THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



3°9 



heredity and its application to eugen- 

 ics, beginning before the publication of 

 the volume on " Hereditary Genius " 

 in 18C9 and continuing to the present 

 time, is of vast importance. Numerous 

 articles on these subjects by Galton 

 himself and by others who have re- 

 ceived their inspiration from him have 

 been published in this journal, and it 

 is of course out of the question to give 

 a summary in a brief note. There are 

 no other problems so important as 

 those to which Galton has given the 

 name eugenics, and there is no one else 

 who has done so much toward making 

 straight the way for their solution. 



THE EUGENICS LABORATORY OF 

 THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 

 Among Sir Francis Galton's unnum- 

 bered seiwices to science has been the 

 establishment of a laboratory for the 

 study of national eugenics at the Uni- 

 versity of London. In cooperation 

 with the biometric laboratory and the 

 department of applied mathematics, 

 also under the direction of Professor 

 Karl Pearson, it is leading the way in 

 a movement likely to become dominant 

 in the course of the present century. 

 National eugenics is officially described 

 as " the study of agencies under social 

 control that may improve or impair 

 the racial qualities of future genera- 

 tions, either physically or mentally." 

 It is further stated that it is intended 

 that the laboratory shall serve as a 

 storehouse of statistical material bear- 

 ing on the mental and physical condi- 

 tions in man, and the relation of these 

 conditions to inheritance and environ- 

 ment, as a center for the publication 

 or other iorm of distribution of infor- 

 mation concerning national eugenics, 

 and as a school for training and assist- 

 ing students in special problems in 

 eugenics. 



The general scope of the work which 

 has been undertaken may be gathered 

 from an enumeration of the publica- 

 tions for which the laboratories of the 

 University of London are responsible. 



Bionietrika is a journal for the statis- 

 tical study of the biological sciences 

 published about four times a year and 

 now in the seventh volume. It is a 

 storehouse of materials and methods, 

 dominated naturally by the interests 

 of the editor. In some ways it is an 

 advantage and in some ways a draw- 

 back that Professor Pearson is a 

 mathematician. The need of applying 

 mathematical methods to variation 

 and heredity should be emphasized and 

 stress on the method has permitted the 

 treatment and unification of varied 

 material. But it is also true that so 

 long as there are but few biologists 

 who are mathematicians, there is dan- 

 ger that certain methods may become 

 prematurely crystallized and these spe- 

 cial methods may be regarded as an 

 end rather than as a tool. In addition 

 to Biometrica there has been estab- 

 lished this year a Treasury of Human 

 Inheritance, devoted to family his- 

 tories, including diseases, physical 

 traits and mental qualities. Then 

 there are two series of memoirs, one 

 entitled Biometric Series, the other 

 Studies in National Deterioration, 

 published at the expense of the Dra- 

 pers' Company. The first of these con- 

 tains chiefly Professor Pearson's more 

 recent mathematical contributions to 

 the theory of evolution, while the 

 second includes so far three studies, 

 one on the relation of fertility in men 

 to social status and two on inheritance 

 and infection in tuberculosis. Lastly, 

 there is a lecture series, of which but 

 one has been issued, and a memoir 

 series from the eugenics laboratory. 

 The memoirs include a study of the 

 inheritance of ability from the Oxford 

 class lists and of the relation between 

 success in examinations and in after 

 life; inheritance of insanity, the re- 

 semblance of first cousins and the 

 inheritance of vision. 



THE INHERITANCE OF VISION 



The recently issued monograph from 

 the Eugenics Laboratorv on the in- 



