Francis Galton 
9 
of London. I have rarely related it ia conversation, fearing to give pain to some 
one, and I have never done so in print ; neither can I find that any version of it 
has been published by others. But now that nearly a century has slipped past 
since the event, there can be no harm in digging up and bringing to light a 
buried but amusing historical fact. 
The story was told me long, long ago, in the 'forties, by Mr George Bellas 
Greenough, F.R.S. I was then an eager youth fresh from college, and he an 
elderly man; it was as follows. In 1806-7, when Geology was in its infancy and 
travellers were scarce owing to European wars, Mr Greenough and a few young 
friends compiled a list of questions with the view of ascertaining how far the facts 
of Nature might agree with the competing geological theories current in those 
days. Sir Joseph Banks was the President of the Royal Society at that time, an 
office which he exercised despotically for 43 years (1777-1820), becoming almost 
an autocrat over English scientific men. So it was to him that Mr Greenough 
and his young friends naturall}' went. They brought their questioiis and begged 
that copies of them might be circulated under official sanction among suitable 
persons, including foreign correspondents of the Royal Society. Sir Joseph was 
sometimes gracious in mood, frequently the reverse, and on this occasion he might 
be described as bearish. Not content with an emphatic " no," he dismissed them 
with words to the effect (in almost those very woi'ds, if my memory does not 
deceive me) that a few fools could ask more questions in half an hour than wise 
men might answer in years. The deputation departed, ready to burst with sup- 
pressed fury, and the moment they were quit of the house, agreed to circulate 
the questions on their own responsibility, which considering the persons and 
circumstances was an act of rare audacity. Out of this impromptu coalition, aided 
by a multitude of elsewhere recorded circumstances, the Geological Society was 
evolved, with Mr Greenough as its first President. (The official account of its 
origin is judiciously reticent, but not inconsistent with this little piece of history. 
It will be found in the preface to the first volume of its Transactions, published in 
1811.) It is not in the least my intention to insinuate that Biometry might be 
served by any modern authority in so rough a fashion, but I offer the anecdote as 
forcible evidence that a new science cannot depend on a welcome from the 
followers of older ones, and to confirm the former conclusion that it is advisable 
to establish a special Journal for Biometry. 
The primary object of Biometry is to afford material that shall be exact enough 
for the discovery of incipient changes in evolution which are too small to be other- 
wise apparent. The distribution of any given attribute, within any given species, 
at any given time, has to be determined, together with its relations to external 
influences. This affords a standard whence departures may be measured and the 
direction and rate of their progress ascertained. Evolutionaiy changes are exceed- 
ingly slow as a rule, but supposing that a thousand years or thirty generations of 
mankind, would suffice in some particular case for some conspicuous alteration in a 
species, exact measurements ought to discover its progress well within the limits 
