aware of huge gaps of time that he is 

 totwlly unable to give account of. Every autobiography that I have seen testifies to these 

 lapses of memory. Again when one happens to meet a friend not 8«>en since early life, and to 

 compare recollections, it is astonishing t*) find how ditferently the two memories have behaved. 

 Tho one man fails to recall a multitude of events that have strongly impre.s.sed the other. 

 Even as to those they alike remember as wholes, it will often occur that their memories disagree 

 in essential details. In fiu-t, the experience gained by such interviews is commonly humiliating 

 to both." (p. 2.) 



The second (lut)tution I shall make relates to veracity in recording the 

 nature of disease. Galton had come up against that hesitation to be literally 



' The second edition differs not only in quality but quantity, for instead of carrjring on the 

 record only to the seventy-fifth year, it continues it to tlie hundredth. Galton was himself 

 eighty when it was issued. 



