Frederick Starr

“ Galton is now a man of seventy, and it may not be uninteresting to review here his scientific work.
Two subjects perhaps have attracted his particular attention, Heredity and Identification. The former is dealt with in all his books, the latter in "Finger-Prints." Everywhere Mr. Galton is an anthropologist and a statistician. He reduces his results, wherever practicable, to mathematical form and statement. In "Hereditary Genius" he assumes that high reputation is a fairly accurate test of high ability (=genius) . From this assumption he proceeds to study certain groups of eminent men. ”

“ One of the best tables in the work is the one giving the facts regarding statesmen. These are generally eminently gifted, and their relationships are rich in ability. Nor is the ability distributed at haphazard: it clearly affects certain families. Moreover, the peculiar combination of gifts that make up a good statesman—high intellectual power, tact in dealing with men, power of expression in debate, ability to endure exceedingly hard work—is hereditary. ”

“ Ability, in the long run, does not start suddenly into existence and disappear with equal abruptness, but rather it rises in a gradual and regular curve out of the ordinary level of family life. The statistics show that there is a regular average increase of ability in the generations that precede its culmination and as regular a decrease in those which succeed it. ”

“ It is true that a man who can make Bertillon's measurements is more readily found than one who can compare finger-prints; but two minutes' time would add a card of finger-prints to the anthropometric data secured in Bertillonage, and the combined data would make identification absolutely sure. Mr. Galton, after considering the identification value of finger-prints, makes some study of the heredity of patterns, which he believes to exist; he finds considerable resemblances also between twins. His study of finger-prints of different races is not very extensive ”

“ I reckon the chances of kinsmen of illustrious men rising or having risen to eminence to be fifteen and one-half to one hundred in case of fathers, thirteen and one-half to one hundred in the case of brothers, twenty-four to one hundred in the case of sons. ”

“ Galton makes some suggestive statements regarding the cause of peerages dying out, why very pious parents may have wicked children, and how the church has hindered man's progress. Men of ability who are raised to peerages are prone to marry heiresses ”

“ Galton has written a new preface for it, and reprinted it otherwise as it first appeared. "Finger-Prints" is entirely new, and embodies the author's latest study along a novel line. Between 1869 and 1892, between the publication of "Hereditary Genius" and "Finger-Prints," three other notable works by the same author were published: "English Men of Science," "Inquiries into Human Faculty," and "Natural Inheritance." There are perhaps not five such original books in the language; certainly there are few scientific works in any language that are dictated by so honest a purpose. ”