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Abstract

SIR FRANCIS GALTON was born on February 16, 1822, in the same year as Mendel. The Eugenics Education Society is celebrating the anniversary in a dignified way with addresses on Galton's contributions, not only to eugenics, the cause that was nearest his heart, but to statistics and geography as well. Galton was in more than one striking way the complement of his cousin, Charles Darwin, but especially in this respect: that his imagination was fired with the idea of man's evolution going on. Darwin thought more perhaps of the descent of man, Galton of the ascent; but it is very interesting that the doyen among eugenists should be Darwin's own son. The Eugenics Education Society has been fortunate in having had Major Leonard Darwin for many years at its helm. Of course, Charles Darwin and Francis Galton were entirely at one, though the angle from which they regarded man was a little different. What Galton grasped so firmly was the idea of man evolving, and that no longer mysteriously, but under the influence of factors which are discoverable by, and amenable to, scientific methods. He had the vision of the control of life of applying our knowledge of the factors in evolution to the guidance and acceleration of that evolution. This was to him, as he said, “a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature.” In celebrating the anniversary there is reason for congratulation and encouragement, for Galton's doctrines have made rapid headway. It must be confessed, however, that the need for more enthusiasm is great. Thus we see from Prof. Karl Pearson's letter to the Times of January 18 that although the Galton Laboratory is nobly housed, its undertakings—especially in the way of publication—are sadly hampered by lack of funds. The same hindrance affects the Eugenics Education Society, and it is plainly a matter for regret that new knowledge of high importance should be lying unpublished and that educational efforts to diffuse the “virile creed” should have to be slackened when they are so urgently needed.