294 



MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



had a goodly response, and the names of the prize- 

 winners were duly published in the newspapers. I 

 was much indebted, when devising the programme 

 and other prefatory details, both to Professor Allman 

 (1812-1898), the biologist, and to my old friend at 

 King's College, Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Simon. The 

 material afforded by the answers proved of considerable 

 importance, and formed the basis of much of my future 

 work. I had it extracted in a statistical form, in con- 

 siderable detail, which was of much value to Professor 

 Karl Pearson at the outset of his inquiries, before 

 he had been able to collect better and much more 

 numerous data of his own. It will be convenient to 

 defer speaking of the results of all this until the last 

 chapter. 



I had long tried to gain some insight into the 

 relative powers of Nature and Nurture, in order that 

 due allowance might be made for Environment, neither 

 too much nor too little, but without finding an ade- 

 quate method of obtaining it. At length it occurred 

 to me that the after-history of those twins who had 

 been closely alike as children, and were afterwards 

 parted, or who had been originally unlike and after- 

 wards reared together, would supply much of what 

 was wanted. So I inquired in all directions for ap- 

 propriate cases, and at length obtained a fair supply, 

 on which an article in Fr a zer s Magazine, Nov. I875, 1 

 was written. The evidence was overwhelming that 

 the power of Nature was far stronger than that of 



1 It was revised and added to in the Journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute, 1875 [43], and then incorporated into Human Faculty, 1883 

 (which is now republished in an exceedingly cheap form in " Everyman's 

 Library "). 



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