Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/19

 EUGENICS 7

boyish hopefulness of Mr. Galton, who mentally is about half my age. Hence for a time I am carried away by their enthusiasm, and appear where I never antici- pated being seen in the chair at a meeting of the Sociological Society. If this society thrives, and lives to do yeoman work in science which, skeptic as I am, I sincerely hope it may do then I believe its members in the distant future will look back on this occasion as perhaps the one of greatest historical interest in its babyhood. To those of us who have worked in fields adjacent to Mr. Galton's, he appears to us as something more than the discoverer of a new method of inquiry ; we feel for him something more than we may do for the distinguished scientists in whose laboratories we have chanced to work. There is an indescribable atmosphere which spreads from him and which must influence all those who have come within reach of it. We realize it in his perpetual youth ; in the instinct with which he reaches a great truth, where many of us plod oji, groping through endless analysis ; in his absolute unselfishness ; and in his continual receptivity for new ideas. I have often wondered if Mr. Galton ever quarreled with anybody. And to the mind of one who is ever in controversy, it is one of the miracles associated with Mr. Gallon that I know of no controversy, scientific or literary, in which he has been engaged. Those who look up to him, as we do, as to a master and scientific leader, feel for him as did the scholars for the grammarian : " Our low life was the level's, and the night's ;

He's for the morning."

It seems to me that it is precisely in this spirit that he attacks the gravest problem which lies before the Caucasian races " in the morning." Are we to make the whole doctrine of descent, of inheritance, and of selection of the fitter, part of our everyday life, of our social customs, and of conduct? It is the question of the study now, but tomorrow it will be the question of the market- place, of morality, and of politics. If I wanted to know how to put a saddle on a camel's back without chafing him, I should go to Francis Galton ; if I wanted to know how to manage the women of a treacherous African tribe, I should go to Francis Galton ; if I wanted an instrument for measuring a snail, or an arc of latitude, I should appeal to Francis Galton ; if I wanted advice on any mechanical, of any geographical, or any sociological problem, I should consult Francis Galton. In all these matters, and many others, I feel confident he would throw light on my difficulties, and I am firmly convinced that, with his eternal youth, his elasticity of mind, and his keen insight, he can aid us in seeking an answer to one of the most vital of our national problems : How is the next generation of Englishmen to be mentally and physically equal to the past generation which has provided us with the great Victorian statesmen, writers, and men of science most of whom are now no more but which has not entirely ceased to be as long as we can see Francis Galton in the flesh ?

BY DR. MAUDSLEY.

The subject is difficult, not only from the complexity of the matter, but also from the subtleties of the forces that we have to deal with. In considering the question of hereditary influences, as I have done for some long period of my life, one met with the difficulty, which must have occurred to everyone here, that in any family of which you take cognizance you may find one member, a son, like his mother or father, or like a mixture of the two. or more like his mother, or that he harks back to some distant ancestor ; and then again you will find one not in the least like father or mother or any relatives, so far as you know. There is a variation, or whatever you may call it, of which in our present knowledge you cannot give the least explanation. Take, as a supreme instance, Shakespeare. He was born of parents not distinguished from their neighbors. He had five brothers living, one of whom came to London and acted with him at Blackfriars' Theater, and afterward died. Yet, while Shakespeare rose to the extraordinary eminence that he did, none of his brothers distinguished themselves in any way. And so it is in other families. From my long experience as a physician I could give instances in every department in science, in literature, in art in which one member of the family has risen to extraordinary prominence, almost genius perhaps, and another has suffered from mental disorder.