FRANCIS GALTON 19 



ing of the now familiar weather charts. Meteorology 

 takes us from 1861 to 1863, that is nearly to 1865, 

 when his first paper on heredity appeared, which 

 was at the same time his first paper on hereditary 

 genius. This line of research was to form his chief 

 claim to celebrity and must be separately treated. 



Meanwhile I v\ish to say something of his love 

 of experiment, which is a branch of his devotion to 

 method. We know something of the more enter- 

 taining of his inquiries from his delightful book of 

 Memories, yet I cannot but fear that he has left out 

 many experiments even stranger than those he 

 publishes. My father had a special affection for 

 what in his own case he called " Fool's experiments." 

 These are what, I am afraid, Galton may have 

 omitted. Still there are records of some delightful 

 lines of work. He is probably the only man who 

 ever attempted to solve by experiment the problem 

 of free will and determinism. He limited his 

 inquiry to the question — whether there exists in 

 human affairs such a thing as an "uncaused and 

 creative action." The experiment, or rather self- 

 observation, was carried on (1879) for six weeks, 

 almost continuously, and "off and on for many 

 subsequent months." He found that with practice 

 he could nearly always trace the "straightforward 

 causation" of a given action, which at first seemed 

 to have been performed "through a creative act, 

 or by inspiration." 



Then there was his attempt to experience the 

 feehngs of the insane. "The method tried was to 

 invest everything I met, whether human, animal, 

 or inanimate, with the imaginary attributes of a 



