The British Society for the History of Science

Francis Galton on Twins, Heredity and Social Class Author(s): David Burbridge Source: The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 2001), pp. 323-340 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4028101 . Accessed: 07/05/2013 09:44
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BJHS, 2001, 34, 323-340

Francis Galton on twins, heredity and social class

DAVID BURBRIDGE*

Abstract. In 1875 Francis Galton was the first to study twins as a test of the relative strength of heredity and environment. This paper examines Galton's work on twins, using his surviving working papers. It shows that his enquiry was larger and more systematic than previously realized. Galton issued several hundred questionnaires to parents of twins, with the aim of establishing how far the similarities and differences between twins were affected by their life experiences. The paper also discusses Galton's study in relation to his understanding of the physiology of twinning and his theory of heredity. The modern concept of monozygotic twins had not yet been established, and the similarity between Galton's work and modern twin studies should not be overstated. While Galton's work was important as a pioneering study, in some respects his conclusions went beyond his evidence. The paper finally examines whether Galton's twin studies influenced his position on the links between social class, heredity and social mobility, and surveys the evidence for his views on these issues.

Galton's twin studies Francis Galton's 1875 study of 'the history of twins' marks the beginning of the long and contentious use of twins to test the relative strength of heredity and environment.' The present paper traces the course of Galton's work on twins, drawing on his surviving correspondenceand papers,2before assessing its significancefor his views on heredity and social class. In the 1870s the value of twins for the study of heredity was problematic. The genetic basis of their resemblancewas at best a matter for speculation, and the distinction between identical and fraternal twins had not yet been clearly drawn.3 Previous works on heredity
9 PenrithRoad, Thornton Heath, Surrey,CR7 8PN, England. I am grateful for the assistance of the Librarian and staff of the Manuscripts Room in the Libraryof University College London. Extracts from the unpublished Galton Papers are printed by permission of University College London. 1 Galton's study is reported in Francis Galton, 'The history of twins, as a criterion of the relative powers of nature and nurture', first published in Fraser's Magazine (1875), 12, 566-76 and reprinted with revisions in Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1875), 5, 391-406. Galton's work on twins is described in Karl Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, 3 vols. in 4, Cambridge, 1914-30, ii, 126-30, and D. W. Forrest, Francis Galton: The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius, London, 1974, 129-32. G. C. N. Mascie-Taylor, 'Galton and the use of twin studies', in Sir Francis Galton, FRS: The Legacy of his Ideas (ed. Milo Keynes), London, 1993, 119-43, describes modern work on twins with reference to Galton as a pioneer. 2 The Galton Papers are cited here from 'A list of the Papers and Correspondenceof Sir Francis Galton held in the Manuscripts Room, The Library,University College London', compiled by M. Merrington and J. Golden, 1978. 3 The state of knowledge of the physiology and genetics of twins in the 1870s is discussed below. The terms 'identical' and 'fraternal' to distinguish two differenttypes of twins were not yet in use. The OED gives the first citation for 'identical twins' as the 1889 English translation of Weismann's Studies in Heredity. A contemporary
aF

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had mentioned striking cases of similar or contrasting twins without dwelling on the subject.4Against this background,how did Galton come to conceive his own investigation of twins? Why did he expect such an enquiry to be fruitful? Galton's writings give some clues. His first published reference to twins is probably to be found in his book of 1869 on Hereditary Genius, where he noted that the father and uncle of J. S. Bach were twins 'so exceedingly alike in feature, address, and style that they were the wonder of all who saw and heard them'.5 In his 1874 book on English Men of Science he gave further anecdotes of close family resemblances, including those of twins, before declaring that in the 'competition between nature and nurture,when the differences in either case do not exceed those which distinguish individuals of the same race living in the same country under no very exceptional circumstances, nature certainly proves the stronger of the two'.6 These remarks may suggest a growing interest in the subject in the years immediately preceeding his own more detailed studies. Galton later remarkedthat in English Men of Science he had treated the subject of twins 'in a cursory way', and that it 'subsequently occurred to me that it deserved a more elaborate inquiry'.' It would be interesting to know whether there was any specific stimulus for this decision, but I have not been able to identify one with confidence. As I have suggested elsewhere,8 Galton was more widely read in contemporary scientific and general literature than is sometimes supposed, and it is quite possible that the spark for Galton's study came from his reading. He does indeed mention previous published accounts of twins, but in general it is unclear whether he knew of these before beginning his own investigations. One exception is Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, a work certainly already known to Galton, from which he cites a French case of parallel illnesses in a pair of twins.9 Darwin's book may also have drawn his attention to an important series of articles by the surgeon William Sedgwick, which are among Darwin's most frequently cited sources on human heredity.10Sedgwick's articles
writer, H. M. Vernon, in Variation in Animals and Plants, London, 1903, 116, also regards Weismann as the originator of the term. Galton himself at one point ('A theory of heredity', Contemporary Review (1875), 27, 80-95, 87) suggests the term 'true twins'. This may recall the French vrais jumeaux, but I have not found this usage in French writings of the period. 4 Prosper Lucas, Traite'philosophique et physiologique de l'heredite` naturelle, 2 vols., Paris, 1847, mentions twins at i, 71, 105, 113, 114, 151-3, 173, 214, 247, and 335, and ii, 46, 85, 141, 354 and 872. I may well have overlooked other references in this vast work. Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols., London, 1868, ii, 252-3, refers to pathological resemblancesamong twins. Th. Ribot, in L'Heredite':etude psychologique sur ses phe'nomenes,ses lois, ses causes, ses conse'quences,Paris, 1873, has references to twins at 218, 270, 272 and 369. 5 Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences, London, 1869, 240. 6 Francis Galton, English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture, London, 1874, 16. 7 Francis Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 391. 8 David Burbridge, 'Galton's 100: an exploration of Francis Galton's imagery studies', BJHS (1994), 27, 443-63. 9 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 397, citing Darwin, op. cit. (4) ii, 252, on a case originally reported by Armand Trousseau. In the second edition of Variation in late 1875 Darwin returned the compliment by acknowledging information on twins received from Galton. 10 William Sedgwick, in British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (1861), 27, 477-89; (1861), 28, 198-214; (1863), 31, 445-78; (1863), 32, 159-97, (1866), 38, 501-23 and (1867), 39, 466-96. Darwin does not cite the articles of 1866 and 1867 in Variation, but appearsto have been aware of them; see item 5975 in the Calendar

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deal particularly with the topics of 'atavism' and the influence of age and sex on the emergence of hereditarydisease. They contain several referencesto cases involving twins, and a more general remark to the effect that twins, especially of the same sex, sometimes show a 'parallel evolution' of both normal and abnormal characteristics.1" There is no direct evidence that Galton had read Sedgwick's articles. It can, however, be shown that by the early stages of his enquiry he knew of another striking case of parallel development, this time in mental illness, from the Psychologie morbide of Jacques Moreau de Tours, which he quoted at length in a printed letter distributedin January 1875.12It may be more than coincidence that in that month Galton reviewed for the Academy magazine the English edition of Theodule Ribot's book L'He'dite', which quotes the same passage from Moreau's work.13 The 'smoking gun' can be found in Galton's surviving reading notes on Ribot, which include the remark 'curious account by Moreau'.14 From this it seems likely that Ribot's citation of Moreau's case prompted Galton to launch at least the part of his enquiry concerned with mental illness among twins. There would be some irony in any such debt of Galton to Ribot, for his review of the latter's book was caustic: and veryspeculative The work is that of a partially informed writer,and by no meansthat of a to thelargeamount of unacknowledged manof science... It is necessary to drawserious attention whichcharacterises thisbook ... I laiddownM. Ribot'svolumeafterhonestlyreading plagiarism everyline of it, with a wearysenseof manywastedhours."5 Whateverthe inspiration for Galton's study, it appearsto have begun in November 1874, while English Men of Science was in the press.16As in several other investigations of this period, he issued a printed questionnaire to gather information.17The somewhat lengthy preamble to this is helpful in showing his aims at the outset of the enquiry. These were
of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821-1882, Cambridge, 1994, where the name is printed as 'Sedgewick'; 'Sedgwick' is the spelling used in all the articles in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. 11 William Sedgwick, 'On the influence of age in hereditarydisease', British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (1866), 38, 501-23, 522-3. 12 Printedletter in Galton Papers 122/1M. The main purpose of the letter is to enquire whether the recipients, themselves all experts on mental illness, have ever encountered similar cases of parallel insanity in twins. The circular is not dated, but Galton received the first cluster of replies (mainly brief letters regretting an inability to help him) in early February, suggesting a date of issue in the second half of January. 13 Ribot, op. cit. (4), 369. Galton quotes from Moreau's work at greater length, and must have consulted the original text for himself. Ribot also mentions, on the same page, the case from Trousseau. 14 Galton Papers 186, which includes five foolscap pages headed 'Ribot, Notes on' and the date 'Jan/75' in Galton's hand. After his note on Moreau Galton gives Ribot's page referenceto Moreau's book and adds '+ see Trousseau', but without a page reference,which may suggest that he was already familiar with Trousseau's case. 15 Francis Galton, review of Th. Ribot, Heredity: A Psychological Study of its Phenomena, Laws, Causes and Consequences, in Academy (1875), 7, 118-19. Irony apart, Galton's main accusation against Ribot, of massive uncredited borrowing from Prosper Lucas and from Galton's own Hereditary Genius (op. cit. (5)), is entirely justified. 16 The earliest surviving letter in the correspondence on twins is dated 14 November 1874, (Galton Papers 122/1A), a month before the publication of English Men of Science (op. cit. (6)). 17 'Questions about Twins', printed circular included in item 122/1A of the Galton Papers; italics in the extract below are Galton's. This is not to be confused with the later and more specific circular on mental illness mentioned at note (12) above. Galton's use of social and psychological questionnairesis discussed by Pearson, op. cit. (1), ii, 348-56; see also Victor Hilts, 'A guide to Francis Galton's English Men of Science', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (1975), 65, Pt 5; and Burbridge, op. cit. (8).

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twofold. His first aim was to establish more firmly than had been done hitherto whether But his main aim was to clarify the a tendency to produce twins was itself hereditary.18 contribution of 'nature' and 'nurture' to the similarities and differences between twins. The thinking behind this was explained in the preamble: the respective sharesthat 'Nature' and 'Nurture' My objectis to collect data for estimating contribute to the body and mind of adults,meaningby 'nature'everything that is ordinarily to birth.'9 inborn,and by 'nurture',everyinfluence subsequent unlikeand who continueto be The effectsof Natureare clearlyseen in persons,originally as nearlyas possiblein the sameway; so the effectsof Nurture unlike,although theyarereared amongthose who closelyresembled mightbe tracedin the gradualextinctionof resemblances rearedin a moreor less different manner. each other in childhood,but were afterwards butit is only amongtwins It is easyto obtainsuitable instances for the firstpartof the inquiry, that they exist for the second... It is clear from this that Galton was not simply gatheringinformation in random Baconian fashion but had a definite method, if not a firm hypothesis to be tested, in mind at the outset. The substance of the questionnaireseeks details on the strength of resemblancebetween twins (including such indicators as height, weight, fit of clothes, colour of hair and eyes, athletic powers, manual skill, handwriting, tone of voice, tastes, disposition and health), their education and subsequentpursuits,the extent to which their similarityhas diminished with age and the respondent's own assessment of the reasons for any such divergence.20 Further questions explore the prevalence of twin births in the family history. Finally, Galton asks for names and addresses of any other twins or relatives of twins who might be willing to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire as a whole is covered by an assurance of confidentiality. According to Galton's notes, 750 copies of his questionnairewere printed, and about six He was able to make a rapid start with help from Charles Ansell, hundred distributed.21 the Actuary of the National Life AssuranceSociety, who gave him the names and addresses of about 190 families with twin children believed to have survived at least to the age of three. In 1871 the Society had commissioned Ansell to carry out a survey of mortality and other family statistics among the upper and professional classes, in order to obtain specific data on these classes for insurancepurposes. The survey was addressedto 'members of the Clerical, Medical and Legal professions, and to a large number of other gentlemen and noblemen in England and Wales'.22 In 1874 Ansell published the main results of his survey,
18 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2 vols., London, 1871, i, 133, had said that 'it is at least known that with mankind a tendency to produce twins runs in families', and cited William Sedgwick for evidence on this point. It seems, however, to have been disputed. 19 Thus Galton's terminology, at this time, implicitly includes ante-natal environment in 'nature'; for more on this point see below. 20 These detailed questions are to be answered only in cases where the twins at some time showed a close resemblance. Together with the wording of the preamble, this suggests that Galton did not originally intend to seek information about twins who were never closely alike. 21 Galton Papers 122/2, notebook with fawn cover. 22 Charles Ansell, junior, On the Rate of Mortality at Early Periods of Life, the Age at Marriage, the Number of Children to a Marriage, the Length of a Generation, and other Statistics of Families in the Upper and Professional Classes, published for the National Life Assurance Society, London, 1874, 1.

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including a chapter on 'multiple births', which, inter alia, confirmed that twin pairs of the same sex were far more common than would be expected to arise by chance.23This appears to have led to correspondence between Galton and Ansell, in which Ansell agreed to provide Galton with suitable contacts. Ansell, evidently sensitive about this use of the Society's records, asked Galton not to disclose the source of his information unless pressed,24and presumablyfor this reason Galton does not mention it in his publications.25 While the proportion of useful responses was low (often because one or both twins had died in childhood), his initial respondents suggested other names, as he had requested, and Galton eventually managed to gather 159 cases.26As already noted, Galton also sent a printed circular letter to experts on mental illness (mainly the medical officers of lunatic asylums), seeking cases of insanity among twins.27 Galton's working papers record his struggles to extract usable information from his returns. In a series of tables he analysed the indications of similarity and difference in height, hair colour and so on, and classified the cases into three groups: 'alike', 'partly alike' and 'not alike'.28 Many of the responses were too brief to allow more than this summary analysis, but around sixty returns gave fuller details, including thirty-five cases of close similarity and twenty of sharp difference. Galton copied out illustrative extracts from these, arranging them according to the degree of similarity, and noting recurring themes such as occasions of one twin being mistaken for the other, and of illnesses affecting one or both twins.29 The surviving papers include eleven notebooks and a collection of loose notes on the statistics of twinning in family histories.30 Altogether Galton's manuscript notes run to over a hundred pages. This was not a brief or casual project. Much of the evidence gathered by Galton was in the literal sense anecdotal. His respondents seized the opportunity to pass on their favourite family stories. Some of them, relying on Galton's assuranceof anonymity, were surprisinglyfrank: one father, with very dissimilar twin sons, said of one of them, 'if there is any dirty trick - any nastiness I mean - done among the children it is he alone who does it (e.g. dipping a stick into a privy hole and daubing his brothers with it)'. Galton annotated this letter, 'Alas, I can't quote this, though so much to the purpose'.3 Later in his correspondence Galton also received
23 Ansell, op. cit. (22), 43. 24 Letterfrom CharlesAnsell to Galton, dated 14 November 1874, Galton Papers 122/1A. This letter enclosed a set of tables which must have taken some time to prepare. Allowing for earlier discussion or correspondence with Ansell, Galton's planning of the enquiry can hardly have begun later than the beginning of November. 25 He does, however, refer favourably to Ansell's published work; see Galton, 'Short notes on heredity, &c., in twins', Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1875), 5, 324-9, at 325. 26 Galton Papers 122/2, notebook with fawn cover. 27 In the event, the results of this part of the enquiry were meagre. Galton received three 'noteworthy' cases, but thought the details too 'painful' for publication; see Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 399. 28 Galton Papers 122/2, notebook with fawn cover. 29 Galton Papers 122/2, green notebooks. 30 Galton Papers 122/2, loose papers. 31 Galton Papers 122/1D, letter of 16 December 1874 from G. F. Bodington. Emphasis original. Galton alludes to this case in the section on dissimilar twins in Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, 1883, explaining that 'it is impossible to publish [the account] without the certainty of wounding the feelings of one of the twins, if these pages should chance to fall under his eyes'.

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what may be the first recorded case (outside fiction) of that fascinating rarity, identical twins raised apart. In this case the writer's great-uncles were twin brothers who, though 'separated through life, regainedone another at about 50 with their identity unimpaired'.32 Galton began to prepare his findings for publication in July 1875.33They appeared eventually in two papers presented to the Anthropological Institute of London.34His first major conclusion was that the degrees of similarity between twins do not follow the familiar Gaussian or 'normal' distribution, in which moderate similarity would be more common than extremes of similarity and dissimilarity. On the contrary, among twins of the same sex extreme similarity and dissimilarity were nearly as common as moderate resemblance.35 The modern reader may assume that Galton is here recognizing the distinction between monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal)twins. This would not be quite correct. Galton was indeed aware that some twins were produced from a single egg, while others came from separate eggs.36 This seems to have become accepted in medical doctrine comparatively recently (and still not universally) when Galton wrote.37 In 1873 one authority remarkedthat it 'was for long doubtful whether two embryos which were being simultaneously developed belonged to the same or different ova', but, he continued, ' modern research' has established 'that two yolks are occasionally found in a single ovum, and that the germs contained in them are probably simultaneously fertilized'; while other twins (the more common type) arise from different ova.38 A French writer of the same period also describes this as a recently established doctrine but suggests that the issues are not yet completely resolved,39 while an Americanphysiologist considers that 'the question of the possibility of the development of two beings from a single ovum remains unsettled'." A few years later a German expert had no doubt that twins develop either
32 Galton Papers 122/3, letter of 10 November 1875 from M. Townsend. Townsend wrote with regret that ,real evidence' was unattainable, as 'I can find since my brother's death no-one who can give first hand testimony'. Perhapsbecause of this difficulty,Galton does not appearto have mentioned the case in his published writings. Townsend was the editor of the Spectator magazine, which carried a two-page unsigned review of Galton's first article on twins. 33 Galton Papers 122/2, notebook with mottled cover. 34 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop Inst.), op. cit. (1). This contains various slight changes in wording, and one substantial addition: the penultimate paragraph, in which Galton reflects on the importance of early upbringing, is new. A second paper, containing Galton's conclusions on the reproductive aspects of twinning, appeared as 'Short notes', op. cit. (25). I shall not be concerned here with the latter paper except to cast light on other matters. 35 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 392. 36 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1). Galton refers for information on the physiological aspects of twinning to L. Kleinwachter'sDie Lehre von den Zwillingen, Prague, 1871. I regret that I have not seen this work. 37 I have consulted a number of standard works on heredity, physiology, embryology and obstetrics without finding any positive statement on this issue before the 1870s. J. Matthews Duncan, in On Some Laws of the Production of Twins, Edinburgh,1865, 16, writes that 'a philosopher might have fancied' that twins are produced in various ways, including the fertilization of a 'double ovum', but he does not appear to endorse these speculations. 38 William Leishman, A System of Midwifery, Glasgow, 1873, 202. 39 J. A. H. Depaul, Lefons de clinique obste'tricale,Paris, 1872-6, 213. 40 Austin Flint, The Physiology of Man, 5 vols., New York, 1874, v, 452.

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from two eggs, or 'aus einem Eie, welches doppelte Keime enthielt'; in the latter case the twins are always of the same sex, and are 'frappant dhnlich'."4 We might seem at first sight to have here a clear statement of the modern concept of monozygotic twins. This would be a mistake. There is nothing in these accounts to suggest that the twins receive identical genetic material from a single fertilized egg. The implication is, on the contrary, that division of the egg (producing two 'germs' and 'yolks') precedes fertilization. Twins produced in this way would be fertilized by separate sperms and would therefore not be genetically identical. But these distinctions could not be clearly made in the 1870s when the role of the chromosomes as the material basis of heredity was unknown and the process of fertilization was still poorly understood. We should not be surprisedto find confusion and uncertainty in the writings of the period. Galton's own discussion of the twinning process shows the same obscurities. In an early draft he had remarked that the physiology of twinning is 'little understood', but that in some cases 'it looks very much as though the principal conditions which ultimately determine sex had been first fulfilled and that afterwards a division of the embryonic unit into two parts, one to each twin, had taken place'.42 In his first published account he refers to single-egg twins as 'corresponding to those double-yolked eggs that are due to two germinal spots in a single ovum'.43 In revising the text for the Journal of the Anthropological Institute Galton retained the term 'germinal spots', but removed all reference to 'double-yolked eggs' and added the comment that single-egg twins are 'enveloped in the same membrane, and all such twins are found invariably to be of the same sex '.4 It is not clear what he meant by the phrase 'germinal spots', or if the revisions were intended as a change of substance or merely an attempt at clarification. In any event, Galton did not assume that single-egg twins were (in modern terms) genetically identical. He believed he had found that both close similarity and extreme dissimilarity were more common among same-sex pairs45 and inferred from this that the extremes of both similarity and dissimilarity were found in single-egg twins. He attempted to account for this (presumably illusory) phenomenon by a refinement of his own theory of hereditary germs', suggesting that closely similar twins resulted when the genetic material (the 'stirp') divides at an early stage, so that each half obtains a similar sample of germs, while extremes of dissimilarityresult if the division is delayed long enough for contrasting germs to 'arrange themselves somewhat according to their affinities', so that the two halves are 'strongly contrasted . Galton's findings on 'nature' and 'nurture' are of more enduring interest, and can be
41 Otto Spiegelberg,Lerhbuchder Geburtsbiilfe,Lahr, 1878, 197-8. This work postdates Galton's own studies by a few years, but Spiegelberg does not appear to have been aware of them. 42 Galton Papers 122/2, notebook with fawn cover. 43 Francis Galton, 'The history of twins' (Fraser'sMagazine), op. cit. (1), 567. 44 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 392; see also Francis Galton, 'Short notes', op. cit. (25), 328. Later research has shown that the criterion of enclosure in the same membrane is unreliable. 45 See especially Galton, 'Short notes', op. cit. (25), 329. Galton later reconsidered his evidence on cases of extreme dissimilarity, as discussed below. 46 FrancisGalton, 'A theory of heredity', ContemporaryReview (1875), 27, 80-95, 87. Since the above account was first submitted for publication, a major general study of Galton's theories of heredity has appeared: Michael Bulmer, 'The development of Francis Galton's ideas on the mechanism of heredity', Journal of the History of Biology (1999), 32, 263-92. I am relieved to find that my interpretation of Galton's theory of twins is in accord

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briefly stated: among twins who were closely similar from early childhood, no difference in upbringingor experience had any appreciableeffect in diminishing their similarity, with the important exception that a serious illness or accident affecting one twin could produce marked and lasting differences. Conversely, among twins who were strongly dissimilar from early childhood, no similarity in upbringing served to bring about a convergence in character. Galton summarizedhis conclusions in the following terms: 'We may therefore broadly conclude that the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected, capable of producing a marked effect on the characterof adults, is illness or accident which produces physical infirmity ... Nature is far stronger than nurture within the limited range that I have been careful to assign to the latter';47 and further: 'There is no escape from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nurturewhen the differencesof nurturedo not exceed what is commonly to be found among persons of the same rank of society and in the same country.'48 It will be seen that these conclusions are similar, even in verbal expression, to the formulation he had already given in English Men of Science, written before his investigations had begun. One might wonder whether the evidence he had gathered had impinged at all on a preconceived position. However, there is reason to think that he did at the outset of his enquiries expect the similarity of twins to decline with age, to a far greater extent than turned out to be the case. In English Men of Science he had remarked that this 'close resemblance necessarily gives way under the gradually accumulated influences of difference of nurture, but it often lasts till manhood'.4 The terms of his questionnaire also assume a decline of similarity between twins as the most likely experience, asking at 'what period did their close resemblance begin to diminish, and in what respects did they grow unlike in body or mind?'. Galton's published account seems to show genuine surprise, and even embarrassment,at the radical nature of his findings, remarking, 'My fear is, that my evidence may seem to prove too much, and may be discredited on that account, as it appears contraryto all experience that nurtureshould go for so little.'50 In 1883 Galton revised his papers for inclusion in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty.51 In addition to expanding his treatmentof dissimilartwins, the revised text makes two inconspicuous but in principlesignificantchanges. In his original account of twins (and earlier in English Men of Science), he had drawn the dividing line between nature and nurture at birth, describing 'nature' as 'the tendencies received at birth'." But by 1883 Galton had extended his conception of nurture to include the ante-natal environment,
with that of Bulmer.It would not be appropriatehere to comment in detail on Bulmer'sextremely valuable study, with most of which I fully agree. I must, however, note a reservation on Bulmer's thesis that Galton's theory of heredity in the early 1870s could not account for family resemblances. 47 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 402. 48 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 404. 49 Galton, op. cit. (6), 14. 50 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 404. It may, of course, be suggested that this is a rhetorical ploy. 51 Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development; I have used the 1911 Everyman's Libraryreprint, in which the twin studies are at 155-73. Galton's treatmentcovers only the materialfrom the first of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute papers. 52 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 391. Cf. Galton, op. cit. (6), 12.

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saying that 'nurture acts before birth, during every stage of embryonic and pre-embryonic existence, causing the potential faculties at the time of birth to be in some degree the effect of nurture'.53The original wording of his article on twins would have been inconsistent with this new usage and the text is revised to avoid a direct conflict.54 The second significant change is that Galton has reconsidered his cases of sharp dissimilarity and concluded that there may be a source of bias in his responses, explaining that 'a somewhat exaggerated estimate of dissimilarity may be due to the tendency of relatives to dwell unconsciously on distinctive peculiarities, and to disregard the far more numerous points of likeness that would first attract the notice of a stranger'.55Despite this important qualification of his evidence, the main conclusions of the study are repeated without change. It is not for the historian to assess the validity in substance of Galton's findings, but in view of the lasting influence of his work (still often cited in twin studies) it may be useful to point out some common misconceptions. Even in Galton's time it was complained that he was too ready to draw sweeping conclusions from a very small number of cases.56But the critics may have been misled, by Galton's focus on his subgroupof detailed reports, into underestimating the size of his total sample.57We have seen that he had reports on 159 pairs of twins, which is not, by the standards of psychological research, a very small number. It has also been claimed that Galton's study was 'highly selective'.58 The basis for this description is not clear. Galton's writings do not say how his twins were selected. In fact, as we have seen, he started by drawing on the results of CharlesAnsell's survey. Subsequent cases were identifiedusing information provided by the initial respondents. Very few of the respondents were personally acquainted with Galton. The only selectivity inherent in his methods arose from the social limitations of Ansell's survey, which was aimed specifically at the professional and upper classes. A more serious problem is the danger of selfselection. The response rate to Galton's questionnaire was low, and the amount of detail provided varied widely. It would not be surprising if those with remarkably similar (or dissimilar) cases to report were more likely to respond, or to respond at greater length. It is also sometimes supposed that Galton was, at least in outline, the originator of the 'twin method' of estimating the heritability of a trait.59 This technique compares the correlation between identical twins for the trait in question with the correlation between fraternal twins. The greater the difference between the two correlations, the higher the heritability. As Mascie-Taylor and others have pointed out, the attribution of the method
53 Galton, op. cit. (6), 131. See also Natural Inheritance, London, 1889, 5. 54 Galton, op. cit. (51) 155; however, Galton continues in the remainder of his account to treat 'nurture' implicitly as applying to post-natal experience only. 55 Galton, op. cit. (51), 172. 56 Spectator, 6 November 1875, 1387-9. 57 Galton nowhere mentions the total number of his cases. In his article 'Short notes' op. cit. (25), 325, he mentions ninety-four cases 'of whom I have sufficiently full returns' for the purposes of that particular article. Forrest, op. cit. (1), 129, takes this to be the total number. 58 Simon Szreter: Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940, Cambridge, 1996, 141. 59 See, for example, M. G. Bulmer, The Biology of Twinning in Man, Oxford, 1970, 138. Michael Bulmer's recent historical study (op. cit. (46)) emphasizes that this is not the case.

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The problem is not just that it requiresa knowledge of twentiethto Galton is unjustified.60 century genetics unavailable to Galton, but that his study of twins is not based on a comparison of identical and fraternal twins at all. The two lines of evidence - on similar and dissimilar twin pairs - are complementary but in principle self-contained. Galton's method is essentially longitudinal: the question is whether similar life experiences bring about convergence in twins originally dissimilar, and conversely whether different experiences produce divergence in those originally alike. This method has the advantage that it is not dependent on any special assumptions about the underlying genetics of the situation. On a tactical level, however, the two lines of evidence were mutually reinforcing. Each in isolation was open to objections. In the case of dissimilar twins it could be said that the apparent similarity of their nurture concealed subtle differencesof individual experience. But Galton could respond by pointing to the powerlessness of such factors to produce divergence in the case of twins similar from birth.61His evidence on similar twins, taken in isolation, was open to an even strongerobjection. As Galton himself admitted, his twins were in general brought up and educated in very similar environments. He recognized that in most cases they were 'educated together for many years', and 'reared exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood'.62 The critic could therefore reasonably argue that their similarity, continuing in later life, was due to the similarity of their early upbringing.But by showing that even with great similaritiesin upbringing,twins different by 'nature' do not converge in character,Galton could blunt the force of such objections.63 Perhaps for this reason, Galton came to consider his evidence on 'dissimilar' twins 'even more valuable' than that on similar pairs, and 'the more important of the two, though I little suspected it would be so, when I first began the inquiry'.64 All this assumes that Galton's evidence was itself reliable. This may be doubted, for it would be reasonable to object that Galton's measures of similarity and dissimilarity in mental characteristicswere wholly subjective, being left to the unguided judgement of his respondents. I have noted that Galton belatedly recognized one source of unconscious bias in his responses. Without objective measures of similarity in character there was little to exclude such dangers. It may also be regrettedthat in the design of Galton's questionnaire the opportunity to seek more objective measures of intellectual ability (for example, performance in academic or professional life) was missed.65Indeed, the questionnaire is
60 Mascie-Taylor, op. cit. (1). 61 According to Galton, the importance of such subtle individual factors -'trifling accidental circumstances' - had frequently been raised as an objection to his views on heredity; see Francis Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 391. 62 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 392, 401. 63 He does not consider the objection, popular among modern environmentalists,that 'identical' twins are given a more similar nurture than are fraternal ones. 64 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 392, 403. The latter passage did not appear in the Fraser'sMagazine version. I have noted that Galton's questionnaireitself was designed only for cases where twins were closely alike in early childhood, and it was Galton's good fortune that his respondents volunteered information on other cases. 65 Question 4 asks of the twins, 'Up to what age were they educated together, and in what respects did their education and pursuits differ afterwards?'. Some respondents chose to answer this with concrete evidence of achievement, but this was a haphazard affair.

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concerned almost wholly with traits of appearanceor character, and any attempt to draw conclusions from the data about mental ability would be difficult to justify. Yet Galton himself drew such conclusions.66 For all its faults, Galton's account remains fascinating even now. Much of its interest lies precisely in its anecdotal character. Galton's evidence hardly justifies the boldness of his conclusions, but if we take his study, more modestly, as 'a general reconnaissance of the subject',67 it deserves its historical status.

Heredity and social class Simon Szreter's monumental recent work on social statistics in Britain68has emphasized the role of Galton in gaining acceptance for what Szretercalls the 'professional model' of society: a linear hierarchyin which social classes are ranked, by referenceto the occupation of the male head of household, in descending order from 'professional' to 'unskilled manual .69 In Szreter'saccount, 'Galton provided an important new intellectual leadership for the view that factors of heredity, and not environment, were the source of all observable class and race differences. ... Galton himself was almost exclusively interested in social class differentialsin British society '.7" He was indeed 'one of the principal ideologues and champions of a professional meritocracy as providing the constitutional ideal for British society ... his hereditarian, professional model was the paradigm English meritocratic representationof social structure'."7 Szreterhighlights the role of Galton's twin studies in the development of his hereditarian social views, noting that in his he claimedof a studyof humantwins (in fact little morethan a highlyselective autobiography of anecdotalmaterial)which he publishedin 1875 that 'The and small scale accumulation thanthat of Nurture '.72 that the powerof Naturewas far stronger evidence was overwhelming Much in this account deserves fuller discussion, but here I wish only to examine the significanceof Galton's twin studies for his view of social differences.I have no doubt that in a general sense these studies reinforced Galton's hereditarianleanings. For example, in the concluding section of Inquiries into Human Faculty he claims that in
66 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 391, where Galton refers to ascertainingthe shares of nature and nurture in determining 'intellectual ability' as one of the main aims of the enquiry. 67 Galton, 'The history of twins' (J. Anthrop. Inst.), op. cit. (1), 392. 68 Szreter, op. cit. (58). 69 Szreter, op. cit. (58), passim. 70 Szreter, op. cit. (58), 131. 71 Szreter, op. cit. (58), 159. 72 Szreter,op. cit. (58), 141, citing Galton's Memories of My Life, London, 1908, 295. However, Szreterdoes not quote the second half of the sentence, which adds this rider: 'when the Nurtures of the persons compared were not exceedingly different'. This is surely an important qualification. Szreter, op. cit. (58), 169, also appears to ascribe to Galton the explicit view that 'the achievement of a eugenic society was a more important goal than the achievement of scientific truth', citing Ruth S. Cowan's study, 'Nature and nurture: the interplay of biology and politics in the work of Francis Galton', Studies in the History of Biology (1977), 1, 133-208, for evidence. In fact the quoted statement is Cowan's own assessment of Galton's position, for which she cites a letter of 12 January [recte June] 1904 from Galton to William Bateson, printed in Pearson, op. cit. (1), iii, 220; but this contains no such explicit statement and in my view does not justify Cowan's assessment.

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solution of the question whether a continual improvementin education might not compensate for a stationary or even retrogradecondition of natural gifts, I made inquiry into the life history of twins, which resulted in proving the vastly preponderatingeffects of nature over nurture.73 I have already noted that conclusions of this kind about mental ability went beyond Galton's evidence. But the point at issue here is Galton's explanation of the differences between social classes, and in this respect his work on twins is problematic. In all his detailed discussions of twins, as quoted earlier, his conclusions are carefully limited: nature, says Galton, is more powerful than nurture, but only when the differencesin either case do not exceed those which distinguish individuals of the same race living in the same country under no very exceptional circumstances... within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected ... within the limited range that I have been careful to assign to the latter [nurture]... when the differences of nurture do not exceed what is commonly to be found among persons of the same rank of society and in the same country. When Galton came to revise these findings, in Inquiries into Human Faculty, these qualifications were retained and even reinforced, for in a further passage where he had originally referred to 'external circumstances', he now wrote 'such difference of external circumstances as may be consistent with the ordinary conditions of the same social rank and country'.74 Thus in general Galton limits the conclusions he draws from his twin studies on the relative unimportance of 'nurture' to cases where the differences of nurture are not extreme. It would be illegitimate to extend those conclusions to cases where the differences of nurture are greater, and in particular to the case of widely different social classes. I am not aware of any explicit claim by Galton himself which falls into this error.75 It may perhaps be said that the concluding remarks of Inquiries into Human Faculty themselves imply a hereditarian account of social distinctions, since they appear to deny the effects of education on abilities, and differences in education are among the major factors on which a non-hereditarian acount of social differences would probably rely. But this is hardly an immediate inference, nor one which Galton must have recognized and expected his readers to draw. I suggest, in short, that nowhere does Galton put any weight on his study of twins to support a claim for a hereditary basis of the differences between social classes. But what in fact were Galton's views on heredity and social class? It is surprisingly difficult to answer this question. Galton's published comments on social class are few and scattered. Nor, at least until very late in his career, do his private notes and correspondence show much interest in the structure of British society.76 One point is, however, clear: in Galton's view outstanding ability in open, competitive fields of activity
73 Galton, op. cit. (51), 216-17. 74 Galton, op. cit. (51), 167. 75 For referencesto the twin studies in Galton's later writings, see, for example, FrancisGalton, 'Measurement of character', Fortnightly Review (1885), 36, 179-85, 180; Francis Galton, 'Good and bad temper in English families', Fortnightly Review (1887), 42, 21-30; and Francis Galton, Natural Inheritance, London, 1889, 4-5. 76 Galton's participation in the proceedings of the Sociological Society in 1904 may have prompted a closer interest in contemporary sociology; see, for example, his extensive notes (Galton Papers 186, 'Notes on books read') on Helen Bosanquet's 1906 book The Family.

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(such as the arts and sciences) will almost inevitably overcome social obstacles. He argues most fully for this opinion in Hereditary Genius, insisting that 'no man can achieve a very high reputation without being gifted with very high abilities; and ... few who possess these very high abilities can fail in achieving eminence'.7 It also seems clear that Galton saw high abilities as being concentrated in the upper middle classes to which he himself belonged, rather than in the lower classes or for that matter in the aristocracy.78In Hereditary Genius, he warns against taking mere social status or political office as evidence of high ability, noting that possession of a dukedom brought with it access to high political office, but 'the abilities of the large majority [of dukes] are very far indeed from justifying such an appointment'.7 Elsewhere he suggested that the nobility are 'peculiarly subject' to insanity, 'probably from their want of the wholesome restraints felt in humbler walks of life, and from their intermarriages '.80 Hereditary peerage itself was a 'disastrous institution'; the eldest sons of peers were tempted to marry heiresses (who were often the product of unhealthy and infertile stock), while for financial reasons the younger sons commonly did not marry at all.8"Thus, by rising to the peerage, hereditary ability was rendered infertile and lost to posterity. Galton was of course convinced that high ability was primarily the fruit of inborn qualities, of nature rather than nurture. In particular, it was relatively unaffected by social circumstances. This conviction no doubt had complex origins, including personal do 82 experiences. Galton does, however, offer three seemingly objective arguments for the inborn origin of high ability. One is the evident fact (if one shares Galton's opinion of dukes) that social advantages are insufficientby themselves to give intellectual eminence to someone of only moderate ability.83Galton also claimed that in the United States, where education was more widespread and social barrierslower, the proportion of eminent men But his favourite argumentwas that if social disadvantages was no higher than in Britain.84 were in fact a major obstacle to high ability, then those who managed to overcome them must be conspicuously more able than others who reached a similar level of achievement from a more favourable starting point. This, according to Galton, was not the case: 'we find very many who have risen from the ranks, but who are by no means prodigies of
77 Galton, op. cit. (5), 38-49. 78 For Galton's social attitudes generally see Donald A. MacKenzie, Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge, Edinburgh, 1981, 52-5, and G. R Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900-1914, Leiden, 1976, 45-66. 79 Galton, op. cit. (5), 104. Galton did recognize strong hereditary ability in some titled families, such as the Norths and the Montagus, who were prominent in legal and administrativeaffairs. It may be relevant in this case that the painter Marianne North, a descendant of both the North and Montagu families, was a close friend of Galton: see Marianne North, Recollections of a Happy Life, 2 vols., London, 1892, i, p. v and 1. 80 Francis Galton, 'Statistical inquiries into the efficacyof prayer', FortnightlyReview, (1872), 12 (new series), 125-35. 81 Galton, op. cit. (5), 140. As noted by Searle, op. cit. (78), 56, in 1910 Galton wrote to The Times (23 March 1910) criticizing the principle of primogenitureon supposed genetic grounds, but this raises further issues which cannot be discussed here. 82 For an insightful discussion see Raymond E. Fancher, 'Biographicalorigins of FrancisGalton's psychology', Isis (1983), 74, 227-33. 83 Galton, op. cit. (5), 41. 84 Galton, op. cit. (5), 40.

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genius; many who have no claim to "eminence", who have risen easily in spite of all obstacles.'85 Therefore social disadvantages are not a major obstacle. Galton returned to this argumenton several occasions, assertingthat it is 'by no means the case that those who have raised themselves by their abilities are found to be abler than their contemporaries who began their careers with advantages of fortune and social position'.86 Galton based this assessment largely on his own wide experience of scientific and learned societies, later remarking, owe theirsuccess environments Men who have won theirway to the frontout of uncongenial in youth andto an exceptionally stronginclination principally, I believe,to theiruntiring energy, in whichtheyafterwards themselves. towardsthe pursuits Theydo not seemoften distinguished on a widerstage... Theydo not, as to be characterized by an abilitythatcontinues pre-eminent in committees This is noticeable a rule,showgreatlyhighernatural abilitythantheircolleagues. are pittedagainstone another.87 and in otherassemblies or societieswhereintellects It may fairly be replied that, even if we accept Galton's assessment of the facts, this argument deals only with the hypothesis that 'ability', conceived as already existing, may be suppressed by social obstacles. It fails to address the possibility that in unfavourable circumstances ability may fail to develop at all, and that there may in consequence be nothing to suppress. Galton clearly gives too little consideration to such factors as childhood nutrition and health. In passing, he does concede that 'the highest natural endowments may be starved by defective nurture',88 but he never explores the implications of this concession. In any event his argumentsbear only on the highest levels of ability, and fall short of claiming a general correspondence between innate ability and position in society as a whole. Indeed, Galton admits that social hindrances 'undoubtedly form a system of natural selection that represses mediocre men, and even men of pretty fair powers' - by which he means those below about the top two per cent of the ability range.89 No position on the heritability of social distinctions in general can safely be inferredfrom this. A more comprehensive theory of social distinctions has been attributed to Galton's important Huxley Lectureof 1901.90This is a difficultwork to interpret.Galton begins by expounding the properties of the statistical 'normal distribution', and argues that the inherent talents on which 'civic worth' is based are likely to be distributed 'with rough approximation according to this familiar law'."9 On this assumption, he proceeds to examine the 'pattern of descent' that such talents would be expected to follow in a population, assuming that it resemblesthe inheritanceof physical traits as described in his book on Natural Inheritance.92 A necessary feature of such a pattern is that it will display Iregressionto the mean' (or, in Galton's terms, 'mediocrity'): the offspringof outstanding
85 Galton, op. cit. (5), 39. 86 Galton, op. cit. (6), 22. 87 Galton's preface to Edgar Schuster, Noteworthy Families, London, 1906, pp. xviii-xix. 88 Galton, op. cit. (6), 13. 89 Galton, op. cit. (5), 39. 90 Francis Galton, 'The possible improvement of the human breed under the existing conditions of law and sentiment', Nature (1901), 64, 659-65. 91 Galton, op. cit. (90), 659. 92 Galton, op. cit. (90), 661-2.

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parents will be (on average) less outstanding (relative to the standards of their own generation) than their parents. But the pattern shows dispersal as well as regression, and the outstanding individuals of the new generation will be recruited, to a large extent, from more mediocre parents. In all, a majority of offspring will show significantly greater or lesser civic worth than their parents, though moderate resemblance will be more common than extreme divergence. None of this has any necessary application to the actual structureof British society. But in the course of his theoretical discussion Galton turns aside to consider the empirical data given in Charles Booth's work on the population of London, which divides the population 'in a way that corresponds not unfairly with the ordinary conception of grades of civic worth'. He then shows that Booth's classes can be fitted approximately to the normal distribution, and sets out a table of correspondencebetween these empirical classes and his own hypothetical grades of merit.93 The key question is how this correspondenceis to be interpreted.At its weakest, it might be intended merely to show that a normal distribution of 'civic worth' is not glaringly at odds with the actual facts of society. On a stronger interpretation,however, Galton might be taken as asserting an identity between the distribution of innate talents and the actual distribution of classes in society.94Such an identity can only be preserved if the 'pattern of descent' of talents from one generation to the next is reflectedin upward and downward movement of individuals between classes. In this view, Galton's account has fundamental implications for social mobility. The strong interpretation we have just outlined was expounded brilliantly by the late Bernard Norton, referring to the 'model of society and of social mobility which Galton offered'.95For Norton, the main problem to which the Huxley Lecturewas addressed was 'to reconcile the supposed hereditary determination of social success with the observable facts of social mobility'.96 This interpretation is plausible and appealing. For Galton's critics, it demonstrates his social bias; for his admirers, it shows his insight, for the scale and pattern of social mobility it implies is broadly similar to that revealed by later But at the risk of seeming boringly pedantic, one must point out empirical investigations.97 that it goes beyond anything Galton himself says in the Huxley Lecture, which does not so much as mention social mobility. Nor is it clear that he would have accepted such an interpretation, at least without heavy qualifications, if it were put to him. Galton's overt
93 Galton, op. cit. (90), 660-1. 94 In support of this interpretation it may be noted that at one point (op. cit. (90), 660) Galton describes Booth's Class A as including his own hypothetical class v; see also ibid. 663. Taken literally this implies more than just a numerical correspondence. 95 Bernard Norton, 'Psychologists and class', in Biology, Medicine and Society 1840-1940, (ed. Charles Webster), Cambridge, 1981, 289-314, 299. 96 Norton, op. cit. (95), 296. 97 The major British examples are Social Mobility in Britain (ed. D. V. Glass), London, 1954, and John H. Goldthorpe, Social Mobility and Class Structurein Modern Britain,Oxford, 1980; see also Anthony Heath, Social Mobility, London, 1981, and the recent results of the British Birth Cohort Study reported in Twenty-something in the 1990s (ed. J. Bynner, E. Ferni and P. Shepherd),Ashgate, 1997, 46-7. If occupations are divided into three broad classes, about fifty per cent of sons fall into a different class from that of their fathers, and have done so at least since late Victorian times; see Heath, op. cit. (97), 81-8. Of course, it does not follow from this that mobility is due to genetic factors.

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intention in his Lectureis to examine the pattern of inheritancewith a view to establishing priorities for the targeting of eugenic policies. As this is a sufficient motive for his discussion of 'civic worth' and its inheritance, in the name of Occam one should be cautious before postulating additional, unstated intentions. For what it is worth, however, I believe that Galton did intend to suggest a general, though no doubt imperfect, correspondence between social position and innate gifts. Scatteredremarkselsewhere in his writings can be found to support this assessment. In his private notes on de Candolle's history of science, for example, he recordedthe latter's view that if 'natural talent and taste were the only causes that made a man a savant the labouring class would have been infinitelybetter represented',but added his own comment that this 'is a non-sequitur unless the capacity of all classes and their tastes is alike. I maintain, as does De C later on, that they are not alike'.98 Again, in English Men of Science he claimed that 'the upper classes of a nation like our own ... are by far the most productive of natural ability'.99 In his 1892 Presidential Address to the International Congress of Demography he referred casually to the 'natural gifts' of different social classes, in such a way as to imply clearly that they correspond to actual physical, And in an article in 1894 Galton suggested that if the intellectual and moral qualities.100 nation is divided into three equal groups in order of their 'natural civic capacities', then at present 'the production of the forthcominggeneration is chieflyeffected by ... the lowest and the middle .101Such a claim makes no sense without an assumption that 'natural civic capacities' are located in recognizable social and demographic classes. In accounting for this assumption we need not appeal to any work of Galton's own, on twins or otherwise. It was a common belief of his age and class that British society was relatively open to talent and merit, and that ability and effort could overcome social Such openness would tend to bring ability and social position roughly disadvantages.102 into correspondence. Certainly Galton himself did believe that in Britain there was In the passage from English Men of Science just cited, he significant social movement.103 claimed that the 'upper classes' of the nation 'are largely and continually recruited by selections from below ... The lower classes are, in truth, the "residuum"'.104 Nor did he
98 Item 186 in the Galton Papers, 'Notes from books read', includes a notebook with twenty-two pages of extracts from de Candolle and occasional comments by Galton. He drew on these notes for his article 'On the causes which operate to create scientific men', Fortnightly Review (1873), 13, 345-52, but here he stresses the extent of his agreement with de Candolle, and confines his criticism to pointing out places where de Candolle himself recognizes the importance of heredity. 99 Galton, op. cit. (6), 23. 100 FrancisGalton, Addressto the InternationalCongress on Demography, reprintedin the preface to the 1892 edition of Hereditary Genius (op. cit. (5)), pp. xxi-xxii. 101 Francis Galton, 'The part of religion in human evolution', National Review (1894), 23, 755-63, 757. To complicate matters, Galton puts these words in the mouth of a 'somewhat fanatic preacher' of the eugenic cause, a device that enables him to distance himself from his own more speculative assumptions. 102 Norton, op. cit. (95), 295, notes that by Victorian times, 'social mobility was a well-establishedfact of life', and refers to its celebration in the works of Samuel Smiles. See also the now less familiar work of G. L. Craik, The Pursuitof Knowledge under Difficulties (many editions), in which 'Humble station no obstacle' is a recurring theme. 103 I agree with Norton that the fact of social mobility was an important part of Galton's background assumptions, but I cannot find any direct evidence that Galton regarded it as a problem to be explained. 104 Galton, op. cit. (6), 23.

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challenge the remark of Karl Pearson that the 'middle classes are I take it the result of a pretty long process of selection in this country'.105 Pearson elaborated on this view in a number of published works, maintaining that 'the middle class in England, which stands there for intellectual culture and brain-work, is the product of generations of selection from other classes and of in-marriage'. While Pearson approved of social mobility for the highly able, he wished it to be limited: 'let it not be a very easy ladder to climb; great ability will get up, and that is all that is socially advantageous,. 106 A still more explicit statement of a link between social class and selection based on ability is to be found in a paper presented by the psychologist William McDougall to the Sociological Society in 1907. After noting various complications, McDougall declares that the classwhichwe roughly define perhaps it remains truethatthe highersocialclasses,especially selection... And it may be as the upper middle-class ... is the productof a long-continued the social ladder. claimed,I think,that we havenow well-nighperfected Moreover, McDougall explicitly links his discussion of social class to Galton's scale of 'civic worth'.107 Galton himself was unable to attend this meeting of the Sociological Society, but sent written comments on McDougall's paper. While pouring cold water on McDougall's 'practical eugenic suggestion' (that the government should pay higher salaries to public employees with large families who had passed appropriateexaminations), Galton made no response to McDougall's comments on social class.108While silence cannot fairly be taken for consent, it does suggest an absence of strong disagreement. But Galton, as we have seen in his work on twins, was not wholly insensitive to the difficultiesof generalizingacross the range of social circumstances.His apparentreluctance to engage in any explicit and extended discussion of social class and social mobility may On at least two have stemmed from an awareness that quantitative data were lacking.109 At some point Galton himself appears occasions he called for investigations in this area.110 to have planned an enquiry into social mobility. A draft questionnaire preserved in the Galton Papers seeks a 'comparison ... between the average social position of householders of all classes, in the present day, and that of their fathers'."' The text of the questions
105 Letter from Karl Pearson to Francis Galton, 10 January 1901, in Pearson, op. cit. (1), iii, 242. 106 Karl Pearson, The Function of Science in the Modern State, 2nd edn., Cambridge, 1919, 10 (firstpublished 1902). See also similar remarksin other works by Pearson, such as the second edition of The Grammarof Science, London, 1900, 467; and a letter to The Times of 5 September 1905, reprintedin Appendix I to the second edition of Pearson's National Life from the Standpoint of Science, Cambridge, 1905. It should not, however, be assumed that Galton invariably agreed with Pearson, as their outlooks and doctrines differed in some important respects. 107 W. McDougall, 'A practical eugenic suggestion', Sociological Papers (1907), 3, 63-4. 108 Francis Galton, 'Written communication', Sociological Papers (1907), 3, 91-2. 109 We can hardly, I think, suppose that he was inhibited by any concern for political correctness avant la lettre. 110 In 1892, in his address to the International Congress on Demography, reprintedin the preface to the 1892 edition of Hereditary Genius (op. cit. (5), p. xxii); and in 'Studies in national eugenics', Sociological Papers (1906), 2, 15. In both cases his interest seems to have been more in the vigour with which different social classes reproduce than in social mobility as an issue in its own right. 111 Galton Papers, item 135, annotated in Galton's hand 'Draft for circular (never issued) on social position of present householders & that of their fathers'. Galton seems to have envisaged recruiting contributors to provide details on the occupation and status of everyone in a street or neighbourhood - a kind of private social census. The date of this item is unclear. Karl Pearson, op. cit. (1), ii, 350-1, discusses it alongside various projects

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makes it clear that both upward and downward movement were of interest, asking respondentsto 'compare the position held by the son among the people of the present day, with the position of the father when he was the same age that his son is now, and say whether, when looked at in that light, it is the father or the son who has occupied the higher social position'. The manuscriptis marked with instructions to a printer, suggesting that it came close to being issued. The circumstances and fate of this abortive enquiry are among the obscure points in Galton's career that might reward further investigation.

of the 1870s, but there seems no strong reason for allocating it to this period. It is linked in item 135 with an outline of a draft paper on 'Social stability: ruling motives', which seems similar in theme to the National Review article of 1894. A date for the questionnaire in the 1890s seems as good as any.

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