Francis Galton

“ Indeed, if the correlation were perfect, Success would become an equal measure both of Ability and of Favourableness of Environment.
These arguments are true for each and every branch of Success, and are therefore true for all: Ability being construed as Appropriate Ability, and Environment as Appropriate Environment.
The general conclusion is that Success is, statistically speaking, a magnified, but otherwise trustworthy, sign of Ability, high Success being associated with high, but not an equally high, grade of Ability, and low with low, but not an equally low. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Other parents were in no way remarkable, so the future Fellow was simply a “sport,” to use the language of horticulturists and breeders, in respect to his taste and ability. It is to be remembered that “sports” are transmissible by heredity, and have been, through careful selection, the origin of most of the valuable varieties of domesticated plants and animals. Sports have been conspicuous in the human race, especially in some individuals of the highest eminence in music, painting, and in art generally, but this is not the place to enter further into so large a subject. ”

“ They enable us to make calculations concerning the average number of kinsfolk in each and every specified degree in a stationary population, or, if desired, in one that increases or decreases at a specified rate. It will here be supposed for convenience that the average number of males and females are equal, but any other proportion may be substituted. The calculations only regard its fertile members; they show that every person has, on the average, about one male fertile relative in each and every form of specific kinship. ”

“ The essence of the problem is that the sex of one child is supposed to give no clue of any practical importance to that of any other child in the same family. Therefore, if one child be selected out of a family of brothers and sisters, the proportion of males to females in those that remain will be, on the average, identical with that of males to females in the population at large. It makes no difference whether the selected child be a boy or a girl. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chapter VIII.—Number of Noteworthy Kinsmen in each Degree.
The materials with which I am dealing do not admit of adequately discussing noteworthiness in women, whose opportunities of achieving distinction are far fewer than those of men, and whose energies are more severely taxed by domestic and social duties. Women have sometimes been accredited in these returns by a member of their own family circle, as being gifted with powers at least equal to those of their distinguished brothers, but definite facts in corroboration of such estimates were rarely supplied. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Consequently, the calculations that apply to fertile persons will be held to apply very roughly to those who were in a position, so far as age is concerned, to achieve noteworthiness, whether they did so or not. Thus, if a group of 100 men had between them 20 noteworthy paternal uncles, it will be assumed that the total number of their paternal uncles who reached mature age was about 100, making the intensity of success as 20 to 100, or as 1 to 5. ”

“ The closeness of resemblance between the second and third lines emphatically answers the question to be solved. There is no significant difference between the results of the marked and the unmarked observations. The reason probably is that the distribution of triple, double, and single marks separately is much the same in each of the groups, and therefore remains alike when the three sets of marks are in use at the same time. It is thus made clear that trouble taken in carefully marking names for different degrees of noteworthiness would be wasted in such a rough inquiry as this. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reader may work out results for himself on other hypotheses as to the percentage of noteworthiness among the generality. A considerably larger proportion would be noteworthy in the higher classes of society, but a far smaller one in the lower; it is to the bulk, say, to three-quarters of them, that the 1 per cent. estimate applies, the extreme variations from it tending to balance one another. ”

“ It seems, therefore, that the generation of the Subjects contains a somewhat smaller number of individuals than that of either of their Parents, being to that extent significant of a lessening population so far as their class is concerned.
It may seem at first sight surprising that a brother and a sister should each have the same average number of brothers. ”

“ 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. ”