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Correlation and Application of Statistics to Problems of Heredity 67

Husband and Wife as great as that between cousins. I have placed in brackets after the observed numbers those that would arise in each category if themating were purely random. It will be seen at once that the tendency for like to marry like is increased at the expense of the unlike marriages. I fail to understand how Galton interpreted his percentages ; naturally if like marries like above the random allotment, there must be a reduction in the marriages of unlike individuals, the random 42 °/o of the latter being in fact reduced to 36'/.. Thus he writes


"There is I think trustworthy evidence of the existence of some slight disinclination to marry within the same caste, for signs of it appear in each of the three sets of families with which the Table deals. The total result is that there are only 36 per centt of such marriages observed, whereas if there had been no disinclination but perfect indifference, the number would have been raised to 42. The difference is small and the figures are few, but for the above reasons it is not likely to be fallacious. I believe the facts to be, that highly artistic people keep pretty much to themselves, but that the very much larger body of moderately artistic people do not. A man of highly artistic temperament must look upon those who are deficient in it, as barbarians; he would continually crave for a sympathy and response that such persons are incapable of giving. On the other hand, every quiet unmusical man must shrink a little from the idea of wedding himself to a grand piano in constant action, with its vocal and peculiar social accompaniments; but he might anticipate great pleasure in having a wife of a moderately artistic temperament who would give colour and variety to his prosaic life. On the other hand a sensitive and imaginative wife would be conscious of needing the aid of a husband who had enough plain common sense to restrain her too enthusiastic and frequently foolish projects*." (pp. 157-8.)

I have cited this passage, because, although it endeavours to explain a "slight disinclination to marry within the same caste," which Galton's data rightly interpreted show no evidence for, it yet throws light on some of his personal views of life. I can well picture what torture to him it would have been to be wedded to "a grand piano in constant action." While always exhibiting the best of old-fashioned courtesy to women, he had, when I first knew him, little belief in their intellectual strength; just as he held, that while women gifted with great physical strength existed, it was well for the repose of .the other sex that they were rare (see our Vol. ii, pp. 374-376). I think that later in life, when he came more in touch with academically trained women, and saw what work they could do on his own lines, his views suffered considerable modification. Again I am not content to pass without protest the rather sweeping statement that sensitive and imaginative persons, whether men or women, are apt to require restraining from "too enthusiastic and frequently foolish projects"; it denies that such persons often combine their sensitiveness and imagination with a rational power of control. It does not seem to me that the three factors, reason, sensitiveness and imagination, are incompatible, but that the success of truly great minds lies in the just combination of the three.

* Galton has written in pencil against this passage in his personal copy of National Inheritance, that it must be corrected, and I have also found some printed lists of Errata, in which the passage is stated to be incorrect. But none of the half-dozen copies I have examined of the work contains this Errata slip, and thus it is desirable to draw the attention of possible readers to a misinterpretation, which would certainly have been corrected in a second edition.

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