Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Gallon's Life 423 



a Greek against a Barbarian. This gave a prevalent, and not a disagreeable mannerism. It 

 suggested a constant sense of noblesse oblige, far removed from that disagreeable but not 

 uncommon " Oxford tone " which implies that the speaker is a superior person to his listener. 

 I think the selection of Kantsaywhere College folk may be rated as about equivalent to at 

 least the best quarter of that of the population of Kantsaywhere town, which itself has a high 

 level. The Collegiate average must be fully equal to the best twelfth of an English population. 

 Now 1 in 12 is that of the foreman of a jury, and, unquestionably, the foremen play their 

 parts, as a rule, very respectably. We are accustomed to appreciate bodies of picked men in 

 many ranks of life and know well how superior they are. The crew of an Arctic research 

 vessel are said to be a magnificent set of men : so are the Sappers and Miners. At a somewhat 

 lower, but yet conspicuous degree of selection, stand the persons attached to those great and 

 well-managed estates and firms, whose service is so popular that they have always more 

 candidates to choose from than there are vacancies to fill. 



" Nothing struck me more than the photographic workshops, for besides their immediate 

 interest, a religious parallel was drawn from them which will be described farther on. There 

 is a great demand in Kantsaywhere for composite portraits of families. The material for 

 making these is abundant and excellent, as it has long since become the fashion, now grown 

 into an obligatory custom, for everyone to be photographed at reasonable intervals, both in 

 full face and in profile, under similar and standard conditions of light, in addition to whatever 

 more artistic representation may be desired. I am a bit of a photographer myself, and was 

 delighted at the punctilious and exact way by which composite photographs were made. There 

 was no unacknowledged faking but the work was strictly truthful throughout the whole 

 process. The object is, I need hardly say, to superimpose the images of many different 

 portraits, all of the same size, aspect and shading, in succession for a short time, upon the same 

 photographic plate. The scale of the portraits and their emplacement require much precision. 

 Here the various reductions and adjustments are leisurely made for each portrait and in a 

 separate frame. When the photography begins, the frames are dropped in succession into their 

 exact place, guided by pins and resting on a horizontal board below a fixed vertical camera*. 



" I saw several beautiful composites in the Studio, of men and women, respectively. Every 

 family desires at least four family composites, one of the Grand-parental series, including Great 

 Uncles and Aunts on both sides, another of the Parental series, including Father and Mother, 

 Uncles and Aunts, and yet another of Self, Brothers and Sisters. Lastly, one made from the 

 four grandparents and the two parents, allowing one half of the exposure time to each grand- 

 parent that was allowed to either parent. A peculiar interest lies in the close analogy between 

 composite portraits and their religious imagery, as will be seen from what is now about to 

 be said. 



" Their creed, or rather, I should say, their superstition — for it has not yet crystallised into 

 a dogmatic creed, is that living beings, and pre-eminently mankind, are the only executive 

 agents of whom we have any certain knowledge. They look upon life at large, as probably a huge 

 organisation in which every separate living thing plays an unconscious part, much as the 

 separate cells do in a living person. Whether the following views were self-born or partly 

 borrowed I do not know, but the people of Kantsaywhere have the strong belief that the spirits 

 of all the beings who have ever lived are round about, and regard all their actions. They watch 

 the doings of men with eagerness, grieving when their actions are harmful to humanity, and 

 rejoicing when they are helpful. It is a kind of grandiose personification of what we call 

 conscience into a variety of composite portraits. I expect that many visionaries among them — 

 for there are visionaries in all races — actually see with more or less distinctness the beseeching 

 or the furious figures of these imaginary spirits, whether as individuals or as composites. There 

 seems to be some confusion between the family, the racial, and the universal clouds of spirit- 

 watchers. They are supposed to co-exist separately and yet may merge into one or many 

 different wholes. There is also much difference of opinion as to the power of these spirits, some 

 think them only sympathetic, others assign the faculty to them of inspiring ideas in men, others 



* See our p. 215 above. 



