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628   Life and Letters of Francis Galton

heads. First, that the general show was just what he had expected; secondly, that a crowd of men was a nasty object, like flies on a plate ; thirdly, that he would never go again. However I was assured that he did, and that in the very next year.

I thought him a man of naturally a very strong constitution, ruined by over-work. When about to utter remarks he was apt to clear his throat by a deep "hem," that testified to a powerful chest. His natural strength is shown by the account in his autobiography of his extraordinary walk, when a boy of 13, while he was half-starved, of more than 40 miles the first day, 40 the second and 20 the third, to his destination.

The mental process I most admired in him was that by which he generalised. It is too common for persons to arrive at general conclusions through unconscious and unchecked steps, so that when asked for evidence they cannot give it Spencer had always a store of facts at hand whenever he wished to justify himself. His wealth of ready illustration was marvellous. Notwithstanding my admiration of his intellect and my sense of incompetence to treat subjects in the wide manner that he did so easily, I cannot say that I have profited much by his writings or taken pleasure in them. I rarely felt "forwarder" for reading them, least so in subjects with which I was familiar and where I felt somewhat entitled to criticise his results. I am far from being singular in saying this, as few of those with whom I have talked seem to admire his work whole-heartedly, and I have often expressed a wonder how far their nonappreciation would be justified by the judgment of posterity.

Note top. 585, Chapter X VII.

Galton had sent Miss Elderton a ticket for a meeting at which sexproblems were discussed under the presidency of Dr Slaughter. The meeting was not, as Galton supposed, held under the auspices of the Eugenics Education Society. The exact origin of the latter Society is somewhat obscure. We have Galton's letter to Montague Crackanthorpe of December 16, 1906 (see Vol. iiiA, p. 339), but we do not know what part the latter took in the matter until the spring of 1908. Meanwhile there existed in or before 1907 a body termed the "Moral Education League." At a meeting held on November 15, 1907, a section of this League reconstituted itself as a new Society-the " Eugenics Education Society." Members of the Committee of the League resigned their posts to become members of the Council of the new Society. Dr Slaughter was the first Chairman of this Council, and the guiding spirit of the infant Society during the early days of its existence. Galton did not join the Society until its practical control had passed into the hands o£ Montague Crackanthorpe, which was the state of affairs by June, 1908 (see Vol. IIIA, p. 346).

Note top. 618, Chapter X VII.

Plenty of illustrations can be given of Galton's good temper and sense of humour. He used to write in a minute diary 1"•5 x 1`7 a brief record of events in the smallest of handwritings ; -some of these diaries have survived. Thus the entry for Easter Sunday in Seville, 1899, runs: "Cocks, Bulls, and Fire," which signifies a cockfight before breakfast, a bullfight in the afternoon and his niece Eva setting her room on fire while dressing for dinner in the evening. For the latter occurrence he had to pay eight guineas, and yet, Mrs Ellis tells me, he never said a word in reproof : see p. 508:.


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