Francis Galton Quotes

The demand for exceptional ability, when combined with energy and good character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with them is hardly more likely to remain over looked than a bird’s nest in the playground of a school.

I have received in a letter from a friend residing in , , the following account of a remarkably interesting meteorological phenomenon, which is well worth putting on record:—
“We had a curious sight from this house yesterday [July 26]. It was a dead calm, but in a field just below the garden, with only one hedge between us and it, the hay was whirled up high into the sky, a column connecting above and below, and in the course of the evening we found great patches of hay raining down all over the surrounding meadows and our garden. It kept falling quite four hours after the affair. There was not a breath of air stirring as far as we could see, except in that one spot.”

[T]though scientific travellers are comparatively few, yet out of their ranks a large proportion of the leaders in all branches of science has been supplied. It is one of the most grateful results of a journey to the young traveller to find himself admitted, on the ground of his having so much of special interest to relate, into the society of men with whose names he had long been familiar, and whom he had reverenced as his heroes.

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason. Whenever a large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshalled in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful form of regularity proves to have been latent all along. The tops of the marshalled row form a flowing curve of invariable proportions; and each element, as it is sorted into place, finds, as it were, a pre-ordained niche, accurately adapted to fit it.

In the earlier part of his memoir, Sir Bartle Frere had compared our mode of treating uncivilized races to that of the Romans. He heartily wished that the resemblance held in certain essential points. Our military hold was as firm, our tolerance of local customs was as great, our dealings were as just, and more just than theirs. But we did not amalgamate with them as the Romans did, we did not intermarry; by means of our missionaries we pressed upon them a form of religion which was not the most congenial. Our civilization was stiff. This, and much more, was pointed out in a very able and most pathetic memoir by Mr. Blyden, the present Minister of Liberia to England, who is a full-blooded negro. The article appeared in Frazer’s Magazine some years ago, and it showed the repressive effect of White civilization upon the Negroes, as contrasted with that of the Mohammedans. It was a shame to us as an Imperial nation, that representatives of the many people whom we governed, did not find themselves more at home among us. They seldom appeared in such meetings as the present one; they did not come to England. We did not see them in the streets. It was very different in ancient Rome, where the presence of foreigners from all parts of the then known world was a characteristic feature of every crowd. He did not now suggest any action, but merely wished to lay stress on this serious drawback to our national character as rulers of a great Empire. He thought they were greatly indebted to Sir Bartle Frere for introducing to public notice so important a subject as the best form of conduct of civilized races towards their less civilized neighbours, and he trusted that it would meet with that full and many-sided discussion which so important a question deserved.

My friend Sir G. Johnson subsequently became the leader of one of the two opposed methods of dealing with cholera. His was the “ eliminative” view, namely, that there was mischief in the system that Nature strove to eliminate, so he prescribed castor oil to expedite matters; others took the exactly opposite view, consequently there was open war between the two methods. I read somewhere that one of Johnson’s most fiery opponents considered the number of deaths occasioned by his method to amount to eleven thousand. Leaving aside all question of the accuracy of the estimate of this particular treatment, it is easy to see that when a pestilence lies heavily on a nation, the numbers affected are so large that a proper or improper treatment may be capable of saving or of destroying many thousands of lives. By all means, then, let competitive methods be tested at hospitals on a sufficiently large scale to settle their relative merits. Of this I will speak further almost immediately.

I said what I have to say about the modern use of the word "genius" in the preface to the second edition of my "Hereditary Genius." It has only latterly lost its old and usual meaning, which is preserved in the term of an "ingenious" artisan, and has come to be applied to something akin to inspiration. This simply means, as I suppose, though some may think differently, that the powers of unconscious work possessed by the brain are abnormally developed in them. The heredity of these powers has not, I believe, been as yet especially studied. It is strange that more attention has not been given until recently to unconscious brain work, because it is by far the most potent factor in mental operations. Few people, when in rapid conversation, have the slightest idea of the particular form which a sentence will assume into which they have hurriedly plunged, yet through the guidance of unconscious cerebration it develops itself grammatically and harmoniously. I write on good authority in asserting that the best speaking and writing is that which seems to flow automatically shaped out of a full mind.

Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective.<p>This is precisely the aim of Eugenics. Its first object is to check the birth-rate of the Unfit, instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock.

One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

The best form of civilization in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities, and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honour as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalized.

General impressions are never to be trusted. Unfortunately when they are of long standing they become fixed rules of life and assume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain a hatred and horror of statistics. They cannot endure the idea of submitting sacred impressions to cold-blooded verification. But it is the triumph of scientific men to rise superior to such superstitions, to desire tests by which the value of beliefs may be ascertained, and to feel sufficiently masters of themselves to discard contemptuously whatever may be found untrue.

A collection of living magnates in various branches of intellectual achievement is always a feast to my eyes; being, as they are, such massive, vigorous, capable-looking animals.

I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

All the formulæ of Conic Sections having long since gone out of my head, I went on my return to London to the Royal Institution to read them up. Professor, now Sir James Dewar, came in and probably noticing signs of despair in my face, asked me what I was about; then said, "Why do you bother over this? My brother in law, J. Hamilton Dickson of Peterhouse, loves problems and wants new ones. Send it to him." I did so... and he most cordially helped me by working it out... on the basis of the... Gaussian Law of Error.

What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.