626 



Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Some clue towards the value of a; is to be had by comparing the wages of picked workmen 

 with those of workmen generally. In mental work of all kinds the difference is very great, 

 whether we consider possible clerkships or the higher appointments. 



Occupation 

 picked 



Occupation 

 picked 



Galton' s Characterisation of Herbert Spencer. 

 Among Galton's papers I find the following : 



" Reminiscences of Herbert Spencer. Rough first draft of what I after- 

 wards sent to Mr Duncan*." 



Mr H. Spencer's magnificent intellect was associated with no small degree of oddity, 

 obstinacy and even perversity, difficult to rate in their due proportions. My knowledge 

 of him was chiefly due to a habit of spending an hour or two of the afternoon, during many 

 years, in the then smoking room of the Athenaeum Club, when quiet conversation was easy. 

 He was always interested in my various hobbies and though I did not always accept his 

 criticisms, I received great benefit from them. Let me say parenthetically that to me one of 

 the chief disadvantages of age lies in the diminishing number of friends who care for one's 

 work and fearlessly speak their views. In those long bygone times I could go into the Club 

 and talk with one man on this subject in which he was expert, and with another man on that ; 

 now it is all changed. Moreover, the relatively young are too diffident in freely pulling to 

 pieces the arguments of a much more elderly friend, so that much wholesome correction is lost 

 to him. Herbert Spencer had assuredly no diffidence in criticising others, though he was very 

 thin-skinned under the converse process. He hated fair argument, and wicked friends asserted, 

 not without grounds, that whenever he felt worsted he fingered his pulse and said abruptly, 

 " I must talk no more." The fact was that excitement really harmed him. He was far too 

 opinionated for candid argument. The following story is characteristic. Some years ago, when 

 I was actively engaged in meteorology, he said to me that we were all wrong in forecasting 

 weather through not taking preceding temperatures into sufficient account ; that the earth 

 became chilled by a long frost and its store of cold ought to be recognised, and conversely after 

 a spell of hot weather. He said he would write me a letter on the subject, which he did and 

 at length. My reply was to the effect that the influence in question was not wholly neglected, 

 that it was a vera causa, but far less important than that of change of wind, as shown by the 

 suddenness with which frosts and thaws often set in, and especially by the well-known effects 

 of the south or "fohn" wind on melting Alpine snows. He was clearly imperfectly acquainted 



* Mr David Duncan has published extracts from these Reminiscences in his Life and 

 Letters of Herbert Spencer, 1908. Whether Galton or he modified the extracts used I do not 

 know. As the Reminiscences stand they accord closely with Galton's opinions of Spencer, as 

 expressed to me in conversation. He certainly would not have agreed with Dr Duncan's view 

 that Spencer was "one of the greatest thinkers of this or any age" (Life and Letters, p. 477). 



