GALTON’S RESEARCHES 283 
based. For an account of these the reader must be re- 
ferred to the admirable popular treatises enumerated at 
the close of the present chapter. In spite of the rather 
wide divergence of these studies from those with which 
this book is mainly concerned, the agreement between 
the conclusions on race-improvement drawn by the 
students of Genetics, on the one hand, and by those 
of Biometry, on the other, is a remarkable one, and 
may perhaps be taken to indicate that both these 
methods are right in their several directions. 
Consequently we propose attempting a summary of 
the line of researches and arguments which have led 
Galton to his present conclusion that the human race 
is capable of vast improvements in physique, in 
beauty, in character, and in intellect. The importance 
of this conclusion is augmented by the corollary that 
acquisition of these improvements leads to a keener 
appreciation of their value, and, incidentally, to the 
greater happiness of mankind. But the student of 
Eugenics does not rest satisfied with conclusions. He 
proposes to utilize the great forces of fashion and 
public opinion as agents of modification and improve- 
ment by diverting their influence into the right 
direction and out of their present remarkably wrong 
direction. 
The first link in the chain of evidence was forged 
long ago by Darwin, when he showed how far man 
had already risen from a simpler and lower type of 
animal. The evolution of man is now a part of the 
ordinary intellectual creed of most educated men, and 
yet few politicians or charitable people pause to apply 
