Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 309 



his biographer. In 1907 Galton, though he still had cause for anxiety, re- 

 covered something of his usual mental activity and hopefulness. He had 

 been asked and with some hesitation had consented to give the Herbert 

 Spencer Lecture at Oxford on June 5th ; meanwhile his biographer had been 

 invited to give the Boyle Lecture on May 17th, and in accepting had taken 

 for his topic : "The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of 

 National Eugenics." On the other hand, Galton chose as his subject-matter : 

 "Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics*," although the most interesting 

 part of his lecture strayed somewhat from that topic. By the title Galton chose 

 for his lecture he definitely gave forth as his opinion that his new science of 

 Eugenics ought to be based on the actuarial treatment of man. For him the 

 selective mating-rate, the selective birth-rate, the selective death-rate, and 

 heredity in man were fundamentally mass-problems, to be solved statistically, 

 by actuarial methods; shortly, Eugenics was a branch, the most important 

 branch, of Biometry. For evolution the important matter is the changes that 

 are taking place in the type or average of a species, and the variations that 

 render these changes possible. We may never be able to predict what the 

 individual child C of a given A and B will be like, but we can state the 

 probability that he will be so and so ; in other words, we know the average 

 distribution of character in the children of all parents like A and B. If A 

 and B both come of stock tainted with insanity, we can predict with con- 

 siderable accuracy the percentage of their offspring which will be insane or 

 transmit insanity. It is no argument against the eugenic principle — that A 

 and B ought not to have had children — to tell us that their particular child, 

 C, is sane — he may be indeed a genius. The aim of Eugenics is to improve the 

 race as a ivhole— to raise our nation above its present low level — not to breed 

 one sane man at the cost of producing one or more bred insane. No farmer 

 would be content with his flock, if with every white lamb, however fine its 

 wool, he added at the same time a black sheep to his flock ! I think this is 

 the meaning of Galton's statement that probability is the foundation of 

 Eugenics, and of his opinion expressed in his letter to Bateson that " an 

 exact knowledge of the laws of heredity" would scarcely help us in the 

 problems of Eugenics f. 



A few letters here may throw light on the trend of events. 



March 2, 1907. 

 My dear Francis Galton, Just a line to say that I have been asked to give the Boyle 

 Lecture at Oxford this year (May 17 th ) and have settled to take "The Scope and Importance 

 to the State of the Science of National Eugenics " for my topic. I expect my views will not 

 wholly satisfy you, but they may help to push forward the whole movement and lead some of 

 the younger Oxford men to think over and possibly take up the subject. If any ideas occur to 

 you before Easter I should be glad of jottings or of suggestions for lines of thought. My idea 

 is to indicate what we know already, what again we need to find out, and how much all these 



* Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1907. 



"(• See p. 221 above. It is, perhaps, needless to remark that with all the thousands of pounds 

 and of pages devoted to genetic research during the last 25 years we seem to-day scarcely nearer 

 the exact knowledge of the laws of heredity ; the further we advance the more complex does 

 the problem show itself. 



