An Introduction to a Biology 



home the applicability of our knowledge (such as it is) of 

 evolution and heredity to the furtherance of human welfare, 

 and thus laid the foundations of the science of Eugenics. 



Galton's greatest work in the purely scientific sphere 

 must be regarded as the foundation of the Biometric method 

 and philosophy rather than the promulgation of the law 

 of heredity which is associated with his name. This law, 

 which was deduced from a study of Basset-hound pedigrees, 

 will in the future be remembered, not so much as a true 

 summary of a vital process, but as the expression of a first 

 valiant attempt to detect some order in the chaos of here- 

 ditary phenomena as they appeared at the time. Its purely 

 provisional nature is foreshadowed by the fact that it's author 

 did not commit himself to a dogmatic statement on the ques- 

 tion whether it was applicable to the individual or to the 

 mass, and demonstrated by the fact that only in rare, prob- 

 ably accidental, cases does it apply to masses, and that in 

 no case does it apply to individuals. Galton's work on 

 Basset-hounds will always be remembered for the same 

 reason as will de Vries's work on " The Evening Primrose," 

 estimating both of these at their lowest possible valuation. 

 Both were the first attempts to break the ground in a new 

 field of evolutionary inquiry. The pioneer nature of Galton's 

 work in heredity is gracefully and fittingly acknowledged by 

 Johannsen, whose "Erblichkeit in Populationen und in reinen 

 Linien," which represents the most recent and ingenious 

 attempt to interpret a certain class of hereditary phenomena, 

 is dedicated to him. 



No account of Galton would be complete without refer- 

 ence to his work on Finger Prints. The source of his interest 

 in this subject was delight in the observation and systematisa- 

 tion of the phenomena themselves ; their application was a 

 subsequent matter. His interest in them arose through a 

 request to deliver a Friday evening lecture on the system 

 " devised by M. Alphonse Bertillon for identifying persons 

 by the measurements of their bodily dimensions." Galton 



283 



