868 Life nml Letters of Franri^ Gallon 



truthful which at once meets all of us when we attempt to deal with the 

 hertnlity of nathologiciil conditions. In the humbler classes of society, who 

 form the bulk of hospital patients, there is sometimes almost a pride in the 

 ]x>ssession of malformations and of pathological conditions. Many of the 

 women are only too ready to talk about them, and to exhibit any children who 

 may possess them. It is possibly the great interest which they observe is 

 excited among medical men by pathological states, which leads them to be 

 pleased at being noteworthy even for a deformity'. Unfortunately the family 

 records and traditions in hospitjil cases are often woefully scanty. Thegreat- 

 grand-parents are rarely to be traced, and only too often little if anything is 

 known of the families of uncles or aunts. On the other hand, when we turn to 

 social classes where the knowledge of ancestry and collaterals is considerable, 

 we are too often met by an indignant refusal to give information, even if it be 

 needed for scientific purposes. No retreat for the insane or sanatorium for 

 the tubetculous designed for patients of middle or upper class status is able 

 to provide adecjuate material for heredity. The inquirer is solemnly informed 

 that the grandfather died of inflammation following a cliill, that the sister 

 pined away after the death of her fianc6, or that the father was at times 

 eccentric, the aunt had attacks of the nerves, or the cousin brain-fever due to 

 overwork. It does not profit to give way to discouragement, or feel sore 

 before rebuffs, if you want to study human heredity. The only resource is to 

 try and educate the so-called educated classes and produce if possible a more 

 reasonable attitude towards hereditary matters amongst tjiem. Galton 

 achieved much in this direction and if it is still difficult to make rapid 

 progress, it is certainly easier than it was before he started his campaign 

 against the folly, not to say crime, which would screen family history not only 

 from the future wife, but from adult children. Galton writes on this second 

 point in 1902 with the sagacity of old age; he has learnt that to brand such 

 action as "ignoble cowardice'" may be absolute truth, but it will hardly 

 obtain what we need from the cowards. He says: 



"It is too much to expect that even the most scrupulously kept records will be written 

 throughout with perfect veracity. Healthy minded persons are seldom dispased to lay themselves 

 whollybare in written words. There will be omissions in every Album, sometimes of matters of fuel 

 and at other times of the real inwardness of events, that nrv, of high importance to the right 

 understanding of a life-history. TTie writer of the Album will mentally supply the omissions 

 and interpret the misleading euphemisms when he refers to its pages; other persons who rend 

 his reconls must Ije prepared for their existence. Thus in matters of disejisc, an unsurmouutable 

 prejudice exists in many sensitive p«'r8oiis against ascribing cancer and insanity to their ancestors 

 in direct terms. They shrink from the thought of recording here<litary possibilities that might 

 destroy the peace of mind of their (lescendants, and perhaps work their own fulfilment. The duty 

 of parento to be truthful histographers seems overborne by what they consider to lie a still more 

 pressing duty to their children. It is almost useless to attempt to calm hypersensitive feelings by 

 {KMiiting to the fact that healthful tendencies are just as heritable as morbid ones, and that every 

 child is sure to be endowed with both. So I will confine myself to the mention of an instructive 



' The psychology of these cases is similar to that of many persons, who being connected 

 with some appalling criminal trial seem pleasiMl with the momentary notoriety which carricK their 

 portraita into the cheap illustrated daily jiapers, possibly the one chance of publicity in their 

 «▼••■ I am by no means certain that it is not the same human frailty, under a thin covering of 

 veneer, which catisea the bride of another class to send her photograph to the 'society' papers. 



