3 o8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the kindly sphere 

 That once had rolled you round and round 

 the sun. 



Medievalism and modern life, classical 

 reference and scientific simile are curi- 

 ously commingled in Tennyson's poems. 

 As one turns back to them "the- tender 

 grace of a day that is dead " does not 

 fully return. They are not like science 

 universal; but for their own epoch 

 they were not only great poems, but 

 also rendered a not insignificant serv- 

 ice in the diffusion of the scientific 

 spirit. 



THE REMINISCENCES OF SIR 

 FRANCIS GALTON 



The greatness of the Victorian era 

 is now represented among the living by 

 men of science — Hooker, Wallace, Ave- 

 bury, Lister, Huggins, Galton — all past 

 eighty years of age. Sir Francis Gal- 

 ton — the " sir " is a tardy recognition 

 on the king's recent birthday — now in 

 his eighty-eighth year has done well to 

 prepare the reminiscences which have 

 been published under the title " Mem- 

 ories of my Life." He is typical of the 

 great period in which he has lived and 

 to the preeminence of which he has 

 contributed his share. Like his cousin, 

 Charles Darwin, he has had no profes- 

 sion, but with sufficient private means 

 he has devoted his life to the advance- 

 ment of science. There are certain 

 marked resemblances in intellect and 

 character between the two kinsmen — 

 scientific curiosity reaching from ob- 

 scure details to broad theories, pa- 

 tience combined with daring, royal 

 simplicity and directness — which might 

 be used to illustrate the theories of 

 heredity in which both have been inter- 

 ested. Galton, like Darwin, studied 

 medicine and like him was a student 

 at Cambridge; but, unlike Darwin, he 

 has lived in London and has taken an 

 active part in the social and scientific 

 activities of the time. He has been in 

 intimate personal relations with the 

 scientific and other leaders and a help- 

 ful friend to many at the beginning of 

 their scientific work. The writer of 



the present note is one of a large com- 

 pany that owes him an unpayable debt 

 for personal kindness and intellectual 

 stimulation. 



Galton — the Sir Francis does not 

 come naturally — gives rather full de- 

 tails, as is becoming, of his parentage 

 and early life. On both sides he was 

 of quaker stock. He traces to inherit- 

 ance his taste for science, for poetry 

 and for statistics, and his endurance of 

 physical fatigue. His formal schooling 

 was not profitable. He says (it was 

 before going to Cambridge ) : "In the 

 spring of 1840 a passion for travel 

 seized me as if I had been a migratory 

 bird." He made a somewhat adventu- 

 rous trip to the near east, and his 

 travels were continued more seriously 

 on completing his studies. He made 

 two trips of exploration in Africa, in 

 the second conducting an expedition of 

 some 1,700 miles through unknown re- 

 gions in the southwest. For this he 

 was awarded one of the gold medals 

 of the Royal Geographical Society in 

 1854, and was elected a fellow of the 

 Royal Society two years later. 



In 1853 Galton married a daughter 

 of the dean of Peterborough, the father 

 of a gifted family, and thenceforth 

 residing in London carried out the in- 

 vestigations and published the long 

 series of important memoirs and vol- 

 umes, the contents of which are all too 

 briefly reviewed in the reminiscences. 

 First appeared works on travel, then 

 serious attention was given to meteor- 

 ology and the Kew Observatory. In 

 1865 w r ere published two papers on 

 "Heredity Talent and Character"; 

 and these were followed by the studies 

 on variation and individual differences 

 which are largely summarized in 

 " Human Faculty." The work on 

 anthropometry, on association and on 

 imagery opened up new fields for psy- 

 chology; the composite portraits and 

 the. study of finger prints are known 

 to all. Nearly every one of the 183 

 publications contains a new idea or an 

 ingenious application. The work on 



