Inquiries into human faculty and its developmentGalton, Francis
Science
Inquiries into human faculty and its development
Galton, Francis
Ability; Eugenics
It was with no little interest that I searched the records of the
thirty-five cases for an answer; and they gave an answer that was
not altogether direct, but it was distinct, and not at all what I
had expected. They showed me that in some cases the resemblance of
body and mind had continued unaltered up to old age, notwithstanding
very different conditions of life; and they showed in the other
cases that the parents ascribed such dissimilarity as there was,
wholly or almost wholly to some form of illness. In four cases it
was scarlet fever; in a fifth, typhus; in a sixth, a slight effect
was ascribed to a nervous fever; in a seventh it was the effect of
an Indian climate; in an eighth, an illness (unnamed) of nine
months' duration; in a ninth, varicose veins; in a tenth, a bad
fracture of the leg, which prevented all active exercise afterwards;
and there were three additional instances of undefined forms of ill
health. It will be sufficient to quote one of the returns; in this
the father writes:
"At birth they were _exactly_ alike, except that one was born with a
bad varicose affection, the effect of which had been to prevent any
violent exercise, such as dancing or running, and, as she has grown
older, to make her more serious and thoughtful. Had it not been for
this infirmity, I think the two would have been as exactly alike as
it is possible for two women to be, both mentally and physically;
even now they are constantly mistaken for one another."
In only a very few cases is some allusion made to the dissimilarity
being partly due to the combined action of many small influences,
and in none of the thirty-five cases is it largely, much less wholly,
ascribed to that cause. In not a single instance have I met with a
word about the growing dissimilarity being due to the action of the
firm free-will of one or both of the twins, which had triumphed over
natural tendencies; and yet a large proportion of my correspondents
happen to be clergymen, whose bent of mind is opposed, as I feel
assured from the tone of their letters, to a necessitarian view of
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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