NATURE 



i6i 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1874 



G ALTON'S "ENGLISH MEN OF SCIENCE" 



English Men of Science ; their Nature and Nurture. 

 By Francis Gallon, F.R.S., author of " Hereditary 

 Genius," &c. (London : Macmillan and Co., 1874.) 



IT would be difficult to overrate the exact and scientific 

 spirit in which Mr. Gallon proceeds with his investi- 

 gation into the origin of genius and the antecedents of 

 successful promoters of science. 



The work of M. de Candolle upon the history of two 

 hundred scientific men who have lived during the two 

 last centuries appears to have suggested the character of 

 the present work in some degree. But Mr. Gallon has 

 attacked the problem in a novel manner, by going directly 

 to men living in the present day, and presenting a series 

 of questions as to their parents, characters, and educa- 

 tion. He began by carefully selecting a list of scientific 

 men, which, though not intended in any way to be 

 exhaustive, should at least not include any but those who 

 have shown true ability. For this purpose he adopted 

 election to the Royal Society, since the method of election 

 was reformed, as the first test ; and out of the consider- 

 able number of such Fellows he next selected those who 

 had earned a medal for scientific work, had presided over 

 a learned society or section of the British Association, 

 had been on the Council of the Royal Society, or, finally, 

 had acted as professors in some important college or 

 university. 



The list thus framed was found to contain iSo names. 

 Incidentally Mr. Gallon inquires what fraction this 

 number forms of the total number of scientific men living 

 in the United Kingdom and possessing the same general 

 scientific status. By various tests he arrives at the con- 

 clusion that the total number would be three hundred, 

 and he estimates that their proportion to the male popu- 

 lation of the same ages would be about that of one in ten 

 thousand. Of course Mr. Gallon must be aware that his 

 definition of scientific men is purely arbitrary, and that 

 the circumscribing line might have been drawn more or 

 less sltictly, and made to include almost any number. 



For the purposes in view, however, Mr. Gallon's pro- 

 cedure must be considered perfectly satisfactory. To 

 every one of the 180 men he forwarded elaborate printed 

 forms, covering seven large quarto pages, and containing 

 an immense number of minute inquiries. Each man was 

 requested to slate his parentage and descent, the religious 

 opinions, occupations, birthplace, political party, health, 

 stature, complexion, temperament, size of head, and a 

 great many other particular facts concerning both his 

 parents and himself. Inquiries were also made regarding 

 his brothers and sisters, and their salient characteristics. 

 The numbers and principal achievements of more dis- 

 tant relatives, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, 

 nephews, and nieces were also to be staled. Finally, the 

 mode and duration of education of the scientific man 

 himself was to be described, and the causes of success of 

 which he was conscious were to be analysed. 



In order to estimate the degree of intensity of charac- 

 teristics, Mr. Gallon devised a very ingenious and highly 

 scientific method of class notation, founded on the law 

 Vol. XI. - No. 27 j 



of error or divergence from a mean. This method was 

 employed in his work on " Hereditary Genius," and was 

 also described in his lecture before the Royal Institution 

 in 1874. Instead of saying that a person's memory was 

 remarkable, or prodigious, or moderate, or poor, the 

 answerer was to attempt to define with some numerical 

 precision the proportion which persons of each degree of 

 memory bore to the whole population, by assigning him 

 to one or other of certain defined classes. If such defi- 

 nite answers could have been obtained, the theory of 

 probability could have been directly apphed and the 

 amount of the influence of heredity mathematically 

 investigated. Such a method would constitute a distinct 

 advance in statistical inquirj'. Unfortunately, few definite 

 answers of the kind seem to have been received, and 

 this branch of the inquiry had for the present to be 

 abandoned. 



When we consider the elaborate and careful manner in 

 which Mr. Gallon conducted his investigation, it is diffi- 

 cult not to feel some slight disappointment at the results 

 as stated in this volume. The book is certainly one of 

 very great interest and not devoid of amusing points • 

 but it seems to me to fail in establishing many truths in a 

 definite manner. Not a few of the results derived were 

 known beforehand almost as accurately as they are 

 proved by the contents of this volume. We learn, for 

 instance, that scientific ability is undoubtedly hereditary 

 in some degree. Now, I should hold that such a propo- 

 sition needs no new proof It was sufficiently established 

 in Mr. Gallon's former work, and he seems as if he were 

 always combating the objections of some imaginary 

 opponents. 1 am not aware that anyone in the present 

 day ever denies the hereditary character of personal 

 peculiarities. Hardly is the infant ushered into the 

 world than the nurse and the admiring relatives begin to 

 discover the features of the father, or mother, or uncles, 

 or aunts. Mr. Gallon writes as if he were making a dis- 

 covery whenever he attributes the character of a man to 

 his descent. He says : " I have numerous returns, in 

 which the writer analyses his own nature and confidently 

 ascribes different parts of it to different ancestors. One 

 correspondent has ingeniously written out his natural 

 characteristics in red, blue, and black inks, according to 

 their origin — a method by which its anatomy is dis- 

 played at a glance." I should have thought, however, 

 that there was nothing novel in such analysis. Every 

 family of intelligence must frequently have discussed the 

 descent of characteristics, features, or diseases. We 

 cannot hear that a youth has turned out badly without 

 inquiring into the way in which the bad strain came into 

 the family. What we really want are accurate estimates 

 of the comparative power of heredity and education in 

 shaping the character, and such results we hardly 

 obtain. 



r,Ir. Gallon gives, indeed, the number of notable rela- 

 tives of each grade which scientific mi^n on the average 

 possess. Thus, 100 scientific men have 28 notable fathers, 

 36 brothers, 20 grandfathers, and 40 uncles. It is curious 

 that this series of numbers closely corresponds to what 

 Mr. Gallon obtained with regard to divines in his former 

 work ; but the falling off in the ability as we proceed from 

 a distinguished scientific man to his distant relatives is 

 less rapid, compared with his previous results, as the 



