Eugenics as a Greed and the Last Decade of Galtoris Life 409 



honorary president of the other, to say that there is no other connection between them. Their 

 spheres of action are different, and ought to be mutually helpful. The laboratory investigates 

 without bias, and with the help of highly-trained experts, large collections of such data as may 

 throw light on some of the many problems of eugenics. The business of the society is to 

 popularize results that have been laboriously reached elsewhere and to arouse enthusiasm in 

 the public. It is active in doing so. I wish to take this opportunity of saying that I wholly 

 approve of the fairness and scientific thoroughness of the laboratory work under the direction of 

 Professor Karl Pearson. 



It is unfortunate that much of the criticism on the work of the laboratory is by those who 

 write under a strong bias. That on the effect of alcoholic parentage upon offspring is an instance 

 of this. I have neither need nor wish to say more about this question, because I understand 

 that a discussion of these criticisms will appear in a second edition of the Memoir in question, 

 which is now at the press*. Also that a new Memoir on extreme alcoholism in adults will 

 appear in a few weeks. Francis Galton. 



Enough has been said to indicate that Galton strongly sympathised with 

 the staff of his Laboratory under the criticism poured out on it, much of 

 which was written by those " under a strong bias." It worried him greatly 

 because the attack originated in a group which had been labelled "Eugenists" 

 by Galton himself, and was largely directed against the employment of 

 methods, which he himself had devised. 



Heredity and Tradition. The boundary line in the case of mankind 

 between tradition — that is, the handing down of acquired experience in the 

 form of knowledge, habits and institutions — and heredity — that is, the 

 physical transfer to offspring of germinal matter which controls the develop- 

 ment of their qualities or of their descendants' qualities — is not a very easily 

 defined one. It does not admit of obvious experimentation in the case of 

 man. Certain languages, for example, have nasal, guttural and even vowel 

 sounds, which are difficult of acquirement by members of races which have 

 not spoken those languages for generations. Is there a physical heredity of 

 the organs of speech which carries with it differences of vocalisation in the 

 different races of man % The song of birds is specific; do they acquire their 

 individuality of song by heredity solely, or by tradition? The cry of the 

 baboon can express at least pleasure, fear, rage and love-thirst ; it is the 

 same with the dog. We know too little of the development of language in 

 the earliest stages of mankind to fix a definite boundary to the hereditary 

 and the traditional. There are many other such instances which may be 

 cited. Generally we must admit that it has been too customary to attribute 

 to traditional knowledge in man what in other animals we term hereditary 



* Replies were made to our critics not only in the public press, but in the following 

 publications of the Laboratory : 



A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Intelliijence of 

 the Offspring. By Karl Pearson and Ethel M. Elderton. 



The Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring. A Reply 

 to the Cambridge Economists. By Karl Pearson. 



An Attempt to correct the Misstatements made by Sir Victor Horsley, F.R.S., F.B.C.S., and 

 Mary D. Slurge, M.D., in their Criticisms of the Memoir: "A First Study of the Influence of 

 Parental Alcoholism, etc." By Karl Pearson. 



All published by the Cambridge University Press, 

 p o m 52 



