English Men of Science

Their Nature and Nurture

Francis Galton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367074609
• eBook ISBN: 9780429665103
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

This edition first published in 1970. Francis Galton has been honoured as the founder of biostatics and one of the creators of modern psychology. His principal aim was to establish a body of statistical knowledge about mental heredity which would result in a new pattern of behaviour for society. The relationship between outstanding men had led him to conclude that mental traits are inherited, and that an ideal society would take advantage of this "fact". In this particular work, which he termed a "Natural History of the English Men of Science of the present day", he examined at great length the antecedents, environment, education and hereditary features of the most prominent men of science in order to establish certain laws relating to heredity. It is a landmark in the transition from introspective to objective methods in biological and psychological research, and the author's statistical, nonanecdotal approach was to prove immensely fruitful for the development of psychology. Indeed the questionnaire included in the work is probably the earliest in existence.

As Professor Cowan points out in her introduction, historians as well as scientists intent upon a deeper understanding of the Victorian mind will find much of interest in this remarkable book.

CHAPTER I.

ANTECEDENTS.

Object of book—Definition of Man of Science—Data—Nature and Nurture—Race and Birthplace—Occupation of Parents and Position in Life—Physical Peculiarities of Parents—Primogeniture, &c.—Fertility—Heredity—Pedigrees—Statistical Results.

THE intent of this book is to supply what may be termed a Natural History of the English Men of Science of the present day. It will describe their earliest antecedents, including the hereditary influences, the inborn qualities of their mind and body, the causes that first induced them to pursue science, the education they received and their opinions on its merits. The advantages are great of confining the investigation to men of our own period and nation. Our knowledge of them is more complete, and where deficient, it maj be supplemented by further inquiry. They are subject to a moderate range of those influences which have the largest disturbing power, and are therefore well fitted for statistical investigation; lastly, the results we may obtain are of direct practical interest. The inquiry is a complicated one at the best; it is advantageous not to complicate it further by dealing with notabilities whose histories are seldom autobiographical, never complete and not always very accurate; and who lived under the varied and imperfectly appreciated conditions of European life, in several countries, at numerous periods during many different centuries.

Definition of “Man of Science.”—I do not attempt to define a “scientific man,” because no frontier line or definition exists, which separates any group of individuals from the rest of their species. Natural groups have nuclei but no outlines; they blend on every side with other systems whose nuclei have alien characters. A naturalist must construct his picture of nature on the same principle that an engraver in mezzotint proceeds on his plate, beginning with the principal lights as so many different points of departure, and working outwards from each of them until the intervening spaces are covered. Some definition of an ideal scientific man might possibly be given and accepted, but who is to decide in each case whether particular individuals fall within the definition? It seems to me the best way to take the verdict of the scientific world as expressed in definite language. It may be over lenient in some cases, in others it may never have been uttered, but on the whole it appears more satisfactory than any other verdict which exists or is attainable. To have been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society since the reform in the mode of election, introduced by Mr. Justice Grove nearly thirty years ago, is a real assay of scientific merit. Owing to various reason, many excellent men of science of mature ages, may not be Fellows, but those who bear that title cannot but be considered in some degree as entitled to the epithet of “scientific” I therefore look upon this fellowship as a “pass examination/’ so to speak, and from among the Fellows of the Royal Society I select those who have yet further qualifications. One of these is the fact of having earned a medal for scientific work; another, of having presided over a learned Society, or a section of the British Association; another, of having been elected on the council of the Royal Society; another, of being professor at some important college or university. These and a few other similar signs of being appreciated by contemporary men of science, are the qualifications for which I have looked in selecting my list of typical scientific men. I have only deviated from these technical rules in two or three cases, where there appeared good reason for their relaxation and where the returns appeared likely to be of peculiar interest. On these principles I drew up a list of 180 men; most of them were qualified on more than one count, and many on several counts. Also, the list appeared nearly exhaustive in respect to those men of mature age who live in or near London, since other private tests suggested few additions. As two of these tests have been proposed by several correspondents, it may be well to describe them. The one is the election of individuals, on account of their scientific eminence, to a certain well-known literary and scientific club, the name of which it is unnecessary to mention. The committee of this club have the power of electing annually, out of their regular turn, nine persons eminent for science, literature, art, or public services. The two or three men who have in each year received this coveted privilege on the ground of science now amount to a considerable number, and they are all on my list. Again, there are certain dining clubs in connection with the Royal Society, the one meeting on the afternoon of every evening that it meets, and the other more rarely, and there are about fifty members to each of these clubs, the same persons being in many instances members of both. The election to either of the clubs is a testimony of some value to the estimation of the scientific status of a man by his contemporaries; almost all their members are on my list. No doubt, many persons of considerable position living in Edinburgh, Dublin, and elsewhere at a distance from London, are not among those with whose experiences I am about to deal. But that is no objection; I do not profess or care to be exhaustive in my data, only desiring to have a sufficiency of material, and to be satisfied that it is good so far as it goes, and a perfectly fair sample. I do not particularly want a list that shall include every man of science in England, but seek for one that is sufficiently extended for my purposes, and that contains none but truly scientific men, in the usual acceptation of that word.

However, I have made some further estimates, and conclude that an exhaustive list of men of the British Isles, of the same mature ages and general scientific status as those of whom I have been speaking, would amount to 300, but not to more.

Some of my readers may feel surprise that so many as 300 persons are to be found in the United Kingdom who deserve the title of scientific men; probably they have been accustomed to concentrate their attention upon a few notabilities, and to ignore their colleagues. It must, however, be recollected that all biographies, even of the greatest men, reveal numerous associates and competitors whose merit and influence were far greater than had been suspected by the outside world. Great discoveries have often been made simultaneously by workers ignorant of each other’s labours. This shows that they had derived their inspiration from a common but hidden source, as no mere chance would account for simultaneous discovery. In illustration of this view it will suffice to mention a few of the great discoveries in this generation. That of photography is most intimately associated with the names of Niepce, Daguerre and Talbot, who were successful in 1839 along different lines of research, but Thomas Wedgewood was a photographer in 1802, though he could not fix his pictures. As to the origin of species, Wallace is well known to have had an independent share in its discovery, side by side with the far more comprehensive investigations of Darwin. In spectrum analysis the remarks of Stokes were anterior to and independent of the works of Kirchhoff and Bunsen. Electric telegraphy has numerous parents, German, English and American. The idea of conservation of energy has unnumbered roots. The simultaneous discovery of the planet Neptune on theoretical grounds by Leverrier and Adams is a very curious instance of what we are considering. In patent inventions the fact of simultaneous discovery is notoriously frequent. It would therefore appear that few discoveries are wholly due to a single man, but rather that vague and imperfect ideas, which float in conversation and literature, must grow, gather, and develop, until some more perspicacious and prompt mind than the rest clearly sees them. Thus, Laplace is understood to have seized on Kant’s nebular hypothesis and Bentham on Priestley’s phrase, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” and each of them elaborated the idea he had so seized, into a system.

The first discoverers beat their contemporaries in point of time and by doing so they become leaders of thought. They direct the intellectual energy of the day into the channels they opened; it would have run in other channels but for their labour. It is therefore due to them, not that science progresses, but that her progress is as rapid as it is, and in the direction towards which they themselves have striven. We must neither underrate nor overrate their achievements. I would compare the small band of men who have achieved a conspicuous scientific position, to islands, which are not the detached objects they appear to the vulgar eye, but only the uppermost portions of hills, whose bulk is unseen. To pursue this metaphor; the range of my inquiry dips a few fathoms below the level at which popular reputation begins.

It is of interest to know the ratio which the numbers of the leading scientific men bear to the population of England generally. I obtain it in this way. Although 180 persons only were on my list, I reckon, as already mentioned, that it would have been possible to have included 300 of the same ages, without descending in the scale of scientific position; also it appears that the ages of half of the number on my list lie between 50 and 65, and. that about three-quarters of these may be considered, for census comparisons, as English. I combine these numbers, and compare them with that of the male population of England and Wales, between the same limits of age, and find the required ratio to be about one in 10,000. What then are the conditions of nature, and the various circumstances and conditions of life,—which I include under the general name of nurture,—which have selected that one and left the remainder? The object of this book is to answer this question.

DATA.

My data are the autobiographical replies to a very long series of printed questions addressed severally to the 180 men whose names were in the list I have described, and they fill two large portfolios. I cannot sufficiently thank my correspondents for the courteousness with which they replied to my very troublesome queries, the great pains they have taken to be precise and truthful in their statements, and the confidence reposed in my discretion. Those of the answers which are selected for statistical treatment somewhat exceed 100 in number. In addition to these, I have utilized several others which were too incomplete for statistical purposes, or which arrived late, but these also have been of real service to me; sometimes in corroborating, at others in questioning previous provisional conclusions. I wish emphatically to add that the foremost members of the scientific world have contributed in full proportion to their numbers. It must not for a moment be supposed that mediocrity is unduly represented in my data.

Natural history is an impersonal result; I am therefore able to treat my subject anonymously, with the exception of one chapter in which the pedigrees of certain families are given.

NATURE AND NURTURE.

The phrase “nature and nurture” is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence from without that affects him after his birth. The distinction is clear: the one produces the infant such as it actually is, including its latent faculties of growth of body and mind; the other affords the environment amid which the growth takes place, by which natural tendencies may be strengthened or thwarted, or wholly new ones implanted. Neither of the terms implies any theory; natural gifts may or may not be hereditary; nurture does not especially consist of food, clothing, education or tradition, but it includes all these and similar influences whether known or unknown.

When nature and nurture compete for supremacy on equal terms in the sense to be explained, the former proves the stronger. It is needless to insist that neither is self-sufficient; the highest natural endowments may be starved by defective nurture, while no carefulness of nurture can overcome the evil tendencies of an intrinsically bad physique, weak brain, or brutal disposition. Differences of nurture stamp unmistakable marks on the disposition of the soldier, clergyman, or scholar, but are wholly insufficient to efface the deeper marks of individual character. The impress of class distinctions is superficial, and may be compared to those which give a general resemblance to a family of daughters at a provincial ball, all dressed alike, and so similar in voice and address as to puzzle a recently-introduced partner in his endeavours to recollect with which of them he is engaged to dance; but an intimate friend forgets their general resemblance in the presence of the far greater dissimilarity which he has learned to appreciate. There are twins of the same sex so alike in body and mind that not even their own mothers can distinguish them. Their features, voice, and expressions are similar; they see things in the same light, and their ideas follow the same laws of association. This close resemblance necessarily gives way under the gradually accumulated influences of difference of nurture, but it often lasts till manhood. I have been told of a case in which two twin brothers, both married, the one a medical man, the other a clergyman, were staying at the same house. One morning, for a joke, they changed their neckties, and each personated the other, sitting by his wife through the whole of the breakfast without discovery. Shakespeare was a close observer of nature; it is, therefore, worth recollecting that he recognizes in his thirty-six plays three pairs of family likeness so deceptive as to create absurd confusion. Two of these pairs are in the “Comedy of Errors,” and the other in “Twelfth Night” (v. 1.) I heard of a case not many years back in which a young Englishman had travelled to St. Petersburg, then much less accessible t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Introduction to the Second Edition
• Original Half Title
• Preface
• Contents
• Errata
• Chapter I. Antecedents
• Chapter II. Qualities
• Chapter III. Origin of Taste for Science
• Chapter IV. Education
• Appendix
• Index