Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster - Noteworthy Families (Modern Science)
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Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster >> Noteworthy Families (Modern Science)
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NOTEWORTHY FAMILIES
(MODERN SCIENCE)
An Index to Kinships in Near Degrees
between Persons Whose Achievements
Are Honourable, and Have Been
Publicly Recorded
by
FRANCIS GALTON, D.C.L., F.R.S., HON. D.Sc (CAMB.)
and
EDGAR SCHUSTER
Galton Research Fellow in National Eugenics
VOL I
of the Publications of the Eugenics Record Office
of the University of London
London
John Murray, Albemarle Street
1906
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii
PREFACE ix
CHAPTER
GENERAL REMARKS ix
II. NOTEWORTHINESS xi
III. HIGHEST ORDER OF ABILITY xiv
IV. PROPORTION OF NOTEWORTHIES TO THE GENERALITY xviii
V. NOTEWORTHINESS AS A STATISTICAL MEASURE OF ABILITY xx
VI. NOMENCLATURE OF KINSHIPS xxvi
VII. NUMBER OF KINSFOLK IN EACH DEGREE xxviii
VIII. NUMBER OF NOTEWORTHY KINSMEN IN EACH DEGREE xxxiii
IX. MARKED AND UNMARKED NOTEWORTHINESS xxxv
X. CONCLUSIONS xxxix
NOTEWORTHY FAMILIES:
OF SIXTY-SIX F.R.S.'S WHO WERE LIVING IN 1904 1
APPENDIX:
FATHERS OF SOME OF THE SIXTY-SIX F.R.S.'S CLASSIFIED
BY THEIR OCCUPATIONS 80
INDEX 85
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The brief biographical notices of sixty-six noteworthy families
printed in this book are compiled from replies to a circular issued
by me in the spring of 1904 to all living Fellows of the Royal
Society. Those that first arrived were discussed in "Nature," August
11, 1904.
On Mr. Schuster's appointment by the University of London, in
October, 1904, to the Research Fellowship in National Eugenics, all
my materials were placed in his hand. He was to select from them
those families that contained at least three noteworthy kinsmen, to
compile lists of their achievements on the model of the
above-mentioned memoir, to verify statements as far as possible, and
to send what he wrote for final approval by the authors of the
several replies.
This was done by Mr. Schuster. The results were then submitted by him
as an appendix to his Report to the Senate last summer.
After preliminary arrangements, it was determined by the Senate that
the list of Noteworthy Families should be published according to the
title-page of this book, I having agreed to contribute the preface,
Mr. Schuster's time being fully occupied with work in another branch
of Eugenics.
So the list of "Noteworthy Families" in this volume is entirely the
work of Mr. Schuster, except in respect to some slight alterations
and additions for which I am responsible, as well as for all the
rest.
FRANCIS GALTON.
PREFACE
CHAPTER I.--GENERAL REMARKS.
This volume is the first instalment of a work that admits of wide
extension. Its object is to serve as an index to the achievements of
those families which, having been exceptionally productive of
noteworthy persons, seem especially suitable for biographical
investigation.
The facts that are given here are avowedly bald and imperfect;
nevertheless, they lead to certain important conclusions. They show,
for example, that a considerable proportion of the noteworthy members
in a population spring from comparatively few families.
The material upon which this book is based is mainly derived from the
answers made to a circular sent to all the Fellows of the Royal
Society whose names appear in its Year Book for 1904.
The questions were not unreasonably numerous, nor were they
inquisitorial; nevertheless, it proved that not one-half of those who
were addressed cared to answer them. It was, of course, desirable to
know a great deal more than could have been asked for or published
with propriety, such as the proneness of particular families to
grave constitutional disease. Indeed, the secret history of a family
is quite as important in its eugenic aspect as its public history;
but one cannot expect persons to freely unlock their dark closets and
drag forth family skeletons into the light of day. It was necessary
in such a work as this to submit to considerable limitations, while
turning to the fullest account whatever could be stated openly
without giving the smallest offence to any of the persons concerned.
One limitation against which I still chafe in vain is the
impracticability of ascertaining so apparently simple a matter as the
number of kinsfolk of each person in each specific degree of near
kinship, without troublesome solicitations. It was specially asked
for in the circular, but by no means generally answered, even by
those who replied freely to other questions. The reason must in some
cases have been mere oversight or pure inertia, but to a large extent
it was due to ignorance, for I was astonished to find many to whom
the number of even their near kinsfolk was avowedly unknown.
Emigration, foreign service, feuds between near connections,
differences of social position, faintness of family interest, each
produced their several effects, with the result, as I have reason to
believe, that hardly one-half of the persons addressed were able,
without first making inquiry of others, to reckon the number of their
uncles, adult nephews, and first cousins. The isolation of some few
from even their nearest relatives was occasionally so complete that
the number of their brothers was unknown. It will be seen that this
deficiency of information admits of being supplied indirectly, to a
considerable degree.
The collection of even the comparatively small amount of material now
in hand proved much more troublesome than was anticipated, but as the
object and limitations of inquiries like this become generally
understood, and as experience accumulates, the difficulty of similar
work in the future will presumably lessen.
CHAPTER II.--NOTEWORTHINESS.
The Fellowship of the Royal Society is a distinction highly
appreciated by all members of the scientific world. Fifteen men are
annually selected by its council out of some sixty candidates, each
candidate being proposed by six, and usually by more, Fellows in a
certificate containing his qualifications. The candidates themselves
are representatives of a multitude of persons to whom the title would
be not only an honour but a material advantage. The addition of the
letters "F.R.S." to the names of applicants to any post, however
remotely connected with science, is a valuable testimonial and a
recognised aid towards success, so the number of those who desire it
is very large. Experience shows that no special education, other than
self-instruction, is really required to attain this honour. Access to
laboratories, good tuition, and so forth, are doubtless helpful, so
far that many have obtained the distinction through such aid who
could not otherwise have done so, but they are far from being
all-important factors of success. The facts that lie patent before
the eyes of every medical man, engineer, and the members of most
professions, afford ample material for researches that would command
the attention of the scientific world if viewed with intelligence and
combined by a capable mind.
It is so difficult to compare the number of those who might have
succeeded with the number of those who do, that the following
illustration may perhaps be useful: By adding to the 53 registration
counties in England, the 12 in Wales, the 33 in Scotland and the 32
in Ireland, an aggregate of 130 is obtained. The English counties,
and the others in a lesser degree, have to be ransacked in order to
supply the fifteen annually-elected Fellows; so it requires more than
eight of these counties to yield an annual supply of a single Fellow
to the Royal Society.
It is therefore contended that the Fellows of the Royal Society have
sufficient status to be reckoned "noteworthy," and, such being the
case, they are a very convenient body for inquiries like these. They
are trained to, and have sympathy with, scientific investigations;
biographical notices are published of them during their lifetime,
notably in the convenient compendium "Who's Who," to which there will
be frequent occasion to refer; and they are more or less known to one
another, either directly or through friends, making it comparatively
easy to satisfy the occasional doubts which may arise from their
communications. It was easier and statistically safer to limit the
inquiry to those Fellows who were living when the circulars were
issued--that is, to those whose names and addresses appear in the
"Royal Society's Year Book" of 1904. Some of them have since died,
full of honours, having done their duty to their generation; others
have since been elected; so the restriction given here to the term
"Modern Science" must be kept in mind.
Another and a strong motive for selecting the F.R.S. as subjects of
inquiry was that so long ago as 1863-1864 I had investigated the
antecedents of 180 of those who were then living, who were further
distinguished by one or other of certain specified and recognised
honours. My conclusions were briefly described in a Friday evening
lecture, February 27, 1864, before the Royal Institution. These,
together with the data on which they were founded, were published in
the same year in my book "English Men of Science." Readers who desire
fuller information as to the antecedents conducive to success that
are too briefly described further on should refer to the above book.
The epithet "noteworthy" is applied to achievements in all branches
of effort that rank among the members of any profession or calling as
equal, at least, to that which an F.R.S. holds among scientific men.
This affords a convenient and sufficiently definite standard of
merit. I could think of none more appropriate when addressing
scientific men, and it seems to have been generally understood in
the desired sense. It includes more than a half of those whose names
appear in the modern editions of "Who's Who," which are become less
discriminate than the earlier ones. "Noteworthiness" is ascribed,
without exception, to all whose names appear in the "Dictionary of
National Biography," but all of these were dead before the date of
the publication of that work and its supplement. Noteworthiness is
also ascribed to those whose biographies appear in the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica" (which includes many who are now alive), and, in other
works, of equivalent authority. As those persons were considered by
editors of the last named publications to be worthy of note, I have
accepted them, on their authority, as noteworthy.
CHAPTER III.--HIGHEST ORDER OF ABILITY.
No attempt is made in this book to deal with the transmission of
ability of the very highest order, as the data in hand do not furnish
the required material, nor will the conclusions be re-examined at
length that I published many years ago in "Hereditary Genius." Still,
some explanation is desirable to show the complexity of the
conditions that are concerned with the hereditary transmission of the
highest ability, which, for the moment, will be considered as the
same thing as the highest fame.
It has often been remarked that the men who have attained pinnacles
of celebrity failed to leave worthy successors, if any. Many
concurrent causes aid in producing this result. An obvious one is
that such persons are apt to be so immersed in their pursuit, and so
wedded to it, that they do not care to be distracted by a wife.
Another is the probable connection between severe mental strain and
fertility. Women who study hard have, as a class--at least, according
to observant caricaturists--fewer of the more obvious feminine
characteristics; but whether this should be considered a cause or a
consequence, or both, it is difficult to say. A third, and I think
the most important, reason why the children of very distinguished
persons fall sometimes lamentably short of their parents in ability
is that the highest order of mind results from a fortunate mixture of
incongruous constituents, and not of such as naturally harmonize.
Those constituents are _negatively_ correlated, and therefore the
compound is unstable in heredity. This is eminently the case in the
typical artistic temperament, which certainly harmonizes with
Bohemianism and passion, and is opposed to the useful qualities of
regularity, foresight, and level common sense. Where these and
certain other incongruous faculties go together in well-adjusted
proportions, they are capable of achieving the highest success; but
their heritage is most unlikely to be transmitted in its entirety,
and ill-balanced compounds of the same constituents are usually of
little avail, and sometimes extraordinarily bad. A fourth reason is
that the highest imaginative power is dangerously near lunacy. If
one of the sanest of poets, Wordsworth, had, as he said, not
unfrequently to exert strength, as by shaking a gate-post, to gain
assurance that the world around him was a reality, his mind could not
at those times have been wholly sane. Sanity is difficult to define,
except negatively; but, even though we may be convinced of the truths
of the mystic, that nothing is what it seems to be, the
above-mentioned conduct suggests temporary insanity. It is sufficient
to conclude, as any Philistine would, that whoever has to shake a
gate-post to convince himself that it is not a vision is dangerously
near madness. Mad people do such things; those who carry on the work
of the world as useful and law-abiding citizens do not. I may add
that I myself had the privilege of hearing at first hand the
narrator's own account of this incident, which was much emphasized by
his gestures and tones. Wordsworth's unexpected sally was in reply to
a timid question by the late Professor Bonamy Price, then a young
man, concerning the exact meaning of the lines in his famous "Ode to
Immortality," "not for these I raise the song of praise; but for
those obstinate _questionings of sense and outward things_," etc.
I cannot speak from the present returns, but only from my own private
knowledge of the somewhat abnormal frequency with which eccentricity,
or other mental unsoundness, occurs in the families of very able
scientific men. Lombroso, as is well known, strongly asserted the
truth of this fact, but more strongly, as it seems to myself, than
the evidence warrants.
It is, therefore, not in the highest examples of human genius that
heredity can be most profitably studied, men of high, but not of the
highest, ability being more suitable. The only objection to their use
is that their names are, for the most part, unfamiliar to the public.
The vastness of the social world is very imperfectly grasped by its
several members, the large majority of the numerous persons who have
been eminent above their far more numerous fellows, each in his own
special department, being unknown to the generality. The merits of
such men can be justly appreciated only by reference to records of
their achievements. Let no reader be so conceited as to believe his
present ignorance of a particular person to be a proof that the
person in question does not merit the title of noteworthy.
I said what I have to say about the modern use of the word "genius"
in the preface to the second edition of my "Hereditary Genius." It
has only latterly lost its old and usual meaning, which is preserved
in the term of an "ingenious" artisan, and has come to be applied to
something akin to inspiration. This simply means, as I suppose,
though some may think differently, that the powers of unconscious
work possessed by the brain are abnormally developed in them. The
heredity of these powers has not, I believe, been as yet especially
studied. It is strange that more attention has not been given until
recently to unconscious brain-work, because it is by far the most
potent factor in mental operations. Few people, when in rapid
conversation, have the slightest idea of the particular form which a
sentence will assume into which they have hurriedly plunged, yet
through the guidance of unconscious cerebration it develops itself
grammatically and harmoniously. I write on good authority in
asserting that the best speaking and writing is that which seems to
flow automatically shaped out of a full mind.
CHAPTER IV.--PROPORTION OF NOTEWORTHIES TO THE GENERALITY.
The materials on which the subject of this chapter depends are too
various to lead to a single definite and trustworthy answer. Men who
have won their way to the front out of uncongenial environments owe
their success principally, I believe, to their untiring energy, and
to an exceptionally strong inclination in youth towards the pursuits
in which they afterwards distinguished themselves. They do not seem
often to be characterized by an ability that continues pre-eminent on
a wider stage, because after they have fully won a position for
themselves, and become engaged in work along with others who had no
early difficulties to contend with, they do not, as a rule, show
greatly higher natural ability than their colleagues. This is
noticeable in committees and in other assemblies or societies where
intellects are pitted against one another. The bulk of existing
noteworthies seem to have had but little more than a fair education
as small boys, during which their eagerness and aptitude for study
led to their receiving favour and facilities. If, in such cases, the
aptitudes are scholastic, a moderate sum suffices to give the boy a
better education, enabling him to win scholarships and to enter a
University. If they lie in other directions, the boy attracts notice
from some more congenial source, and is helped onwards in life by
other means. The demand for exceptional ability, when combined with
energy and good character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with
them is hardly more likely to remain overlooked than a bird's nest in
the playground of a school. But, by whatever means noteworthiness
is achieved, it is usually after a course of repeated and
half-unconscious testings of intelligence, energy, and character,
which build up repute brick by brick.
If we compare the number of those who achieved noteworthiness through
their own exertions with the numbers of the greatly more numerous
persons whose names are registered in legal, clerical, medical,
official, military, and naval directories, or in those of the titled
classes[A] and landed gentry, or lastly, of those of the immense
commercial world, the proportion of one noteworthy person to one
hundred of the generality who were equally well circumstanced as
himself does not seem to be an over-estimate.
[A] By a rough count of the entries in Burke's "Peerage, Baronetage
and Knightage," I find that upwards of 24,000 ladies are of
sufficient rank to be included by name in his Table of
Precedence.
CHAPTER V.--NOTEWORTHINESS AS A MEASURE OF ABILITY.
Success is the joint result of the natural powers of mind and body,
and of favourable circumstances. Those of the latter which fall into
definite groups will be distinguished as "environment," while the
others, which evade classification, will be called "accidental."
The superstitions of old times cling so tenaciously to modern thought
that the words "accident" and "chance" commonly connote some
mysterious agency. Nothing of the kind is implied here. The word
"accident" and the like is used in these pages simply to express the
effect of unknown or unnoted causes, without the slightest
implication that they are unknowable. In most cases their neglect has
been partly due to their individual insignificance, though their
combined effect may be very powerful when a multitude work in the
same direction. Moreover, a trifling pressure at the right spot
suffices to release a hair-trigger and thereby to cause an explosion;
similarly, with personal and social events, a trifling accident will
sometimes determine a career.
Noteworthiness and success may be regarded statistically as the
outcome of ability and environment and of nothing else, because the
effects of chance tend to be eliminated by statistical treatment. The
question then becomes, How far may noteworthiness be accepted as a
statistical measure of ability?
Ability and environment are each composed of many elements that
differ greatly in character. Ability may be especially strong in
particular directions as in administration, art, scholarship, or
science; it is, nevertheless, so adaptive that an able man has often
found his way to the front under more than one great change of
circumstance. The force that impels towards noteworthy deeds is an
innate disposition in some men, depending less on circumstances than
in others. They are like ships that carry an auxiliary steam-power,
capable of moving in a dead calm and against adverse winds. Others
are like the ordinary sailing ships of the present day--they are
stationary in a calm, but can make some way towards their destination
under almost any wind. Without a stimulus of some kind these men are
idle, but almost any kind of stimulus suffices to set them in action.
Others, again, are like Arab dhows, that do little more than drift
before the monsoon or other wind; but then they go fast.
Environment is a more difficult topic to deal with, because
conditions that are helpful to success in one pursuit may be
detrimental in another. High social rank and wealth conduce to
success in political life, but their distractions and claims clash
with quiet investigation. Successes are of the most varied
descriptions, but those registered in this book are confined to such
as are reputed honourable, and are not obviously due to favour.
In attacking the problem it therefore becomes necessary to fix the
attention, in the first instance, upon the members of some one large,
special profession, as upon artists, leaders in commerce,
investigators, scholars, warriors, and so forth, then to divide these
into subclasses, until more appears to be lost through paucity of
material than is gained through its increasing homogeneity.
Whatever group be selected, both ability and environment must be
rated according to the requirements of that group. It then becomes
possible, and it is not difficult, to roughly array individuals under
each of these two heads successively, and to label every person with
letters signifying his place in either class. For purposes of the
following explanation, each quality will be distributed into three
grades, determined not by value, but by class place--namely, the
highest third, the medium third, and the lowest third. In respect to
ability, these classes will be called A, B, and C. In respect to
environment, the grades will refer to its helpfulness towards the
particular success achieved, and the classes will be called E, F, G.
It must be clearly understood that the differences between the grades
do not profess to be equal, merely that A is higher than B, and B
than C; similarly as to E, F, and G. The A, B, C may be quite
independent of E, F, G, or they may be correlated. Both cases will
be considered.
Ability and Environment being mutually helpful towards success, the
successes statistically associated with AE will be reckoned higher
than those associated with AF. Again, for simplicity of explanation
only, it will here be assumed that Ability and Environment are
equally potent in securing success. Any other reasonable relation
between their influences may be substituted for the purpose of
experiment, but the ultimate conclusion will be much the same.
TABLE I.--COMBINATIONS OF ABILITY AND ENVIRONMENT.
+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| AE. I. | AF. I. | AG. II. |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| BE. I. | BF. II. | BG. III. |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| CE. II. | CF. III. | CG. III. |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+
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