After explaining that the object of his discourse was to “show cause for a different opinion,” he goes on with what, in his restrained style, is strong language: “I shall show that our knowledge is already sufficient to justify the pursuit of this perhaps the grandest of all objects.” [31a]

At the close of the lecture he speaks out as to the difficulties and the pre-eminent value of eugenics, and once more of the oppressive “magnitude of the enquiry.”

No one who reads this lecture of Sir Francis Galton’s is likely to let eugenics go with a smile, and a remark that it is not a practical problem.  It is one of the functions of the Eugenics Education Society to spread the sanely scientific views here set forth by Galton, and as far as I am able to judge, the Society has and is doing sound work in this direction.

In another essay, [31b] Galton discusses the meaning of the ‘eu’ in eugenics in a characteristic way.  He imagines an attempt among the animals in the Zoological Gardens to establish a code of absolute morality.  With customary love of detail he supposes the inquiry to be undertaken by some animal, such as a sparrow or a rat, which is intelligent and has easy access to all the cages, and is therefore

able to collect opinions.  There would be strongly pronounced differences between the carnivorous animals and those which form their natural prey.  There would be a general agreement as to maternal affection, though fishes and the cuckoo would laugh at it.  But all would agree on some eugenic principles: That it is better to be healthy and vigorous than sickly and weak—well-fitted for their part in life rather than the reverse—in fact, good specimens of their kind whatever that kind may be.

Sir Francis Galton goes on to give a list of qualities that “nearly every one except cranks would take into account in picking out the best specimens of his class.”  The list includes “health, energy, ability, manliness and courteous disposition.” [32a]  I wish he had thought of eugenic mothers, and had translated manliness into the feminine equivalents of courage and endurance.  When I first read this list it struck me at once how highly distinguished was Galton himself in all these qualities.  As we dwell on the qualities one by one, they seem to call up echoes from the image we have of his character.  “Ability, manliness, and courteous disposition,” how strong these were in him!  I cannot help feeling that he might have added one more quality from his own treasure-house, namely, a sense of humour, which is so priceless an antiseptic to sentimentality, and was markedly present in his character.

In this same lecture [32b] Galton sums up the

stages in the development of eugenics.  (1) “It must be made familiar as an academic question.”  (2) As a practical subject worthy of serious consideration.  (3) It must be “introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion.”  He recapitulates in an eloquent phrase: “It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for Eugenics cooperates with the workings of Nature, by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races.  What Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.”

Here we see the future of eugenics marked out for us, and the last sentence might well serve as a motto for this Society.  How are we to work for the cause?

It is true that our opinions are formed by the daily papers, and our actions as a nation are determined by political parties which come and go largely by chance.  But however our opinions originate, if they are strongly and persistently urged by a large majority of Englishmen, great changes in the manner of human life may be effected.  Persistence is the great thing in all reforms: in the words of my father’s favourite quotation—“It’s dogged as does it.”  Francis Galton has been temperately persistent in a marked degree.  His caution and wisdom are illustrated by the dates of his writings on eugenics and heredity, which placed in order suggest a regiment relentlessly advancing, not a bunch of heroes rushing on a breach:—

His temperate advance is all the more striking when we remember the fiery impatience with which in Hereditary Genius he spoke of the harm done by the Church in ordaining that the intellectuals, the literary, and the sensitive should be celibates, and of the wholesale slaughter by the Holy Inquisition of the courageous and clear minded who dared to think for themselves.

From the first he had the support of Charles Darwin, who never wavered in his admiration of Galton’s purpose, though he had doubts about the practicality of reform.  His hesitation in regard to eugenic method is expressed with a wise proviso as to future possibilities: “I have lately been led,” he says, “to reflect a little . . . on the artificial checks, but doubt greatly whether such would be advantageous to the world at large at present, however it may be in the distant future.” [34a]  In the first edition of the Descent of Man (1874), [34b] he distinctly gives his adherence to the eugenic idea by his assertion that man might by selection do something for the moral and physical qualities of the race.  It is a great

thing that this Society should have had Francis Galton for its Honorary President.  It entitles us to feel assured that in following the line of action marked out for ourselves we are on the right track, and that in the difficult pioneer work of helping the English public to realise the deadly need of eugenic reform we are following in Galton’s steps.  We are also so fortunate as to have received encouragement and help at the hands of some of the leaders in the science of heredity, Weismann, Yves Delage, Ray Lankester, the late Adam Sedgwick, Poulton, Bateson, and others.

Galton says somewhere