30 FRANCIS GALTON 



the chemical elements to his aid, and is able to 

 express the result of the experiment in terms of 

 these elements. This is an enormous advantage, 

 and if my analogy is to be trusted, it would seem as 

 though a progressive study of heredity must 

 necessarily be on Mendelian lines. 



But it obviously does not follow that the 

 laborious and skilful work of Galton and his school 

 is wasted. Those who wish to have made plain to 

 them how Biometrics may illuminate a problem 

 which cannot as yet be solved in Mendelian fashion, 

 should read Dr. Schuster's most interesting book 

 on eugenics. I am thinking especially of the 

 question as to the heredity of tuberculosis and 

 cancer. The relation between Galtonism and 

 Mendelism is also well and temperately discussed in 

 the late Mr. Lock's Recent Progress in the Study of 

 Variation, 1906. 



But it is time to speak of Galton as a eugenist — 

 on which if we look to the distant future his fame 

 will rest. For no one can doubt that the science of 

 eugenics must become a great and beneficent force 

 in the evolution of man. 



We must be persistent in urging its value, but 

 we must also be patient. We should remember 

 how young is the subject. As recently as 1901 

 Galton was, in his Huxley Lecture, compelled to 

 speak of eugenics in these terms^ : 



"It has not hitherto been approached along the 

 ways that recent knowledge has laid open, and it 

 occupies in consequence a less dignified position in 



* Essays in Eugenics, p. i. 



