Galton is an anthropologist and a statistician. He reduces his results, wherever practicable, to mathematical form and statement. In "Hereditary Genius" he assumes that high reputation is a fairly accurate test of high ability (=genius). From this assumption he proceeds to study certain groups of eminent men. He considers first the judges of England from 1660 to 1868, and carefully examines into the family histories to ascertain how many and what eminent relatives they had. Similar studies are made of the statesmen of the time of George the Third, of the Premiers of the last hundred years, of men of literature, scientists, painters, musicians, divines, and scholars. Lastly, some data from oarsmen and wrestlers are presented. In each series it is shown that there are more eminent relatives in the families of given men of talent than mathematical probabilities require. Some few quotations or conclusions may be interesting—some of them important in the discussion, some merely incidental.
Talent, it seems, is dreadfully rare; mediocrity is painfully common. Out of any million of Englishmen over fifty years old only about two hundred and fifty are really eminent.
"Ability, in the long run, does not start suddenly into existence and disappear with equal abruptness, but rather it rises in a gradual and regular curve out of the ordinary level of family life. The statistics show that there is a regular average increase of ability in the generations that precede its culmination and as regular a decrease in those which succeed it. In the first case the marriages have been consentient to its production; in the latter they have been incapable of preserving it."
One of the best tables in the work is the one giving the facts regarding statesmen. These are generally eminently gifted, and their relationships are rich in ability. Nor is the ability distributed at haphazard: it clearly affects certain families. Moreover, the peculiar combination of gifts that make up a good statesman—high intellectual power, tact in dealing with men, power of expression in debate, ability to endure exceedingly hard work—is hereditary.
Incidentally, Mr. Galton makes some suggestive statements regarding the cause of peerages dying out, why very pious parents may have wicked children, and how the church has hindered man's progress. Men of ability who are raised to peerages are prone to marry heiresses; or, if they do not do so themselves, their sous do. But the heiress—only child in a family—comes from an infertile stock, and is little likely to be herself the mother of a vigorous family. Pious persons, according to Mr. Galton, are naturally endowed with high moral characters combined with instability of disposition,—peculiarities in no way connected. The child may inherit both, or he may inherit one without the other; in neither of the latter cases will he be markedly pious, in one he may be truly bad. Mr. Galton claims that the policy of the church during the middle ages, in enforcing or encouraging celibacy in the best men and women of the time, placed a premium upon mediocrity.
Our author believes that the chance for eminence in the relationship of an eminent man varies with the degree of kin. He says:
"I reckon the chances of kinsmen of illustrious men rising or having risen to eminence to be fifteen and one-half to one hundred in case of fathers, thirteen and one-half to one hundred in the case of brothers, twenty-four to one hundred in the case of sons. Or, putting these and the remaining proportions in a more convenient way, we obtain the following results: In the first grade, the chance of the father is one to six; of each brother, one to seven; of each son, one to four. In the second grade, of each grandfather, one to twenty-five; of each uncle, one to forty; of each nephew, one to forty; of each grandson, one to twenty-nine. In the third grade the chance of each brother is about one to two hundred, except in case of first cousins, where it is one to one hundred."
Nor are different races equally gifted with ability. Mr. Galton considers the Negro race two grades in his scale of ability below the English. But he believes that we are surpassed by the Athenians at their prime by at least an equal amount. This claim may be true, but it is not palatable. In this discussion the author strikes the key-note of his work, the underlying idea of all his study. He believes that we ought to raise the grade of ability of our race, that we should breed a nobler posterity. Earlier marriage of the capable is the only way for the intellectually and morally fit to survive. This practical application of the results of his apparently non-utilitarian and theoretical studies is ever the most striking feature in Mr. Galton's writings.
Passing by his "English Men of Science" and "Investigations into Human Faculty," although both are interesting and characteristic, we will consider "Natural Inheritance" the most mathematical of the series. To discover the parental influence upon the offspring, he finds it necessary to get rid of sex, and transforms the female character of the mother into male equivalents; he then combines the parental influences, and, by averaging, secures an
