September 9, 1922] 



NA TURE 



335 



Galton's Centenary. 



Francis Galton, 1S22-1Q22 : A Centenary Appreciation 

 By Karl Pearson. (Department of Applied Statistics 

 University College, London. Questions of the Day 

 and of the Fray, No. n.) Pp. 23. (London 

 Cambridge University Press, 1922.) 2s. net. 



PROF. KARL PEARSON does not think that this 

 generation is likely to do justice to the part Sir 

 Francis Galton played in the spread of human know- 

 ledge and in its application to the future of the human 

 race. His own appreciation he would have others 

 share, and he whips them with scorpions as an induce- 

 ment. As he says, " the time is hardly suited to 

 impressing on the majority of men a conviction of the 

 futility of most of their aims, of the depths of their 

 ignorance of what makes for progress, and of the un- 

 satisfying nature of their present pleasures." 



The welcome appreciation begins with an account of 

 Victorian science, the science of Darwin, Lyell, Hooker, 

 Faraday, and other giants, which, he says, little men 

 belittle — for it is impossible to appreciate Galton unless 

 we bear in mind that he was the product of the Victorian 

 epoch. Endowed with a fine inheritance, Francis 

 Galton had the advantage of broad training and wide 

 experience, very different from the early specialisation 

 of to-day ; "he had far more mathematics and physics 

 than nine biologists out of ten, and more biology than 

 nineteen mathematicians out of twenty, and more 

 acquaintance with diseases and anomalies than forty- 

 nine out of fifty biologists and mathematicians to- 

 gether." Darwin awoke him from " the torpor of tribal 

 dogmas," and turned his widely interested mind to the 

 problems of evolution. Along both observational and 

 experimental lines, he began to study sweet-peas, moths, 

 and man. " In his notebook on the sweet-pea experi- 

 ments occur the first correlation table, the first regression 

 curve, and the first numerical measure of the intensity 

 of heredity, i.e. that between mother and daughter 

 plant." From Mendel's peas has arisen the greater 

 part of modern genetics ; from Galton's there sprang 

 the correlational calculus, solidly founded in " Natural 

 Inheritance " published in 1889. 



Darwin had suggested, contrary to his usual method 

 of keeping to observed facts, the hypothesis of " pan- 

 genesis," that hereditary particles or gemmules given 

 off from the various structures of the body are con- 

 centrated in the reproductive cells, and influence the 

 development of these into new individuals. Galton 

 suggested an experimental test, transfusing the blood 

 of different kinds of rabbits to see if the offspring were 

 influenced. The results showed that the transfusion 

 NO. 2758, VOL. I io] 



had no effect on the offspring, and Galton tacitly dis- 

 carded pangenesis. But continued reflection led him, 

 as it also led Weismann, to the idea of germinal con- 

 tinuity. We believe that the idea of parent and child 

 being successive representatives of the same " stirp " 

 or germ-plasm had occurred, more or less clearly, to 

 two or three other biologists before either Galton or 

 Weismann ; but Prof. Karl Pearson seems to find 

 something " little " in directing attention to historical 

 anticipations. . There is no doubt, however, that 

 " Galton's idea of the ' stirp,' better known under the 

 name given to it by its later German propounder [we 

 should say, ' independent discoverer '], the ' con- 

 tinuity of the germ-plasm,' has played a very large 

 part in modern theories of heredity." It has indeed 

 enabled biologists to understand for the first time 

 clearly why like must tend to beget like. 



From the fundamental idea of germinal continuity 

 there arose in Galton's mind two broad principles, (1) 

 that bodily modifications, or " acquired characters " in 

 the technical sense, are not likely to be transmitted ; 

 and (2) that the differences in the characters of the 

 offspring produced by a difference of stirp are immensely 

 more important than those which can be produced by 

 differences of environment. From his study of identical 

 and non-identical twins he concluded that " nature " 

 is indefinitely stronger than " nurture." We confess 

 to sympathy with what Prof. Pearson calls the platitude 

 that " nature " and " nurture " are inseparably corre- 

 lated as two essential components of one resultant. 

 Moreover, we feel sure that Galton was naturalist enough 

 to know that improvements in "nurture " may determine 

 the meshes of the sieve in relation to which germinal 

 fluctuations and mutations — better and worse changes 

 in " nature " — are sifted. 



It is plain, however, that pondering over the relative 

 evolutionary values of " nature " and " nurture " led 

 Galton to the question which dominated the rest of 

 his life : what evolution may mean for man. What 

 Pasteur was along one line, Galton was along another, 

 a pioneer in the biological control of life. Can man's 

 constitution — in modern phraseology, his gametic 

 composition — be improved, by mating best with best, 

 and fit with fit, and by refraining from sowing tares 

 with wheat ? Or may we hope to effect some progress 

 by amelioration of " nurture " — environmental, nutri- 

 tional, and functional ? For improved " nurture " 

 may prompt, for all we know, progressive germinal 

 variations ; may determine the irvival or elimination 

 of variations ; may, in viviparous organisms, count for 

 much in the ante-natal life ; and may, in mankind, 

 have an almost hereditary influence on the amelioration 

 of the social milieu. Galton's view was that the im- 

 provement of the human breed was the promiseful line 



