An Introduction to a Biology 



elaborate self-analysis. The picture presented to us of the 

 author is conveyed by his own simple unaffected style and 

 seen in the mirror of his varied environment. The dominant 

 note in Galton's personality was his simplicity ; to the last 

 he preserved a childlike delight in trivialities which is an 

 attribute of only very great men. His delight at having a 

 genus of plants related to the Hyacinths named after him 

 was unbounded, and we cannot but be deeply moved by 

 the little drawing of Galtonia candicans which concludes 

 his autobiography. 



Perhaps the most beneficent symptom of Galton's peren- 

 nial youth was the sympathy which he felt and delighted 

 to express with those who were beginning. There are, to 

 our own personal knowledge, many men who have not yet 

 attained to half the age at which Galton died, and who have 

 done and will do work of the highest scientific value (in the 

 most literal sense of the word scientific), whose greatest 

 and in some cases only encouragement has been a kind word 

 or line from the great man whose death has deprived them 

 of a true friend and science of a noble servant. 



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