Hereditary genius : an inquiry into its laws and consequences.

  • Francis Galton
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hereditary genius : an inquiry into its laws and consequences. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    sedulously guard against any bias of my own; it was also essential that the group to be dealt with should be suffi- ciently numerous for statistical treatment, and again, that the family histories of the persons it contained should be accessible, and, if possible, already published. The list at length adopted for this prefatory purpose was that of the English Judges since the Reformation. Their kinships were analyzed, and the ]3ercentage of their eminent relations in the various near degrees were tabulated and the results discussed. These were very striking, and seemed amply sufficient of themselves to prove the main question. Various objections to the validity of the inferences drawn from them may, how- ever, arise; they are considered, and, it is believed, disposed of, in the book. After doing this, a series of lists were taken in suc- cession, of the most illustrious statesmen, commanders, literary men, men of science, poets, musicians, and painters, of whom history makes mention. To each of these lists were added many English eminent men of recent times, whose biographies are familiar, or, if not, are easily acces- sible. The lists were drawn up without any bias of my own, for I always relied mainly upon the judgment of others, exercised without any knowledge of the object of the present inquiry, such as the selections made by his- torians or critics. After the lists of the illustrious men had been disposed of, a large group of eminent Protestant divines were taken in hand—namely, those who were in- cluded in Middleton's once well known and highly esteemed biographical dictionary of such persons. Afterwards the Senior Classics of Cambridge were discussed, then the north country oarsmen and wrestlers. In the principal lists all the selected names were inserted, in which those who
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