Correlation and Application of Statistics to Problems of Heredity 67 



Husband and Wife as great as that between cousins. I have placed in brackets 

 after the observed numbers those that would arise in each category if the 

 mating were purely random. It will be seen at once that the tendency for 

 like to marry like is increased at the expense of the unlike marriages. I fail 

 to understand how Galton interpreted his percentages ; naturally if like 

 marries like above the random allotment, there must be a reduction in the 

 marriages of unlike individuals, the random 42 °/ o of the latter being in fact 

 reduced to 36 7 . Thus he writes : 



"There is I think trustworthy evidence of the existence of some slight disinclination to marry 

 within the same caste, for signs of it appear in each of the three sets of families with which the 

 Table deals. The total result is that there are only 36 per cent, of such marriages observed, 

 whereas if there had been no disinclination but perfect indifference, the number would have 

 been raised to 42. The difference is small and the figures are few, but for the above reasons it 

 is not likely to be fallacious. I believe the facts to be, that highly artistic people keep pretty 

 much to themselves, but that the very much larger body of moderately artistic people do not. 

 A man of highly artistic temperament must look upon those who are deficient in it, as barbarians; 

 he would continually crave for a sympathy and response that such persons are incapable of giving. 

 On the other hand, every quiet unmusical man must shrink a little from the idea of wedding 

 himself to a grand piano in constant action, with its vocal and peculiar social accompaniments; 

 but he might anticipate great pleasure in having a wife of a moderately artistic temperament 

 who would give colour and variety to his prosaic life. On the other hand a sensitive and imagina- 

 tive wife would be conscious of needing the aid of a husband who had enough plain common 

 sense to restrain her too enthusiastic and frequently foolish projects*." (pp. 157-8.) 



I have cited this passage, because, although it endeavours to explain a 

 "slight disinclination to marry within the same caste," which Galton's data 

 rightly interpreted show no evidence for, it yet throws light on some of his 

 personal views of life. I can well picture what torture to him it would have 

 been to be wedded to "a grand piano in constant action." While always 

 exhibiting the best of old-fashioned courtesy to women, he had, when I first 

 knew him, little belief in their intellectual strength; just as he held, that 

 while women gifted with great physical strength existed, it was well for the 

 repose of the other sex that they were rare (see our Vol. II, pp. 374-376). I 

 think that later in life, when he came more in touch with academically trained 

 women, and saw what work they could do on his own lines, his views suffered 

 considerable modification. Again I am not content to pass without protest 

 the rather sweeping statement that sensitive and imaginative persons, 

 whether men or women, are apt to require restraining from "too enthusiastic 

 and frequently foolish projects"; it denies that such persons often combine 

 their sensitiveness and imagination with a rational power of control. It does 

 not seem to me that the three factors, reason, sensitiveness and imagination, 

 are incompatible, but that the success of truly great minds lies in the just 

 combination of the three. 



* Galton has written in pencil against this passage in his personal copy of National In- 

 heritance, that it must be corrected, and I have also found some printed lists of Errata, in which 

 the passage is stated to be incorrect. But none of the half-dozen copies I have examined of the 

 work contains this Errata slip, and thus it is desirable to draw the attention of possible readers 

 to a misinterpretation, which would certainly have been corrected in a second edition. 



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