Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galtori 's Life 279 



I have sent Schuster's paper to press. Hartog has paid the account. I was seeing Dr Pearl 

 yesterday and put my head into Miss Elderton's door ; she seemed bright and fresh, and said 

 she had plenty to do ; so I hope the work of your Eugenics Office is going forward. 



The enclosed letter may amuse you. I think that X. is a very dangerous person, if his 

 notion of eugenics is the intermarriage of consumptive stocks ! Very many thanks for your 

 long letter. I wish there were some simple colour register. I don't expect it is easy to get 

 colours like terracottas and salmons out of Abney's apparatus. I shall send you a copy of the 

 poppy plate when it comes. I hope Miss Biggs will not be too scornful about it ! 



Weldon will have told you about Y. and Z.'s attack at the R.S. Weldon had a good paper 

 last Thursday and Z. drew as usual red herrings across the track. 



Affectionately yours, Karl Pearson. 



Feb. 1, 1906. 



My dear Karl Pearson, Thank you very much for your letter of sympathy. I have now 

 lost the last tie that brought the family's interests together as to a common focus, and kept 

 each member informed by letter, weekly or otherwise, of the welfare of the rest. To what an 

 enormous amount of grief do the tombstones of any churchyard bear witness ! 



The " slasher " against X. is right well deserved. I had always a faint misgiving of his 

 Oriental ways and fluency, which steadily deepened until I have come to look upon his aid 

 as unreliable and dangerous. He strikes me as an interesting evidence of the danger of 

 entrusting political power to Oriental subjects — Indian, Egyptian and others. 



I will venture shortly to ask you to do me a very great favour, namely to look over a short 

 type-written paper on " the Measurement of Resemblance," and tell me what you think of it. 

 The thing has, as you may remember at Peppard*, been often taken up by me, puzzled over 

 and temporarily laid down. It is at length worked out, I think, fully and practically, but 

 before venturing on publication, I should greatly value criticism. At this moment it is only 

 in an uncorrected draft, and I do hot wish to hurry before putting it into a corrected form 

 and sending it to London to be typed. The typist will then be instructed (say in a week or 

 a fortnight) to send you a copyf. 



We go to-day to " H6tel de la Rhune, Ascain, Basses Pyrenees," for a week. It is a 

 picturesque Basque Village, four miles from here. Then we probably return to where I am 

 writing from, " Hfitel Terminus, S l Jean de Luz, Basses Pyrenees," for a day or two, and 

 afterwards according to conditions not yet determined on which we are dependent, to some- 

 where else. These may lead either to a dip of a fortnight into Spain or to another Basque 

 village, I cannot foresee which. I will send address later on. 



The Basque orderliness, thorough but quiet ways, and their substantial clean-looking houses, 

 tug at every Quaker fibre in my heart, and I love them so far. As to their wonderful language 

 unlike in syntax to any other, the virtue of these parts is accounted for by the legend that 

 Satan came here for a visit, but finding after six years that he could neither learn the Basque 

 language, nor make the Basques understand him, he left the country in despair. With kindest 

 remembrances to Mrs Pearson. Ever sincerely yours, Francis Galton. 



It would be an interesting problem to determine what is the degree of 

 likeness of a man to himself, by correlating the habits and modes of thought 

 of individuals at selected ages. We might thus obtain a measure of the per- 

 manence of individuality. How far is one the same man at 20 and 60 years of 

 age? Galton at least in his love of travel at 18 and 84 exhibited a marvellous 

 sameness. His love of ingenious mechanical apparatus also remained fully as 

 strong, and his humility was not a whit less. 



"How curious it is to see," remarks Lord Minto, "how exactly people 

 follow their own characters all through life." 



* The long vacation of 1903 was spent at Peppard, the Galtons on the Green, the Pearsons 

 at Blount's Court Farm, the Weldons at the far end of the village, and various biometric 

 workers round about. It was a delightful and fertile summer. 



f See the section in Vol. n on the " Measurement of Resemblance," pp. 329-333. 



