the kindly sphere
That once had rolled you round and round the sun.
Medievalism and modern life, classical reference and scientific simile are curiously commingled in Tennyson's poems. As one turns back to them "the tender grace of a day that is dead" does not fully return. They are not like science universal; but for their own epoch they were not only great poems, but also rendered a not insignificant service in the diffusion of the scientific spirit.
THE REMINISCENCES OF SIR FRANCIS GALTON
The greatness of the Victorian era is now represented among the living by men of science—Hooker, Wallace, Avebury, Lister, Huggins, Galton—all past eighty years of age. Sir Francis Galton—the "sir" is a tardy recognition on the king's recent birthday—now in his eighty-eighth year has done well to prepare the reminiscences which have been published under the title "Memories of my Life." He is typical of the great period in which he has lived and to the preeminence of which he has contributed his share. Like his cousin, Charles Darwin, he has had no profession, but with sufficient private means he has devoted his life to the advancement of science. There are certain marked resemblances in intellect and character between the two kinsmen—scientific curiosity reaching from obscure details to broad theories, patience combined with daring, royal simplicity and directness—which might be used to illustrate the theories of heredity in which both have been interested. Galton, like Darwin, studied medicine and like him was a student at Cambridge; but, unlike Darwin, he has lived in London and has taken an active part in the social and scientific activities of the time. He has been in intimate personal relations with the scientific and other leaders and a helpful friend to many at the beginning of their scientific work. The writer of the present note is one of a large company that owes him an unpayable debt for personal kindness and intellectual stimulation.
Galton—the Sir Francis does not come naturally—gives rather full details, as is becoming, of his parentage and early life. On both sides he was of quaker stock. He traces to inheritance his taste for science, for poetry and for statistics, and his endurance of physical fatigue. His formal schooling was not profitable. He says (it was before going to Cambridge): "In the spring of 1840 a passion for travel seized me as if I had been a migratory bird." He made a somewhat adventurous trip to the near east, and his travels were continued more seriously on completing his studies. He made two trips of exploration in Africa, in the second conducting an expedition of some 1,700 miles through unknown regions in the southwest. For this he was awarded one of the gold medals of the Royal Geographical Society in 1854, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society two years later.
In 1853 Galton married a daughter of the dean of Peterborough, the father of a gifted family, and thenceforth residing in London carried out the investigations and published the long series of important memoirs and volumes, the contents of which are all too briefly reviewed in the reminiscences. First appeared works on travel, then serious attention was given to meteorology and the Kew Observatory. In 1865 were published two papers on "Heredity Talent and Character"; and these were followed by the studies on variation and individual differences which are largely summarized in "Human Faculty." The work on anthropometry, on association and on imagery opened up new fields for psychology; the composite portraits and the study of finger prints are known to all. Nearly every one of the 183 publications contains a new idea or an ingenious application. The work on
