Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Gallon's Life 235 



scientific and the practical standpoint possible ; to fill up by research the 

 gaps in our ignorance and make every stepping-stone safe and secure. He 

 would be content if his lecture justified men " in following every path in a 

 resolute and hopeful spirit that seems to lead towards that end." And he 

 concludes : 



" The magnitude of the inquiry is enormous, but its object is one of the highest man can 

 accomplish.... We cannot doubt the existence of a great power ready to hand and capable of 

 being directed with vast benefit as soon as we shall have learned to understand and apply it. To 

 no nation is a high human breed more necessary than to our own, for we plant our stock all 

 over the world and lay the foundation of the dispositions and capacities of future millions 

 of the human race." (p. 538.) 



Thus Galton concludes the second Huxley Lecture of the Anthropological 

 Institute; it is possibly the only one of the series which is destined to live, 

 for it founded a new science, which in truth carried with it the germs 

 of a great future social movement. But the seed fell on barren soil, it found 

 no echo in the researches of British anthropologists, and the lecture, perhaps 

 the most weighty paper their Institute had heard, was never fully published 

 in their Journal. It attracted more attention and bore ampler fruit in 

 America than in this country. 



Nothing daunted Galton determined to appeal to a wider public and 

 another class of mind. From now on he made it his chief purpose to 

 spend his remaining years and energies in teaching the public that they 

 had to take Eugenics as seriously as any other branch of science with 

 practical applications. 



It must not be supposed, however, that Galton's devotion of his remaining 

 years to Eugenics cut him off entirely from other interests and from his 

 habitual helpfulness to other allied causes. I find that the letters interchanged 

 between us during the years 1900 to 1902 turn largely on the foundation of 

 Biometrika, and it is pleasing to recall the sympathy expressed and the help 

 which the Master's letters in those days of stress were to Weldon and myself, 

 his disciples. Unfortunately it is not possible to understand the setting of 

 Galton's letters or the frank and generous relationship between the older man 

 and his lieutenants without publishing certain letters of the latter, which 

 maintain the thread of the narrative. My own correspondence with 

 Francis Galton is scattered over nineteen years, and only small portions of 

 it can be published in this chapter. I shall select here a portion from the 

 correspondence for the years 1900-1902, which, we must remember, were 

 marked for Galton by (i) the foundation of Biometrika, (ii) the delivery of the 

 Huxley Lecture, (hi) the award of the Darwin Medal, and (iv) the election to 

 an Honorary Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. 



The following letters bearing on these points may first be cited as throwing 

 light on parts of that correspondence : 



Inmsfail, Hills Road, Cambridge. 24 June 1901. 

 My dear Mr Galton, I have been commissioned by the Council of the Anthropological 

 Institute to ask whether you would do us the honour to deliver the Huxley Lecture this autumn 

 or early winter, and at the same time to receive the Huxley Medal. 



30—2 



