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276 galton.org
If we are satisfied that the actions of man are not influenced by prayer,
even through the subtle influences of his thoughts and will, the only
probable form of agency will have been disproved, and no one would care
to advance a claim in favour of direct physical interferences.
Biographies do not show that devotional influences have clustered in
any remarkable degree round the youth of those who, whether by their
talents or social position, have left a mark upon our English history. Lord
Campbell, in his preface to his Lives of the Chancellors, says, “There is
no office in the history of any nation that has been filled with such a long
succession of distinguished and interesting men as the office of Lord
Chancellor,” and that “generally speaking, the most eminent men, if not
the most virtuous, have been selected to adorn it.” His implied
disparagement of their piety is fully sustained by an examination of their
respective biographies, and by a taunt of Horace Walpole, quoted in the
same preface. An equal absence of remarkable devotional tendencies may
be observed in the lives of the leaders of great political parties. The
founders of our great families too often owed their advancement to tricky
and time-serving courtiership. The belief so frequently expressed in the
Psalms, that the descendants of the righteous shall continue, and that those
of the wicked shall surely fail, is not fulfilled in the history of our English
peerage. Take for instance the highest class, that of the Ducal houses. The
influence of social position in this country is so enormous that the
possession of a dukedom is a power that can hardly be understood without
some sort of calculation. There are, I believe, only twenty-seven dukes to
about eight millions of adult male Englishmen, or about three dukes to
each million, yet the cabinet of fourteen ministers which governs this
country, and India too, commonly contains one duke, often two, and in
recent times three. The political privilege inherited with a dukedom in this
country is at the lowest estimate many thousand-fold above the average
birth-right of Englishmen. What was the origin of these ducal families
whose influence on the destiny of England and her dependencies is so
enormous? Were their founders the eminently devout children of
eminently pious parents? Have they and their ancestors been distinguished
among the praying classes? Not so. I give in a footnote
*
a list of their
names, which recalls many a deed of patriotism, valour, and skill, many
*
Abercorn, Argyll, Athole, Beaufort, Bedford, Buccleuch, Buckingham,
Cleveland, Devonshire, Grafton, Hamilton, Leeds, Leinster, Manchester,
Marlborough, Montrose, Newcastle, Norfolk, Northumberland, Portland,
Richmond, Roxburghe, Rutland, St. Albans, Somerset, Sutherland, Wellington.
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