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160   Life and Letters of Francis Galton


You are very kind in giving me so much valuable advice and so much encouragement.

Miss Cobbe's review is very characteristic. She has not, however, quite caught what I am driving at in religious matters and which-if the book shall be enough read to make it reasonable for me to do so-I shall express more clearly. Very sincerely yours, FRANCIS GALTON.

The religious views are probably those of the Hereditary Genius : see our p. 114. The review, entitled : `Hereditary Piety',' by Frances Power Cobbe, will be found in the Theological Review, April, 1870. I do not know whether she was at this time a correspondent of Galton's, but she was so in 1877.

(7)   5, BERTIE TERRACE, LEAMINGTON. April 26/70.

MY DEAR DARWIN, Two more litters and no happy results, the young being all true silver greys. There ought to have been a third litter but the doe had not kindled. I shall next give a fresh infusion to every one of my old stock and hope to raise the proportion of alien blood in their bodies to at least 3 per cent. of their entire weight, or, say 30 per cent. of their entire blood.

I am obliged to defer all this for a week or two longer for my mother has been lying at the verge of death for a fortnight and I am wanted by her. She is now a trifle better and her illness-the result of bronchitis-may be less acute for a while and I may be able to get back to London. We have no reasonable hope that she will ever recover even a more moderate degree of health. Very sincerely yours, FRANCIS GALTON..

(8)   42, RUTLAND GATE, S.W. May 12, 1870 (written at the Athenaeum).

MY DEAR DARWIN, Good rabbit news! One of the latest litters has a white forefoot. It was born April 23rd, but as we did not disturb the young, the forefoot was not observed till to-day. The little things had huddled together showing only their backs and heads, and the foot was never suspected. The mother was injected from a grey and white and the father from a black and white. This, recollect, is from a transfusion of only 1/8th part of alien blood in each parent; now, after many unsuccessful experiments, I have greatly improved the method of operation and am beginning on the other jugulars of my stock. Yesterday I operated on 2 who are doing well to-day, and who now have 1/3rd alien blood in their veins. On Saturday I hope for still greater success, and shall go on...until I get at least one-half alien blood. The experiment is not fair to Pangenesis until I do.

We are for the time relieved from anxiety about my poor dear Mother, who suffered the agonies of death over and over again, but has strangely pulled through, and is now comfortable though very weak and seriously shaken. Very sincerely yours, FRANCIS GALTON.

The appearance of an `orphan foot,' or even two, in normally wholecoloured animals purely-bred is a common event; but it is interesting to note how Galton seized any feature he could that supported mongrelisation, and thus the demonstration of the truth of 'pangenesis.' He discusses this white foot, pp. 402-3 of his paper, but, I think, might have dismissed it as he did the white noses and flare of some of his first batch of litters.

(9)   42, RUTLAND GATE, S.W. June 1st, 1870 (written at the Athenaeum).

MY DEAR DARWIN, Though I have no new litter to report, and shall have only one before the end of the month, I do not like to let more time go by, without heartily thanking you for your helpful and encouraging letter. I will not trouble you with details now, but simply say that I feel sure, unless some unexpected disaster to my stock should arise, that I shall have a very complete set of experiments finished before August. My bucks have been heavily re-transfused and I have a doe in the same state. Also I shall have all the combinations, extreme and intermediate, of pure and transfused bucks with pure and transfused does.

I find I cannot manage pigeons for want of a dove-cot, and dare not try dogs lest the Zoological Gardens should be alarmed by the noise and I should be extruded. But notwith

' Reprinted in Darwinism in Morals, and other Essays, 1872.