546 Life and Letters of Francis Gallon 



Society, I shall apply for it to the Secretary. We take the highest interest in your eminent And 

 important Eugenics, which is so closely connected with the subject of our Archiv, and shall keep 

 our readers acquainted with the further development of your ideas. That you will belong to 

 our readers is, of course, a great satisfaction for us. We hope that an article in the now appearing 

 number, "Die Familie Zero," the history of a family with its degenerating and regenerating 

 branches, will be of interest for you. From your standpoint you perhaps take also some interest 

 in a little book, which I published ten years ago and which I allow myself to send you with 

 the same mail. I started from an English use of the word "race" and tried to investigate the 

 conditions of preserving and developing a race — race-hygiene ("Rassen-Hygiene"). Afterwards, 

 in the first introducing article of our Archiv, I tried to sharpen the meaning of the word "race," 

 so as to make it suitable for the theoretical and practical needs of a man, who will seize the 

 real long (beyond the individuals) lasting unities of life, their conditions of preservation and 

 development. I should be very much indebted to you, the senior of the practical application of 

 the principles of evolution on man, if you would in an hour of leisure read my essays and write 

 me your cool judgment. My book is written mostly in a small town, where I practised as 

 physician, absent from a good library and therefore without much knowledge of current litera- 

 ture. That, together with the haste, with which I was compelled by my editor to deliver my 

 paper to the press, may declare many omissions in respect of modern authors. 



Excuse, please, my bad English. I am sitting here at the sea without a dictionary, and 

 have to feed on that little English fat which I have by and by gathered on my German body 

 during my lifetime. Yours highly respectfully, Alfred Ploetz, M.D. 



To Sir Francis Galton, London. 



The Rectory, Ockham, Surrey. August 20, 1905. 

 Dearest Milly, I am so glad the French Humane Society have done their belated duty 

 to Guy, and I return the scrap of newspaper, which you will wish to keep. We came here on 

 Thursday in beautiful weather, and had our tea on the lawn in a selected place by a big trie. 

 But the bees began to buzz alarmingly; and well they might, for they had built a thriving hive 

 in the hollow tree, and were flying in and out of a hole therein as fast as they do in an ordinary 

 hive. No harm was done. We changed our place quickly enough. It is all green fields here, much 

 timbered, chiefly with oaks, and very English. We are three or four miles from the Downs near 

 Guildford, and go to-morrow afternoon to tea at a friend's house on the top of them — Sir H. 

 Roscoe, the chemist's — 600 feet above the sea; this is a not uncommon height hereabouts. Our 

 "landlord," the clergyman, is our guest for last night and to-night for his Sunday duty. His 

 wife, Mrs Ady, is a well-known writer, chiefly on Italian subjects. The book that first gave her 

 her reputation is well worth reading, if you care about our Charles II and his sister "Madame" 

 (the title of the book), who married the brother of Louis XIV, and did a world of sisterly good *. 

 She had all the grace and not the faults of a Stuart. She died young, immensely regretted in 

 France. What an adventurous drive, both for you and Patrick t, and then the sad Princetown. 

 Why don't they use false webbed soles for swimming? They ought to get through the water 

 much faster if they did. A neat patented design might bring in lots of money, if brought well 

 out, just before the bathing season. George Darwin's Presidential Address at Cape Town (the 

 first part) is first-rate. I am most curious to read the second part which will be delivered at your 

 favourite Johannesburg. I suppose, as time goes on, that place will purify itself as the American 

 gold-digging camps did. "Honesty, boys, is the best policy; / tried them baith." Will the 

 Japanese send missionaries to Exeter Hall? Their reception would be amusing to a cynic. My 

 Lady Secretary begins work to-morrow. Ever affectionately, B'rancis Galton. 



The Rectory, Ockham, Surrey. August 26, 1905. 

 Dearest Milly, Don't regard this magnificent address stamp. (That of the Royal Institution 

 of Great Britain.) It is only that I am up in London to-day and am writing here. It is a quiet 



* I have retained this paragraph, although it is repeated in the following letter. This is the 

 first occasion on which I have come across a repetition in letters to the same person, a sure sign 

 that Galton, strong as he remained mentally to the end, was still liable to one at least of the 

 failings of old age — he was now 83. 



t A much treasured horse of Mrs Lethbridge. 





