PREFACE
T HE first volume of this biography appeared in July, 1914, about a month before the outbreak of the Great War. 'It met with few readers, and failed to repay the cost of production. The war injured the Galton Laboratory in many ways, the chief, perhaps, being that it rendered of small value its publication funds; thus a collection of Galton's published papers, which had been projected before the war, was placed out of the question. Further the relative and the friend of Galton who in 1914 had financed together the first volume were unable to face the excessive post-war costs of printing. In 1919 accordingly, when the pen again replaced ballistics, the tired mind and hand could not seek a legitimate relief in continuing the story of Galton's life. It was only in 1922 that the generous gift of an old schoolfriend, the late Mr Lewis Haslam, M.P., enabled me to face the difficulties of a second volume. I deeply regret that he did not live to see this work in type. But if friends and admirers of Galton find in it anything they value, let them remember the debt they owe to Lewis Haslam.
When it came to planning this second volume the biographer found himself, however, in a very different position from what he had anticipated in 1914. He then considered that the issue of the collected works of Galton would render easy the task of describing Galton's researches. Such issue having ceased to be practicable, a grave problem arose. Many of Galton's papers are now inaccessible, even a record of the original loci of publication is not available', there is no annotated bibliography to guide men to the memoirs themselves by a suggestion of their contents, and they are scattered, one might almost say, at random not only through the publications of many learned societies and scientific journals, but in the daily, weekly and monthly press, often in magazines which have long ceased to appear. The most striking factor in Galton's work was its pioneer character, he blazed a trail where others have followed with a highway. To grasp his extraordinary suggestiveness-even when his methods are the crude extemporisations of the first settler, ever ready to advance further as others crowd in behindthe reader must study Galton's writings in the mass. But these are in many cases beyond his reach, if not beyond his ken. Thinking the •matter out carefully, I determined that this second volume of Galton's biography should to a large extent supply the reader with what the collected works would have done ; that the resume of memoirs, books, and articles should be full enough to enable the anthropologist, the geneticist and the statistician to appreciate
' The bibliography attached to the Memories is very incomplete. Not only do papers fail, but often the description is incorrect either as to volume or as to year, or even as to the title of the journal assigned, while throughout no pages are given.
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