NATURE 



257 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1884 



FA?4IL V RECORDS 

 Record 0/ Family Faculties. By Francis Gallon, F.R.S. 



(London : Macmillan and Co., 1S84..) 

 jJfe-History Album. By Francis Gallon, F.R.S. (London: 



Macmillan and Co., 1884.) 



MR. GALTON is indefaligable in his zeal lo promole 

 the cause of eugenics. His mosl recenl efforls in 

 this direction have resulted in the publication of two 

 quarto books, which respectively bear the titles above 

 given, and which betoken no small amount of labour on 

 the part of their author. Feeling the importance of cast- 

 ing a wide net for the capture of facts bearing on the 

 science of eugenics which he hopes to inaugurate, Mr 

 Gallon has here presented to the public a formidable 

 array of blank forms or tables, lo be filled up by any one 

 who may have caught a spark of his own enthusiasm in 

 the new cause. And not only so, but, lo stimulate the 

 energies of a blind and foolish generation, he has offered 

 rewards or prizes lo the e.xtenl of 500/. for the best writing 

 up of the Records of Family Faculties. Lest any of our 

 readers, however, should be induced from sordid motives 

 alone lo invest a few shillings in the purchase of this 

 curious book, we think it is desirable to warn them at the 

 outset that if they intend to write for one of Ihe prizes 

 they must know a good deal more about their family 

 history than was known even by the writer of the book, 

 which begins — " This is the book of the generations of 

 Adam." For, as far as it appears from his preface, Mr. 

 Gallon would not award even the least of all his prizes to 

 any one who could prove direct descent from Adam ; 

 nay, it would be useless to prove such descent even from 

 any particular gorilla. For, we are expressly told, " no 

 countenance is given to the vanity that prompts most 

 family historians to trace their pedigree to some notable 

 ancestor. . . . We sho\ild remember the insignificance of 

 any single ancestor in a remote degree. . . . One ancestor 

 who lived at the time of the Norman Conquest, twenty- 

 four generations back, contributes (on the supposition 

 of no intermarriage of kinsfolk) less than one part in 

 16,000,000 to the constitution of a man of the present 

 day.' 



What Mr. Galton wants, therefore, is not the record of 

 a long pedigree, but an accurate and detailed account of 

 a short one. And this is just what makes his tables so 

 difficult to fill up. We must not only know all about our 

 father and mother and grandfathers and grandmothers, 

 but also about our father's father's father, father's father's 

 mother, father's mother's father, father's mother's mother, 

 mother's father's father, mother's father's mother, mother's 

 mother's father, and mother's mother's mother. Even 

 this, indeed, is not enough to satisfy Mr. Galton ; for, 

 " besides the direct ancestors, the brothers and sisters of 

 each of them have also to be taken into account," and 

 are accordingly all provided for in the blank tables. Ob- 

 viously not many of us could answer any of the following 

 questions touching, say, a mother's father's mother's 

 brother: — Date and place of birth, occupation, residences, 

 age at marriage, ditto of spouse, number and ages of sons 

 and daughters, mode of life, height, colour of hair and 

 Vol. XXIX. — No. 742 



eyes, general appearance, degree of strength, perfection 

 or imperfection of special senses, mental powers, personal 

 character, favourite pursuits, artistic aptitudes, minor 

 ailments, graver illnesses, cause and date of death, and 

 age at death. 



The impossibility, however, of any one competitor filling 

 up all the tables is of course no argument against setting 

 the questions. The same questions are submitted to all the 

 competitors, and those who can answer most or best will 

 receive the 500/. Perhaps a few years hence, when Mr. 

 Henry George shall have effected his social revolution in 

 this country, our aristocratic families (who are favourably 

 handicapped in their knowledge of ancestry) will be 

 thankful to assist the science of eugenics upon the terms 

 now offered by Mr. Galton. 



The " Life-History Album " is, in size, date, and general 

 appearance, a companion to the " Record of Family 

 Faculties." It runs to 72 pages, which are arranged for 

 entries in five-yearly periods from birth to 75 years of 

 age. We can imagine the melancholy aspect of a man 

 who in the year 1959 sits down to fill up the last page of 

 a copy of this album, the first page of which is now being 

 begun by his parents. What a retrospect will lie before 

 his dim and saddened gaze ! Every tooth that he gained 

 in childhood, and every tooth that he lost in age has been 

 duly chronicled ; all the fluctuations in his weight, health, 

 and strength are recorded ; he can trace the dawn and 

 rise of all his bodily and mental powers from infancy ta 

 manhood, and can measure with the most painful nicety 

 their continuous decline from manhood to old age. He 

 has before him a little picture gallery of fifteen photo- 

 graphs taken at five-yearly periods, to impress upon him 

 with yet more cruel vividness what a wreck he has 

 become ; and now there is no further page whereon to 

 continue the record so long and so faithfully kept. Even 

 the interest of Mr. Galton in all that he was to be and all 

 that he was to do has come to an end ; he has literally 

 turned over the last page of his life, and if his poor old 

 eyes do not drop a tear upon the closing tragedy, it car> 

 only be because his zeal for science has devoured every- 

 other emotion. 



But although this aspect of the matter is irresistibly- 

 suggested by the close of the album at 75 years of age, 

 without even the provision of a blank page for any further 

 possibilities (with trembling fingers these might, indeed, 

 be pasted in), we must remember that the evil here lies 

 in the fact of mortality. So long as a man is alive, it 

 may be useful to him in many ways — apart from eugenics 

 — to have such a physical record of his life thus kept from 

 his earliest days. No doubt the sooner it is begun the 

 more value it will subsequently have ; but Mr. Galton 

 virtually tells us that, as in the Pilgrim's Progress, so in 

 the pilgrimage of life, " better late than never " in making 

 a beginning. 



In order to show some of the personal, as distinguished 

 from any scientific, advantages which may reasonably be 

 expected to arise from keeping such a biological history 

 of one's self, we shall conclude by quoting an extract from 

 Mr. Gallon's own exhortation. 



" To the Owner 0/ this Book 



" I. It will show whether, and in what way, your health 

 is affected by the changes that take place in your resi- 

 dence, occupation, diet, or habits. 



