Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 425 



centre in what I have termed the " Generant " of the stirp*, the composite 

 individual who represents the entire ancestry of any person. Galton thinks 

 of this in connection with his composite photography, and then intro- 

 duces these Generants as an improved version of the Chinese worship of 

 ancestors. They were to act as conscience to the new generation, in a land 

 where each citizen studied and was proud of his forehears. That Galton 

 himself thought of this spirit world as more than a valuable " superstition " 

 I very much doubt. 



(18) Further Letters o/1910, concerning Eugenics, etc. 



The Rectory, Haslemere. January 1, 1910. 



My dear Karl Pearson, What a noble New Year's greeting you send uie ! I prize it 

 among the highest of honours, for it will he a landmark in the path of progress of Eugenics. 

 How I admire the forcible and confident beats of your mathematical wings ! Certainly, as vou 

 have phrased it, to Francis Galton, not " Sir," which under the circumstances sounds like 

 tinsel. I rejoice in your work all the more, as it covers and includes much that 1 dearly wanted 

 to see done, but had not strength or capacity to do. Biometrika is just the most suitable 

 form of publication, toof. 



You must kindly tell me soon about my contribution to the Eugenics Laboratory for 1911, 

 about which Hartog will wish to know. I am quite prepared to go on as before if you see your 

 way to its continuance, either in the present or in some modified form, consequent on the 

 possibility of Heron wishing to follow an independent line, or more especially to your own 

 desire to be freed from the care of its oversight (I hope not). 



Give please my warmest wishes for the New Year to all your party. Wee Ling prospers and 

 grows, and is a favourite. He enjoys a dry bone to chew. What an inexpensive and wholesome 

 Lord Mayor's banquet might be provided if the Guests were supplied each with a plate and 

 a dry bone, and nothing else ! 



The half sheet of a letter that was mistakenly sent to you, has since been identified. 



Ever affectionately and gratefully yours, Francis Galton. 



7, Well Road, Hampstead, N.W. January 9, 1910. 

 My dear Francis Galton, I hope you will not have thought me ungrateful in not replying 

 to your very kind letter before. But I have been very, very busy. Fundamentally trying to get 

 another chapter of the piebalds — i.e. one on the albinotic skin and dealing with pied folk and 

 leucoderma and modern and ancient theories of pigment changes — to press. It is practically 

 finished to-day— my last day of holiday. I have also revised in proof 80 pages on albinism in the 

 negro; got Miss Elderton's paper on parental alcoholism finally passed and to press; and written 

 20 pages of suggestions to Heron for his big memoir. In addition I have read 10 papers for 

 Biometrika and had to refuse four, which is always unpleasant for it makes foes. I have another 

 half-dozen papers which want writing up and will again be postponed. I don't know whether 

 I told you that last September old Dr Crewdson Benington died. He had been working in the 

 Laboratory for two years, nothing finished, and a wheelbarrowful of manuscripts on skull 

 measurements have come from his friends — "to be edited and finished." He was a curious old 

 fellow — really able in many ways and affectionate, but difficult. He had divorced his wife, and 

 his life was a failure, but he just settled down in the Biometric Laboratory and worked like a lad 

 of 20, and I think we more or less kept hirn on the tracks. He came four years ago and then 

 disappeared to the upper reaches of the Amazon, but Biometry brought him back again ! The 

 last two years he worked away without a break — and then last long vacation he was all alone 

 in London and there was nobody to look after him. Poor old fellow, I always feel that if I had 

 had time to write him weekly letters, he would still have been measuring skulls ! 



* See our pp. 20-21, 29. 

 f See our pp. 392-397 above, 

 p g in 54 



