314 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



your John the Baptist, making the way straight ? I am getting my lecture typed so that I may 

 send you a copy. Will you let me know, if there is anything that trenches too -much on what 

 you have in view, and I will cut it out ? Of course it is all you in a certain sense as it deals 

 with Eugenics from beginning to end; still you must see it and give me your views.... The 

 Eugenics folk are back, at least Miss Barrington was up with some problems yesterday. 



Bateson has edited a vast work — the Report of the Hybrid Conference — wholly Mendelian. 

 I come in for my fair share of abuse! There is just one paper of 1| pages which would have pleased 

 Weldon. It is by a Canadian on the inheritance of bearded and beardless wheat — one of the 

 " striking Mendelian illustrations." He very quietly demonstrates by aid of illustrations that the 

 Mendelian theory does not work. Affectionately yours, K. P. 



P.S. Your letter just come and I have re-opened this. Your Darwin pedigree is, I think, 

 clear but there is still, I believe, a slip. You say : Mrs Darwin was her husband's fa bro da. Her 

 husband's fa was a Darwin, and therefore his bro was a Darwin, and his bro da would be 

 a Darwin and not a Wedgwood in maiden name. I think it should be she was her husband's 

 me bro da. 



42, Rutland Gate, S.W. April 21, 1907. 



My dear Karl Pearson, It is amusing that at Oxford we should both be proclaiming 

 Eugenics as one of the large progeny of the University of London ! Really the study is gaining 

 an academic status ! I do not think we shall clash as, though the title of my lecture is " Prob- 

 ability, the Foundation of Eugenics," there are new points in it, and for the rest, when you 

 send me your typed copy I shall have time to revise my own lecture by cutting out anything 

 that appears as duplication. I should be most grateful for your free criticism of mine, which, 

 owing to my slow work, won't be written out even, much less typed, by the end of this week. It 

 shall be sent to you as soon as ready. What is your date? Mine is towards the end of May, but 

 I do not yet know more precisely. You are quite right, the passage ought to have been she was 

 her husband's me bro da, the " she " being of course transformed into a more intelligible expres- 

 sion After much discussion with relatives, I have determined to safe-guard my interests 



by engaging (as soon as I can find one) a " Nurse-housekeeper," that is, an upper servant (not 

 a lady), age about 40, who could manage well the household, mend my things and be able to 

 write ietters in an emergency, which were fairly well-spelt, etc., and also nurse me well when 

 I am next ill. Such persons exist in abundance but are hard to find. If Mrs Pearson knows of 

 any such I should be grateful to her to tell me. I should give the "Nurse, etc." good wages, 

 fully up to her "market worth." Ever affectionately yours, Francis Galton. 



The reader of the letters of Galton, 1906-1907, will realise that while he 

 was mentally as active as ever, clear and concise in his judgments, his 

 physical strength had begun to fail him, and he became more and more con- 

 scious of the need to be cautious about himself. This need was emphasised 

 by two accidents which he met with in the course of this year. 



Extract from a letter of April 22, 1907, of K. P. to F. G. : 



My lectures are both at Oxford. I lectured at Cambridge last term on statistical methods. 

 I give the Boyle Lecture on May 19th to the "Undergraduate and Junior Graduate Science 

 Club," but I believe others attend. ... On May 21st I lecture to the Philosophical Club (a club of 

 Oxford lecturers and dons) on "The Possibility of a wider Category than Causation." This 

 lecture starts from the idea that no two physical entities are exactly alike, e.g. not even two 

 atoms are precisely identical. They form a class with variation about a mean character. Hence 

 even in physics the ultimate basis of knowledge is statistical — the category is of course corre- 

 lation not causation. The main difference is that in physics the correlation coefficients are 

 nearly unity but in biology they diverge considerably from unity. Except that in this second 

 lecture I shall assert that Probability is the basis of all knowledge (not only of Eugenics '), it will 

 not touch on your topic at all. But I am rather sorry if I trespass on your field in my first 

 lecture. All I can say is that you must read it before delivery and allow me to be, if possible, 

 your way-straightener. 



