Francis Galton: Heredity and Eugenics

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Francis GaltonHeredity and Eugenics

• (1822-1911)

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Francis Galton, in Hereditary Genius

• I have no patience with the hypothesis
  occasionally expressed, and often implied,
  especially in tales written to teach children to
  be good, that babies are born pretty much alike,
  and that the sole agencies in creating
  differences between boy and boy, and man and man,
  are steady application and moral effort. It is in
  the most unqualified manner that I object to
  pretensions of natural equality. The experiences
  of the nursery, the school, the University, and
  of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to
  the contrary.

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The influence of Charles Darwin

• THE publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species
  by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own
  mental development, as it did in that of human
  thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a
  multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single
  stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion
  against all ancient authorities whose positive
  and unauthenticated statements were contradicted
  by modern science.

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Heredity and Humanity

• Speaking generally, (before Francis Galton) most
  authors agreed that all bodily and some mental
  qualities were inherited by brutes (i.e.
  animals), but they refused to believe the same of
  man. Moreover, theologians made a sharp
  distinction between the body and mind of man, on
  purely dogmatic grounds.

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Books on Heredity

• Galton wrote the following books on heredity
• Hereditary Genius, 1869
• English Men of Science, 1874
• Human Faculty, 1883
• Natural Inheritance, 1889

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Experiment on free Will

• A Galton text linked here

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Galton on Eugenics

• I think that stern compulsion ought to be exerted
  to prevent the free propagation of the stock of
  those who are seriously afflicted by lunacy,
  feeble- mindedness, habitual criminality, and
  pauperism, but that is quite different from
  compulsory marriage. How to restrain ill-omened
  marriages is a question by itself, whether it
  should be effected by seclusion, or in other ways
  yet to be devised that are consistent with a
  humane and well-informed public opinion. I cannot
  doubt that our democracy will ultimately refuse
  consent to that liberty of propagating children
  which is now allowed to the undesirable classes,
  but the populace has yet to be taught the true
  state of these things. A democracy cannot endure
  unless it be composed of able citizens therefore
  it must in self-defence withstand the free
  introduction of degenerate stock.