Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 253 



Galton gives an account of the Sandow competition in which the three best 

 specimens were selected out of some eighty of Sandow's pupils. Galton was 

 present when the trio was selected and thus states his impressions : 



"I did not think these best specimens of the British race to be ideally well-made men. 

 They did not bear comparison with Greek statues of Hercules and of other athletes, being 

 somewhat ill-proportioned and too heavily built. I must say that I was disappointed with 

 them from the aesthetic point of view, though in respect to muscular power they seemed 

 prodigies. Sandow afterwards exhibited himself in a pose that brought out his chest and arms 

 to full advantage, and in that statuesque position I placed him as far superior to all the 

 competitors." 



What Galton says about British physique and about the physical beauty 

 of our trunk and limbs is probably very true. We have recently seen the 

 foreigner our equal or even our superior at most of our national sports ; he 

 only needed the proper training to defeat us. Nor is the somewhat low 

 standard of physical beauty confined to trunk and limbs — anyone who makes 

 an extensive study of the English skull must be forced to the conclusion that 

 aesthetically at least it is not of a high type. The stock-breeder "looking 

 over the hedge" must conclude that these are not directions in which much 

 can easily be achieved. Yet he would affirm emphatically and 



" with justice that the whole of a race which was able to furnish the large supply which is 

 produced in Great Britain of men who are sound in body, capable in mind, energetic and of 

 high character, has the capacity (speaking as a rearer of stock) of being raised to at least the 

 same high level." 



This, Galton believes, could be attained by making use of both Nature and 

 Nurture. Of the former Galton holds that if a strong and intelligent public 

 opinion can ever be roused in favour of improving our racial breed, then there 

 are a number of small influences which even now operate under existing 

 sentiment and law and which are capable by co-operation and development 

 of producing great results. He admits, however, that we have yet much to 

 learn that lies well within the province of anthropology, before it would be 

 justifiable to attempt a crusade; otherwise grave mistakes will be made and 

 the movement will be discredited. 



" My attitude, which has usually been misrepresented, is to urge serious inquiry into specific 

 matters which still require investigation in the well-justified hope that a material improvement 

 in our British breed is not so Utopian an object as it may seem, but is quite feasible under the 

 conditions just named. But whatever agencies may be brought to bear on the improvement 

 of the BHtish stock, whether it be in its Nature or in its Nurture, they will be costly, and it 

 cannot be too strongly hammered into popular recognition that a well-developed human being, 

 capable in body and mind, is an expensive animal to rear." 



It will be seen that here as elsewhere Galton places the acquirement of 

 eugenic knowledge before eugenic action — -Eugenics Research Laboratories 

 must be developed before Eugenics can be safely preached as a popular creed. 

 He illustrates this by propounding a problem concerning nurture : If a dole 

 be available to help in the rearing of a child, at what period will assistance 

 be most effective ? Is it when it is growing most rapidly and most needs good 

 feeding, or may irremediable mischief be done by withholding it until that 



