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Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 409

honorary president of the other, to say that there is no other connection between them. Their spheres of action are different, and ought to be mutually helpful. The laboratory investigates without bias, and with the help of highly-trained experts, large collections of such data as may throw light on some of the many problems of eugenics. The business of the society is to popularize results that have been laboriously reached elsewhere and to arouse enthusiasm in the public. It is active in doing so. I wish to take this opportunity of saying that I wholly approve of the fairness and scientific thoroughness of the laboratory work under the direction of Professor Karl Pearson.

It is unfortunate that much of the criticism on the work of the laboratory is by those who write under a strong bias. That on the effect of alcoholic parentage upon offspring is an instance of this. I have neither need nor wish to say more about this question, because I understand that a discussion of these criticisms will appear in a second edition of the Memoir in question, which is now at the press*. Also that a new Memoir on extreme alcoholism in adults will appear in a few weeks. FRANCIS GALTON.

Enough has been said to indicate that Galton strongly sympathised with the staff of his Laboratory under the criticism poured out on it, much of which was written by those "under a strong bias." It worried him greatly because the attack originated in a group which had been labelled "Eugenists" by Galton himself, and was largely directed against the employment of methods, which he himself had devised.

Heredity and Tradition. The boundary line in the case of mankind between tradition-that is, the handing down of acquired experience in the form of knowledge, habits and institutions-and heredity-that is, the physical transfer to offspring of germinal matter which controls the development of their qualities or of their descendants' qualities-is not a very easily defined one. It does not admit of obvious experimentation in the case of man. Certain languages, for example, have nasal, guttural and even vowel sounds, which are difficult of acquirement by members of races which have not spoken those languages for generations. Is there a physical heredity of the organs of speech which carries with it differences of vocalisation in the different races of man ? The song of birds is specific; do they acquire their individuality of song by heredity solely, or by tradition? The cry of the baboon can express at least pleasure, fear, rage and love-thirst ; it is the same with the dog. We know too little of the development of language in the earliest stages of mankind to fix a definite boundary to the hereditary and the traditional. There are many other such instances which may be cited. Generally we must admit that it has been too customary to attribute to traditional knowledge in man what in other animals we term hereditary

* Replies were made to our critics not only in the public press, but in the following publications of the Laboratory

A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Intelligence of the Offspring. By Karl Pearson and Ethel M. Elderton.

The Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Ofspring. A Reply to the Cambridge Economists. By Karl Pearson.

An Attempt to correct the Misstatements made by Sir Victor Horsley, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., and Mary D. Sturge, M.D., in their Criticisms of the Memoir: "A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism, etc." By Karl Pearson.

All published by the Cambridge University Press.

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