Heredity, with preludes on current events / [Joseph Cook].

  • Cook, Joseph, 1838-1901.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Heredity, with preludes on current events / [Joseph Cook]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    16 HEKEDITY. 10. Suppose, therefore, that we have in the great century of Athenian history two hundred and sev¬ enty thousand free-born persons, — that is, three times the ninety thousand. Of these there would be one hundred and thirty-five thousand and ninety males. Of these one-half, or sixty-seven thousand five hundred, would survive the age of twenty-six, and one-third the age of fifty. 11. There was, therefore, in free Attica, in her best century, one illustrious man to every four thousand eight hundred and twenty-two above the age of twenty-six, or say one to every five thousand of mature men. There is the fact. This is what the human race can do. That one to every five thousand of mature Greek men in Attica was illustrious, is an absolutely indisputable circumstance, on which, standing here with the audience upon the Acropolis, I desire you to fasten your attention as a headlight in the per¬ haps tortuous labyrinth of our discussion as to the natural laws of descent. Galton in his work on Hereditary Genius (American edition, p. 341) makes several mistakes in dates, but, from a narrower in¬ duction, arrives at this same result, — that one in five thousand of mature men of the great age of Athens was in such a sense distinguished that to this hour we are proud to make these men our teachers in philosophy, oratory, poetry, and art. The sug¬ gestive course of thought pursued by Galton is freely used in this discussion, and is credited to him ; but so many changes in the way of enlargement and cor-