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OCR Rendition - approximate
492 Life and Letters of Francis Galton You are indeed most good to offer continued help and I appreciate its value. We will have a good talk. I have had an inquiry in view for long and must now begin to beat the bushes as it were, to see if the covert I want to shoot over holds a fair quantity of game. If it promises well, I shall think of taking it up steadily. It would be a growth out of-one chapter or rather paragraph of Human Faculty, which must in the meantime be disposed of in a 2nd edition. I am very glad you like the job, just completed. I wonder if it will produce results. A good deal of routine work will now be set going, in continuation of what has been done, at the Laboratory. Among other things, I must form a good standard collection of enlarged prints. I must start a photographer to attend some hours, say three days a-week, at the Laboratory. I must talk over with you my plans about all this. What grand mountaineering you have had. But it will be difficult to change into a sedentary life. Till we-meet. Very faithfully yours, FRANCIS GALTON. Address to: 42, RUTLAND GATE, S.W. September 22, 1892. DEAR COLLINS, It would take long to explain, as the idea is at present nebulous and capable of concentrating round one or other of many alternative centres, but briefly it is on the measure of motives. For example, that interesting little book of Leffingwell showed how little influence race, religion, etc., etc., severally had on illegitimacy. What is their relative influence and what is it that governs the variety of result? Men coolly face death under many conditions-what' are these conditions (this is the substance of the paragraph to which I referred) ? Bribery can do so- and so-what can it do? In all cases measuring statistically the commensurability of extremely different motives and temptations, shown by money bribes and compensations. The final interest of the inquiry and its truest centre lies in the fact that the old religious motives of deterrence and of reward are ceasing to be efficacious and we have to consider what can take their place. I shall have a curious variety of facts to look up-some bearing on incidents in barbarous life-some in very various civilisations-some in our own. Also the power- of illusion forms one very large branch. Then again the economic laws of value and their mathematics, and very much else. I hardly know whether this random account will convey a provisional notion of what I mean, but it is the best I can at this moment give in a small space. Sometimes I lean towards making the illusion the dominant idea. But it is very inadequately thought out at present. Very faithfully yours, FRANCIS GALTON. We shall be at 5, Bertie Terrace, Leamington, on Monday, and are going in the meantime to Lady Welby near Grantham. 42, RUTLAND GATE, S.W. December 15, 1892. MY DEAR BESSY, Very many thanks indeed for your capital account of Sir M. C.'s teeth. It is particularly appropriate for quotation (of course without names), as it concerns imagination in three different senses, Feeling, Touch and Sight. Merely as a story not vouched for, it would do as an illustration ; but we scientific men always desire to be as careful as possible about our alleged instances, and I should be uncommonly glad to get some verification of the story. Is Dr Henry Gisborne alive and resident in Derby? If he is, do you think he is a sort of person to whom I could write, with the chance of getting an accurate reply ? Is there anybody you can think of who could help me with further information in respect to this? I mightfor example write to the Editors of the Derby newspapers (do you happen to know the names of the newspapers?), and could at least get a sight of the original article at the British Museum. Sir M. C. would be the right person to ask ! ! ! If you can give me any useful hints I should be truly obliged. I am so glad to hear that you are out of doors at length. All fairly well, here. Affectionately yours, FRANCIS GALTON. The story runs thus : Sir M. C. of Derby made one of a week-end party. Retiring to bed, he suddenly missed his denture, and, coughing violently, he became conscious of having swallowed it and could feel it in his windpipe. The nearest doctor and surgeon were summoned. The doctor looking down his throat saw the end of the denture, and the surgeon touched it. Hurried
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