236 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



We would like in this way to emphasise our appreciation of the value of your researches, 

 which have placed biological data on a prime mathematical basis. You have been the pioneer 

 in the Mathematical School of Evolution, and Anthropology has benefitted enormously, not 

 only by your investigations, but by those which you have directly or indirectly instigated and 

 inspired. Who then is better fitted to discourse to us than a Pioneer Investigator in one 

 corner of that field of which in other departments Huxley was a brilliant exponent t 



We sincerely trust that you will add another self-denying good deed for the sake of 

 Anthropology, and will favour the Institute, and benefit our Science, by acceding to our 

 urgent request. Believe me, my dear Mr Galton, 



Yours most faithfully, Alfred C. Haddon. 



This letter shows a real appreciation of Galton's services to Anthropology, 

 hut, as I have indicated, his lecture found no response in the writings of 

 English anthropologists. 



In announcing the award of the Darwin Medal to Francis Galton on Dec. 1 , 

 1902, Sir William Huggins said it was conferred 



"for his numerous contributions to the exact study of heredity and variation contained in 

 Hereditary Genius, Natural In/ieritance and other writings. The work of Mr Galton has long 

 occupied a unique position in evolutionary studies. His treatise on Hereditary Genius (1869) 

 was not only what it claimed to be the first attempt to investigate the special subject of the 

 inheritance of human faculty in a statistical manner and to arrive at numerical results, but in 

 it exact methods were for the first time applied to the general problem of heredity on a com- 

 prehensive scale. It may safely be declared that no one living had contributed more definitely 

 to the progress of evolutionary study, whether by actual discovery or by the fruitful direction 

 of thought, than Mr Galton." 



And, now the letter which Francis Galton valued more than all ! It runs : 



Trinity College, Cambridge. Nov. 14, 1902. 



My dear Frank, Many happy duties have come to me in my life, but few happier than 

 that of now informing you, by the direction of our Council, that we have today elected you 

 an Honorary Fellow of the College under the provisions of our Statute XIX, as a "person 

 distinguished for literary and scientific merits." 



We are electing at the same time Mr Balfour, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Macnaghten 

 and Professor Maitland. Our other Honorary Fellows, since the deaths of Bishop Westcott 

 and Lord Acton, are Lord Rayleigh and Sir George Trevelyan. 



Need I say how it delights me to think that all your long and brilliant services in the 

 cause of many a science should again link you in the later years of your life with the College 

 to which, as I know, you have always been so loyal 1 



Believe me, very affectionately yours, H. Montagu Butler. 



Can you kindly let me know by Telegraph whether you accept ? I should like, if possible, 

 to announce the five Fellowships together. 



Since writing the above I have just seen the award of the Darwin Medal ! Very delightful. 



When a man is young, honours are a powerful incentive to further work, 

 and as the years go by they test the judgment of those who conferred them. 

 When a man is old — Galton was 80 years of age, and the wider world had 

 long pronounced its judgment— honours mean far less to him, and need little 

 exercise of judgment on the part of the givers*. There is a form of honour, 



* Putting aside membership of learned societies at home and abroad and the holding of 

 offices therein, I may note the following honours conferred on Galton : Gold Medal, Royal 

 Geographical Society, 1853; Silver Medal, French Geographical Society, 1854; Royal Medal 

 of Royal Society, 1886; Officier de lTnstruction publique de France, 1891; D.C.L. Oxford, 1894; 



