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OCR Rendition - approximate
Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 313 7, WELL ROAD, N.W. Sunday, April 14, 1907. MY DEAR FRANCIS GALTON, It was quite a) holiday seeing you on Thursday, and I came back with fresh vigour to my task. I have got about a quarter of the lecture now, done. I am sending you by parcel-post (a) Pollock's Spinoza, a fine book, which some day you will let me have back. (b) A series of my own Essays, which please do not return. In mitigation of anything which may offend you in them, I may say that most of them were written 25 years ago 'and all of them more than 20. The only ones that I suggest you should look at are Nos. 6 and 7, possibly No. 10 might interest you in a spare moment. I enclose the proof of the wrapper for the Eugenics Memoirs. I hope you will approve it. Will you return it tome with suggestions of any changes you would like? I shall have to send it to the University for approval... .By the bye, I was amusing myself by trying to draw up a pedigree of Darwins and Wedgwoods on the basis of Noteworthy Families, pp. 18-19. On p. 18 Josiah Wedgwood is said to be George Darwin's, me me fa, and on p. 19 his me fa fa. Hence his mother's father and mother's mother must have been brother and sister! On p. 19, 1. 6, I read: "me fafa (she was her husband's fa bro dau)." Now the "she" is I suppose the me, hence the great Charles' wife was a Darwin, his father's brother's daughter, but her father's father was a Wedgwood. Hence she was a Wedgwood. Something seems to have gone wrong on pp. 18 and 19. Will you put the W + D pedigree for me on a bit of paper? I have got very confused over it. Can you send me -'s address? It has occurred to me that it might possibly do good, if I sent a few lines. I think, perhaps, I am the only person, who knowing so much, could effectively say something more. It might not help, but I don't think it could harm. If you advise me not to, of course I shall not attempt it. But sometimes a call to the immediately obvious duty is really helpful. Affectionately, KARL PEARSON. 42, RUTLAND GATE, S. W. April 16, 1907. MY DEAR KARL PEARSON, I am so glad that the pleasant visit you gave me was no hindrance to your work. Excuse delay in replying to your questions... .1 must postpone for another day the Darwin pedigree. The original papers are, I think, at 88, Gower Street, but I may succeed otherwise in working it out. The books are safely come ! Many thanks. I will read both of them leisurely. As regards the entries on the wrapper, they seem to me to be quite clear and appropriate, except that the address given to applicants to exchange publications should be to some person. I have put "to the Editor" as a suggestion. As regards the colour of the wrapper, it may have distinctive merits, but not in the sense that the printing on it is distinct. At this moment I cannot read it in a darkish corner of the room, and I have often noticed in the heaps of periodicals on the tables at the clubs that the printing on the blue cover of the Edinburgh Review is by far the most indistinct of any. As regards size you naturally want to be constant to that of your other publications, so I say nothing against it, though my own unbiased feeling would be strongly in favour of Royal 8v° The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford has attacked me about the Herbert Spencer lecture with such a kind and thoughtful letter,-assuring me that if when the time comes I should feel unequal to delivering it personally, or even of being present, he would arrange for its being read in my absence,-that I felt obliged to cancel my previous refusal. So I shall have to hold forth towards the end of May. I see that the first of these lectures was given in 1905 by Frederick Harrison. What may have occurred in 1906, I do not yet know.:. .I will be able to tell more when I write about the Darwin Pedigree. Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON. [HAMPSTEAD.] April 19, 1907. - MY DEAR FRANCIS GALTON, I should have written yesterday only I was hoping to hear possibly from you again. I want to say how glad I am to hear you are going to undertake the Herbert Spencer Lecture after all. The only point I feel some compunction about is whether I have not, unwittingly, taken your subject from you. I had no idea at the time I sent them my title that you would be lecturing yourself in Oxford, and I would change it even now, if they had not posted it about the place. At least I judge they must have advertised it in some way, because I have received one or two letters already on the title. Now can you look upon me as P O III 40
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