Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Gallon's Life 329 



Methuen's " literary adviser " has written to me a sweet and fetching letter for an auto- 

 biography to be published by them. I am disposed to write it, for it will give daily occupation 

 for some time and will revive many memories. So I am discussing with him a single volume nicely 

 got up, on the half profits basis. Oddly enough a common friend to myself and Methuen (whom 

 I do not yet know personally) was spending last Saturday to Monday here under an engagement 

 to lunch on Sunday with Methuen ; so I gave him the letter to show and talk about. Methuen 

 proposes to call, but is now much invalided as the result of an operation last summer. 



Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



(Antescripl. This is a "business" and not the personal letter which I want soon to 

 write. ) 



The Galton Ecgenics Laboratory, University College. December 1, 1907. 



My dear Francis Galton, I fully appreciate your point as to the facing what people will 

 say about cousins being at least as alike as uncle and nephew. When Miss Elderton did the 

 cousins' work, we had only my eye-colour work (based on your material) to compare with it. 

 For 8 series of eye-colour correlations each embracing about 1200 cases we found a mean cor- 

 relation value -265. Miss Elderton has worked out 32 series from my General Family Records — 

 for uncles and nephews, etc. For Health and Intelligence we get mean of 16 series of about 1000 

 each, "272, practically the same as for my eye-colour work. Temper and Success which involve more 

 doubtful judgments give about -20. You will see that these are comparable with Miss Elderton's 

 cousin resemblance of -267. You ask how does it come about 1 Frankly I can't say. But I want 

 to draw your attention to another point. When you first started this correlation work, you 

 expected parental correlation to be ^ and brothers' to be § . My view in the " Law of Ancestral 

 Heredity " paper, pure theory, was ^ and - 4. These values would also arise from simple 

 Mendelism. Now you see / still thought the brothers would be more alike than parent and off- 

 spring, because the other parent would disturb the relation of one parent to the child ; just as 

 we might suppose the uncle's wife would do. But when we have worked out long series of 

 parental correlations and fraternal correlations, what is the result ? Why that it is very difficult 

 to show that they differ from equality. I think my Family Measurements were very reliable and 

 yet for long series the parental correlation came - 46 and the fraternal - 50, and probably this 

 difference was due to comparing different generations of adults, i.e. father and son do not live in 

 the same environment as two brothers. My position at present is that we have to find out the 

 correlations from observation and when they are definitely known, turn back to theory. Alternate 

 inheritance would, perhaps, give fraternal = parental correlation and would, I think, make cousins 

 and uncle and nephew equal. It is, I think, in some such " determinant " direction that we 

 must look for light in this matter. I will add a note to Miss E.'s paper. 



Affectionately, K. Pearson. 



Quedley, Haslemere. December 20, 1907. 

 My dear Karl Pearson, How nice Miss Elderton's paper looks. The Laboratory 

 publications make a most respectable show. I am very glad you inserted the paragraph you did, 

 at the end, showing that the paradoxical result of cousinly likeness being the same as avuncular, 

 has not been unnoticed. The more I think about it the more amazed I am that an uncle's wife 

 or an aunt's husband should exercise no appreciable effect. Facts are of course the supreme 

 authority, but it is hard to bow before them here.... Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



Quedley, Haslemere. December 28, 1907. 

 My dear Karl Pearson, The Tribune article is clever and oidy too true. I have been long 

 desiring to start some movement to raise the deplorably low standard of scientific literature and 

 have corresponded about it privately. Sir Archibald Geikie, whose family are now settled 

 here, is still more emphatic than myself, and we had a good talk yesterday. We both belong to 

 the R. Soc. of Literature, and I hope to induce it to take the " improvement in style of current 

 scientific literature " as a serious duty. A man ought to feel as ashamed of publishing a slovenly 

 memoir as he would of appearing at a public ceremony dirty and ill-dressed. But it is not only 

 of an aesthetic but of a matter-of-fact trouble one has to complain — viz. of the length of time 

 that is wasted by the reader in trying to understand what ought to be expressed by more vivid 

 language, simpler expressions and more logical arrangement. I am now writing on this very 



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