This volume is the first instalment of a work that admits of wide
extension. Its object is to serve as an index to the achievements of
those families which, having been exceptionally productive of noteworthy
persons, seem especially suitable for biographical investigation.
The facts that are given here are avowedly bald and imperfect;
nevertheless, they lead to certain important conclusions. They show, for
example, that a considerable proportion of the noteworthy members in a
population spring from comparatively few families.
The material upon which this book is based is mainly derived from the
answers made to a circular sent to all the Fellows of the Royal Society
whose names appear in its Year Book for 1904.
The questions were not unreasonably numerous, nor were they
inquisitorial; nevertheless, it proved that not one-half of those who
were addressed cared to answer them. It was, of course, desirable to
know a great deal more than could have been asked for or published with
propriety, such as the proneness of
particular families to grave constitutional disease. Indeed, the secret
history of a family is quite as important in its eugenic aspect as its
public history; but one cannot expect persons to freely unlock their
dark closets and drag forth family skeletons into the light of day. It
was necessary in such a work as this to submit to considerable
limitations, while turning to the fullest account whatever could be
stated openly without giving the smallest offence to any of the persons
concerned.
One limitation against which I still chafe in vain is the
impracticability of ascertaining so apparently simple a matter as the
number of kinsfolk of each person in each specific degree of near
kinship, without troublesome solicitations. It was specially asked for
in the circular, but by no means generally answered, even by those who
replied freely to other questions. The reason must in some cases have
been mere oversight or pure inertia, but to a large extent it was due to
ignorance, for I was astonished to find many to whom the number of even
their near kinsfolk was avowedly unknown. Emigration, foreign service,
feuds between near connections, differences of social position,
faintness of family interest, each produced their several effects, with
the result, as I have reason to believe, that hardly one-half of the
persons addressed were able, without first making inquiry of others, to
reckon the number of their uncles, adult nephews, and first cousins. The
isolation of some few from even their nearest relatives was occasionally
so complete that the number of
their brothers was unknown. It will be seen that this deficiency of
information admits of being supplied indirectly, to a considerable
degree.
The collection of even the comparatively small amount of material now
in hand proved much more troublesome than was anticipated, but as the
object and limitations of inquiries like this become generally
understood, and as experience accumulates, the difficulty of similar
work in the future will presumably lessen.
The Fellowship of the Royal Society is a distinction highly
appreciated by all members of the scientific world. Fifteen men are
annually selected by its council out of some sixty candidates, each
candidate being proposed by six, and usually by more, Fellows in a
certificate containing his qualifications. The candidates themselves are
representatives of a multitude of persons to whom the title would be not
only an honour but a material advantage. The addition of the letters
“F.R.S.” to the names of applicants to any post, however
remotely connected with science, is a valuable testimonial and a
recognised aid towards success, so the number of those who desire it is
very large. Experience shows that no special education, other than
self-instruction, is really required to attain this honour. Access to
laboratories, good tuition, and so forth, are doubtless helpful, so far
that many have obtained the
distinction through such aid who could not otherwise have done so, but
they are far from being all-important factors of success. The facts that
lie patent before the eyes of every medical man, engineer, and the
members of most professions, afford ample material for researches that
would command the attention of the scientific world if viewed with
intelligence and combined by a capable mind.
It is so difficult to compare the number of those who might have
succeeded with the number of those who do, that the following
illustration may perhaps be useful: By adding to the 53 registration
counties in England, the 12 in Wales, the 33 in Scotland and the 32 in
Ireland, an aggregate of 130 is obtained. The English counties, and the
others in a lesser degree, have to be ransacked in order to supply the
fifteen annually-elected Fellows; so it requires more than eight of
these counties to yield an annual supply of a single Fellow to the Royal
Society.
It is therefore contended that the Fellows of the Royal Society have
sufficient status to be reckoned “noteworthy,” and, such
being the case, they are a very convenient body for inquiries like
these. They are trained to, and have sympathy with, scientific
investigations; biographical notices are published of them during their
lifetime, notably in the convenient compendium “Who's Who,”
to which there will be frequent occasion to refer; and they are more or
less known to one another, either directly or through friends, making it
comparatively easy to satisfy the occasional doubts which may arise from their
communications. It was easier and statistically safer to limit the
inquiry to those Fellows who were living when the circulars were
issued—that is, to those whose names and addresses appear in the
“Royal Society's Year Book” of 1904. Some of them have since
died, full of honours, having done their duty to their generation;
others have since been elected; so the restriction given here to the
term “Modern Science” must be kept in mind.
Another and a strong motive for selecting the F.R.S. as subjects of
inquiry was that so long ago as 1863-1864 I had investigated the
antecedents of 180 of those who were then living, who were further
distinguished by one or other of certain specified and recognised
honours. My conclusions were briefly described in a Friday evening
lecture, February 27, 1864, before the Royal Institution. These,
together with the data on which they were founded, were published in the
same year in my book “English Men of Science.” Readers who
desire fuller information as to the antecedents conducive to success
that are too briefly described further on should refer to the above
book.
The epithet “noteworthy” is applied to achievements in
all branches of effort that rank among the members of any profession or
calling as equal, at least, to that which an F.R.S. holds among
scientific men. This affords a convenient and sufficiently definite
standard of merit. I could think of none more appropriate when
addressing scientific men, and it
seems to have been generally understood in the desired sense. It
includes more than a half of those whose names appear in the modern
editions of “Who's Who,” which are become less discriminate
than the earlier ones. “Noteworthiness” is ascribed, without
exception, to all whose names appear in the “Dictionary of
National Biography,” but all of these were dead before the date of
the publication of that work and its supplement. Noteworthiness is also
ascribed to those whose biographies appear in the
“Encyclopædia Britannica” (which includes many who are
now alive), and, in other works, of equivalent authority. As those
persons were considered by editors of the last named publications to be
worthy of note, I have accepted them, on their authority, as
noteworthy.
No attempt is made in this book to deal with the transmission of
ability of the very highest order, as the data in hand do not furnish
the required material, nor will the conclusions be re-examined at length
that I published many years ago in “Hereditary Genius.”
Still, some explanation is desirable to show the complexity of the
conditions that are concerned with the hereditary transmission of the
highest ability, which, for the moment, will be considered as the same
thing as the highest fame.
It has often been remarked that the men who have attained pinnacles of celebrity failed to leave
worthy successors, if any. Many concurrent causes aid in producing this
result. An obvious one is that such persons are apt to be so immersed in
their pursuit, and so wedded to it, that they do not care to be
distracted by a wife. Another is the probable connection between severe
mental strain and fertility. Women who study hard have, as a
class—at least, according to observant caricaturists—fewer
of the more obvious feminine characteristics; but whether this should be
considered a cause or a consequence, or both, it is difficult to say. A
third, and I think the most important, reason why the children of very
distinguished persons fall sometimes lamentably short of their parents
in ability is that the highest order of mind results from a fortunate
mixture of incongruous constituents, and not of such as naturally
harmonize. Those constituents are negatively correlated, and
therefore the compound is unstable in heredity. This is eminently the
case in the typical artistic temperament, which certainly harmonizes
with Bohemianism and passion, and is opposed to the useful qualities of
regularity, foresight, and level common sense. Where these and certain
other incongruous faculties go together in well-adjusted proportions,
they are capable of achieving the highest success; but their heritage is
most unlikely to be transmitted in its entirety, and ill-balanced
compounds of the same constituents are usually of little avail, and
sometimes extraordinarily bad. A fourth reason is that the highest
imaginative power is dangerously near lunacy. If one of the sanest of poets, Wordsworth, had,
as he said, not unfrequently to exert strength, as by shaking a
gate-post, to gain assurance that the world around him was a reality,
his mind could not at those times have been wholly sane. Sanity is
difficult to define, except negatively; but, even though we may be
convinced of the truths of the mystic, that nothing is what it seems to
be, the above-mentioned conduct suggests temporary insanity. It is
sufficient to conclude, as any Philistine would, that whoever has to
shake a gate-post to convince himself that it is not a vision is
dangerously near madness. Mad people do such things; those who carry on
the work of the world as useful and law-abiding citizens do not. I may
add that I myself had the privilege of hearing at first hand the
narrator's own account of this incident, which was much emphasized by
his gestures and tones. Wordsworth's unexpected sally was in reply to a
timid question by the late Professor Bonamy Price, then a young man,
concerning the exact meaning of the lines in his famous “Ode to
Immortality,” “not for these I raise the song of praise; but
for those obstinate questionings of sense and outward
things,” etc.
I cannot speak from the present returns, but only from my own private
knowledge of the somewhat abnormal frequency with which eccentricity, or
other mental unsoundness, occurs in the families of very able scientific
men. Lombroso, as is well known, strongly asserted the truth of this
fact, but more strongly, as it seems to myself, than the evidence
warrants.
It is, therefore, not in the
highest examples of human genius that heredity can be most profitably
studied, men of high, but not of the highest, ability being more
suitable. The only objection to their use is that their names are, for
the most part, unfamiliar to the public.
The vastness of the social world is very imperfectly grasped by its
several members, the large majority of the numerous persons who have
been eminent above their far more numerous fellows, each in his own
special department, being unknown to the generality. The merits of such
men can be justly appreciated only by reference to records of their
achievements. Let no reader be so conceited as to believe his present
ignorance of a particular person to be a proof that the person in
question does not merit the title of noteworthy.
I said what I have to say about the modern use of the word
“genius” in the preface to the second edition of my
“Hereditary Genius.” It has only latterly lost its old and
usual meaning, which is preserved in the term of an
“ingenious” artisan, and has come to be applied to something
akin to inspiration. This simply means, as I suppose, though some may
think differently, that the powers of unconscious work possessed by the
brain are abnormally developed in them. The heredity of these powers has
not, I believe, been as yet especially studied. It is strange that more
attention has not been given until recently to unconscious brain-work,
because it is by far the most potent factor in mental operations. Few people, when in rapid
conversation, have the slightest idea of the particular form which a
sentence will assume into which they have hurriedly plunged, yet through
the guidance of unconscious cerebration it develops itself grammatically
and harmoniously. I write on good authority in asserting that the best
speaking and writing is that which seems to flow automatically shaped
out of a full mind.
The materials on which the subject of this chapter depends are too
various to lead to a single definite and trustworthy answer. Men who
have won their way to the front out of uncongenial environments owe
their success principally, I believe, to their untiring energy, and to
an exceptionally strong inclination in youth towards the pursuits in
which they afterwards distinguished themselves. They do not seem often
to be characterized by an ability that continues pre-eminent on a wider
stage, because after they have fully won a position for themselves, and
become engaged in work along with others who had no early difficulties
to contend with, they do not, as a rule, show greatly higher natural
ability than their colleagues. This is noticeable in committees and in
other assemblies or societies where intellects are pitted against one another. The bulk of existing
noteworthies seem to have had but little more than a fair education as
small boys, during which their eagerness and aptitude for study led to
their receiving favour and facilities. If, in such cases, the aptitudes
are scholastic, a moderate sum suffices to give the boy a better
education, enabling him to win scholarships and to enter a University.
If they lie in other directions, the boy attracts notice from some more
congenial source, and is helped onwards in life by other means. The
demand for exceptional ability, when combined with energy and good
character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with them is hardly more
likely to remain overlooked than a bird's nest in the playground of a
school. But, by whatever means noteworthiness is achieved, it is usually
after a course of repeated and half-unconscious testings of
intelligence, energy, and character, which build up repute brick by
brick.
If we compare the number of those who achieved noteworthiness through
their own exertions with the numbers of the greatly more numerous
persons whose names are registered in legal, clerical, medical,
official, military, and naval directories, or in those of the titled
classes[A] and landed gentry, or lastly,
of those of the immense commercial world, the proportion of one noteworthy person to one hundred of
the generality who were equally well circumstanced as himself does not
seem to be an over-estimate.
Success is the joint result of the natural powers of mind and body,
and of favourable circumstances. Those of the latter which fall into
definite groups will be distinguished as “environment,”
while the others, which evade classification, will be called
“accidental.”
The superstitions of old times cling so tenaciously to modern thought
that the words “accident” and “chance” commonly
connote some mysterious agency. Nothing of the kind is implied here. The
word “accident” and the like is used in these pages simply
to express the effect of unknown or unnoted causes, without the
slightest implication that they are unknowable. In most cases their
neglect has been partly due to their individual insignificance, though
their combined effect may be very powerful when a multitude work in the
same direction. Moreover, a trifling pressure at the right spot suffices
to release a hair-trigger and thereby to cause an explosion; similarly,
with personal and social events, a trifling accident will sometimes
determine a career.
Noteworthiness and success may be regarded statistically as the outcome of ability and environment
and of nothing else, because the effects of chance tend to be eliminated
by statistical treatment. The question then becomes, How far may
noteworthiness be accepted as a statistical measure of ability?
Ability and environment are each composed of many elements that
differ greatly in character. Ability may be especially strong in
particular directions as in administration, art, scholarship, or
science; it is, nevertheless, so adaptive that an able man has often
found his way to the front under more than one great change of
circumstance. The force that impels towards noteworthy deeds is an
innate disposition in some men, depending less on circumstances than in
others. They are like ships that carry an auxiliary steam-power, capable
of moving in a dead calm and against adverse winds. Others are like the
ordinary sailing ships of the present day—they are stationary in a
calm, but can make some way towards their destination under almost any
wind. Without a stimulus of some kind these men are idle, but almost any
kind of stimulus suffices to set them in action. Others, again, are like
Arab dhows, that do little more than drift before the monsoon or other
wind; but then they go fast.
Environment is a more difficult topic to deal with, because
conditions that are helpful to success in one pursuit may be detrimental
in another. High social rank and wealth conduce to success in political
life, but their distractions and claims clash with quiet investigation. Successes are of the most varied
descriptions, but those registered in this book are confined to such as
are reputed honourable, and are not obviously due to favour.
In attacking the problem it therefore becomes necessary to fix the
attention, in the first instance, upon the members of some one large,
special profession, as upon artists, leaders in commerce, investigators,
scholars, warriors, and so forth, then to divide these into subclasses,
until more appears to be lost through paucity of material than is gained
through its increasing homogeneity.
Whatever group be selected, both ability and environment must be
rated according to the requirements of that group. It then becomes
possible, and it is not difficult, to roughly array individuals under
each of these two heads successively, and to label every person with
letters signifying his place in either class. For purposes of the
following explanation, each quality will be distributed into three
grades, determined not by value, but by class place—namely, the
highest third, the medium third, and the lowest third. In respect to
ability, these classes will be called A, B, and C. In respect to
environment, the grades will refer to its helpfulness towards the
particular success achieved, and the classes will be called E, F, G. It
must be clearly understood that the differences between the grades do
not profess to be equal, merely that A is higher than B, and B than C;
similarly as to E, F, and G. The A, B, C may be quite independent of E,
F, G, or they may be correlated.
Both cases will be considered.
Ability and Environment being mutually helpful towards success, the
successes statistically associated with AE will be reckoned higher than
those associated with AF. Again, for simplicity of explanation only, it
will here be assumed that Ability and Environment are equally potent in
securing success. Any other reasonable relation between their influences
may be substituted for the purpose of experiment, but the ultimate
conclusion will be much the same.
Table I.—Combinations of Ability and Environment.
| AE. I. |
AF. I. |
AG. II. |
| BE. I. |
BF. II. |
BG. III. |
| CE. II. |
CF. III. |
CG. III. |
First, suppose Ability and Environment to be entirely independent, A
being as frequently associated with E as it is with F or with G;
similarly as regards B and C, then the nine combinations shown in Table
I. will be equally frequent. These tabular entries fall into three equal
groups. The three that lie in and about the upper left-hand corner
contain the highest constituents—namely, either high
combined with high, or one high with one medium.
They produce Successes of Grade I. The three in the middle diagonal band running between the lower left
and the upper right corners are either one high and one
low, or both are medium; they will produce Successes of
Grade II. The three in and about the right-hand corner are either one
medium with one low, or both are low; they will
produce Successes of Grade III. This is still more clearly seen by
sorting the results into Table II., from which it is clear that a high
grade of Success is statistically associated with a high, but less,
grade of Ability, a medium with a medium, and a low grade of Success
with a low, but less low, grade of Ability.
Table II.—Ability Independent of Environment.
| Grades of Success. |
Contributory Combinations. |
Corresponding Abilities. |
| I. |
AE |
AF |
BE |
2 of A |
1 of B |
— |
| II. |
AG |
BF |
CE |
1 of A |
1 of B |
1 of C |
| III. |
CG |
BG |
CF |
— |
1 of B |
2 of C |
Secondly, suppose A, B, C to be correlated with E, F, G, so that A is
more likely to be associated with E than it is with F, and much more
likely than with G. Similarly, C is most likely to be associated with G,
less likely with F, and least likely with E. The general effect of these
preferences will be well represented by divorcing the couples which
differ by two grades—namely, AG and CE, by re-mating their
constituents as AE and CG, and by re-sorting them, as in Table III. The couples that differ by no more
than one grade are left undisturbed. The results now fall into five
grades of Success, in four of which each grade contains two-ninths of
the whole number, and one, the medium Grade 3, contains only
one-ninth.
As remarked previously, the grades are not supposed to be separated
by equal steps. They are numbered in ordinary numerals to distinguish
them from those in Table II.
Table III.—Ability Correlated With Environment.
| Grades of Success. |
Contributory Combinations. |
Corresponding Abilities. |
| 1 |
AE |
AE |
2 of A |
— |
— |
| 2 |
AF |
BE |
1 of A |
1 of B |
— |
| 3 |
BF |
— |
— |
1 of B |
— |
| 4 |
BG |
CF |
— |
1 of B |
1 of C |
| 5 |
CG |
CG |
— |
— |
2 of C |
It clearly appears from this table that the effect of correlation
between Ability and Environment is to increase, and not to diminish, the
closeness of association between Success and Ability. Indeed, if the
correlation were perfect, Success would become an equal measure
both of Ability and of Favourableness of Environment.
These arguments are true for each and every branch of Success, and
are therefore true for all: Ability being construed as Appropriate
Ability, and Environment as Appropriate Environment.
The general conclusion is that
Success is, statistically speaking, a magnified, but otherwise
trustworthy, sign of Ability, high Success being associated with high,
but not an equally high, grade of Ability, and low with low, but not an
equally low. A few instances to the contrary no more contradict this
important general conclusion than a few cases of death at very early or
at very late ages contradict the tables of expectation of life of a
newly-born infant.
Specific kinships are such as “paternal uncle” or
“maternal uncle,” as distinguished from the general term
“uncle.” The phrase “first cousin” covers no
less than eight specific kinships (four male and four female), not
taking the issue of mixed marriages into account. Specific kinships are
briefly expressed by a nomenclature in which fa, me,
bro, si, son, da, Hu, Wi,
stand respectively for father, mother, brother,
sister, son, daughter, Husband, Wife.
Each of these syllables is supposed to have the possessive 's
added to it whenever it is followed by another syllable of the set, or
by the word is when it is not. Example: Let the person
from whom the kinships are reckoned be called P, and let Q
and R be two of P's kinsfolk, described respectively as
fa bro and me si son. That means that P's father's
brother is Q, and that P's mother's sister's son is R. It is a simple and easily
intelligible nomenclature, and replaces intolerable verbiage in the
description of distant kinships. My correspondents used it freely, and
none of them spoke of any difficulty in understanding it. Its somewhat
babyish sound is soon disregarded.
Table IV.—Abbreviations.
| Males. |
Females. |
| Grandfather, paternal |
fa fa |
Grandmother, paternal |
fa me |
| " maternal |
me fa |
" maternal |
me me |
| Father |
fa |
Mother |
me |
| Uncle, paternal |
fa bro |
Aunt, paternal |
fa si |
| " maternal |
me bro |
" maternal |
me si |
| Brother |
bro |
Sister |
si |
| Son |
son |
Daughter |
da |
| Nephew, brother's son |
bro son |
Niece, brother's daughter |
bro da |
| Nephew, sister's son |
si son |
Niece, sister's daughter |
si da |
| Male first
cousins: |
Female first cousins: |
| 1. Son of paternal uncle |
fa bro son |
1. Dau. of paternal uncle |
fa bro da |
| 2. Son of maternal uncle |
me bro son |
2. Dau. of maternal uncle |
me bro da |
| 3. Son of paternal aunt |
fa si son |
3. Dau. of paternal aunt |
fa si da |
| 4. Son of maternal aunt |
me si son |
4. Dau. of maternal aunt |
me si da |
Those relationships that are expressed by different combinations of
these letters differ specifically; therefore, in saying, in the
next chapter, that each person has “roughly, on the average, one
fertile relative in each and every form of specific kinship,”
it means in each and every
combination of the above syllables that is practically possible.
Relationship may also be expressed conveniently for some purposes in
Degrees of remoteness, the number of the Degree being that of the number
of syllables used to express the specific kinship.
The population may be likened to counters spread upon a table, each
corresponding to a different individual. The counters are linked
together by bands of various widths, down to mere threads, the widths
being proportional to the closeness of the several kinships. Those in
the first degree (father, mother, brother,
sister, son, daughter) are comparatively broad;
those in the second degree (grandparent, uncle,
aunt, nephew, niece, grandchild) are
considerably narrower; those in the third degree are very narrow indeed.
Proceeding outwards, the connections soon become thinner than gossamer.
The person represented by any one of these counters may be taken as the
subject of a pedigree, and all the counters connected with it may be
noted up to any specified width of band. In this book one of the
counters is supposed to represent a Fellow of the Royal Society, whose
name appears in the “Year-Book” of that Society for 1904,
and the linkage proceeds outwards
from him to the third degree inclusive. Usually it stops there, but a
few distant kinships have been occasionally inserted chiefly to testify
to a prolonged heritage of family traits.
The intensity with which any specified quality occurs in each or any
degree of kinship is measured by the proportion between the numbers of
those who possess the quality in question and the total number of
persons in that same degree. Particular inquiries were made on the
latter point, but, as already stated, the answers were incomplete. There
is, however, enough information to justify three conclusions of primary
importance to the present inquiry—namely, the average
number (1) of brothers of the subject, (2) of brothers of his father,
and (3) of brothers of his mother.
The number of Fellows to whom circulars were addressed was 467. The
number of those who gave useful replies was 207, a little more than
one-half of whom sent complete returns of the numbers of their brothers
and uncles; some few of these had, however, placed a query here or
there, or other sign of hesitation. As the number of completely
available returns scarcely exceeded 100, I have confined the following
tables to that number exactly, taking the best of the slightly doubtful
cases. It would have been possible, by utilizing partial returns and
making due allowances, to have obtained nearly half as many again, but
the gain in numbers did not seem likely to be compensated by the
somewhat inferior quality of the additional data.
Table V.—Number Of Kinsfolk In One Hundred Families Who
Survived Childhood.
| Generic Kinships. |
Specific Kinships. |
Number of Persons. |
Specific Kinships. |
Number of Persons. |
| Brothers and sisters |
bro |
206 |
si |
207 |
| Uncles and aunts |
fa bro |
228 |
fa si |
207 |
| me bro |
219 |
me si |
238 |
| |
Mean |
224 |
Mean |
223 |
| First cousins, male and female |
fa bro son |
265 |
fa bro da |
302 |
| fa si son |
184 |
fa si da |
208 |
| me bro son |
236 |
me bro da |
266 |
| me si son |
237 |
me si da |
246 |
The first three lines of Table V. show that there is no significant
difference between the average numbers of brothers and sisters, nor
between those of fathers' brothers and fathers' sisters, nor again
between those of mothers' brothers and mothers' sisters; nor is there
any large difference between those of male and female cousins, but it is
apparently a fact that the group of “brothers” is a trifle
smaller than that of uncles on either side. It seems, therefore, that
the generation of the Subjects contains a somewhat smaller number of
individuals than that of either of their Parents, being to that extent
significant of a lessening population so far as their class is
concerned.
It may seem at first sight
surprising that a brother and a sister should each have the same average
number of brothers. It puzzled me until I had thought the matter out,
and when the results were published in “Nature,” it also
seems to have puzzled an able mathematician, and gave rise to some
newspaper controversy, which need not be recapitulated. The essence of
the problem is that the sex of one child is supposed to give no clue of
any practical importance to that of any other child in the same family.
Therefore, if one child be selected out of a family of brothers and
sisters, the proportion of males to females in those that remain will
be, on the average, identical with that of males to females in
the population at large. It makes no difference whether the selected
child be a boy or a girl. Of course, if the conditions were “given
a family of three boys and three girls,” each boy would have only
two brothers and three sisters, and each girl would have three brothers
and two sisters, but that is not the problem.
Subject to this explanation, the general accuracy of the observed
figures which attest the truth of the above conclusion cannot be
gainsaid on theoretical grounds, nor can the conclusions be ignored to
which they lead. They enable us to make calculations concerning the
average number of kinsfolk in each and every specified degree in a
stationary population, or, if desired, in one that increases or
decreases at a specified rate. It will here be supposed for convenience
that the average number of males and females are equal, but any other proportion may be
substituted. The calculations only regard its fertile members; they show
that every person has, on the average, about one male fertile relative
in each and every form of specific kinship.
Kinsfolk may be divided into direct ancestry, collaterals of all
kinds, and direct descendants. As regards the direct ancestry, each
person has one and only one ancestor in each specific degree, one
fa, one fa fa, one me fa, and so on, although in
each generic degree it is otherwise; he has two grandfathers,
four great-grandfathers, etc. With collaterals and descendants the
average number of fertile relatives in each specified degree must
be stationary in a stationary population, and calculation shows that
number is approximately one. The calculation takes no cognizance
of infertile relatives, and so its results are unaffected by the detail
whether the population is kept stationary by an increased birth-rate of
children or other infertiles, accompanied by an increased death-rate
among them, or contrariwise.
The exact conclusions were (“Nature,” September 29, 1904,
p. 529), that if 2d be the number of children in a family, half
of them on the average being male, and if the population be
stationary, the number of fertile males in each specific ancestral
kinship would be one, in each collateral it would be d -
1/2, in each descending kinship d. If 2d = 5 (which is a
common size of family), one of these on the average would be a fertile
son, one a fertile daughter, and
the three that remained would leave no issue. They would either die as
boys or girls or they would remain unmarried, or, if married, would have
no children.
The reasonable and approximate assumption I now propose to make is
that the number of fertile individuals is not grossly different to that
of those who live long enough to have an opportunity of distinguishing
themselves. Consequently, the calculations that apply to fertile persons
will be held to apply very roughly to those who were in a position, so
far as age is concerned, to achieve noteworthiness, whether they did so
or not. Thus, if a group of 100 men had between them 20 noteworthy
paternal uncles, it will be assumed that the total number of their
paternal uncles who reached mature age was about 100, making the
intensity of success as 20 to 100, or as 1 to 5. This method of roughly
evading the serious difficulty arising from ignorance of the true values
in the individual cases is quite legitimate, and close enough for
present purposes.
The materials with which I am dealing do not admit of adequately
discussing noteworthiness in women, whose opportunities of achieving
distinction are far fewer than those of men, and whose energies are more severely taxed by domestic and
social duties. Women have sometimes been accredited in these returns by
a member of their own family circle, as being gifted with powers at
least equal to those of their distinguished brothers, but definite facts
in corroboration of such estimates were rarely supplied.
The same absence of solid evidence is more or less true of gifted
youths whose scholastic successes, unless of the highest order, are a
doubtful indication of future power and performance, these depending
much on the length of time during which their minds will continue to
develop. Only a few of the Subjects of the pedigrees in the following
pages have sons in the full maturity of their powers, so it seemed safer
to exclude all relatives who were of a lower generation than themselves
from the statistical inquiry. This will therefore be confined to the
successes of fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, great-uncles,
great-grandfathers, and male first cousins.
Only 207 persons out of the 467 who were addressed sent serviceable
replies, and these cannot be considered a fair sample of the whole.
Abstention might have been due to dislike of publicity, to inertia, or
to pure ignorance, none of which would have much affected the values as
a sample; but an unquestionably common motive does so
seriously—namely, when the person addressed had no noteworthy
kinsfolk to write about. On the latter ground the 260 who did not reply
would, as a whole, be poorer in noteworthy kinsmen than the 207 who
did. The true percentages for the
467 lie between two limits: the upper limit supposes the richness of the
207 to be shared by the 260; the lower limit supposes it to be
concentrated in the 207, the remaining 260 being utterly barren of it.
Consequently, the upper limit is found by multiplying the number of
observations by 100 and dividing by 207, the lower by multiplying by 100
and dividing by 467. These limits are unreasonably wide; I cannot guess
which is the more remote from the truth, but it cannot be far removed
from their mean values, and this may be accepted as roughly approximate.
The observations and conclusions from them are given in Table VII., p.
xl.
Persons who are technically “noteworthy” are by no means
of equal eminence, some being of the highest distinction, while others
barely deserve the title. It is therefore important to ascertain the
amount of error to which a statistical discussion is liable that treats
everyone who ranks as noteworthy at all on equal terms. The problem
resembles a familiar one that relates to methods for electing
Parliamentary representatives, such as have been proposed at various
times, whether it should be by the coarse method of one man one vote, or
through some elaborate arrangement
which seems highly preferable at first sight, but may be found on
further consideration to lead to much the same results.
In order to test the question, I marked each noteworthy person whose
name occurs in the list of sixty-six families at the end of this book
with 3, 2, or 1, according to what I considered his deserts, and soon
found that it was easy to mark them with fair consistency. It is not
necessary to give the rules which guided me, as they were very often
modified by considerations, each obvious enough in itself, but difficult
to summarize as a whole. Various provisional trials were made; I then
began afresh by rejecting a few names as undeserving any mark at all,
and, having marked the remainder individually, found that a total of 657
marks had been awarded to 332 persons; 117 of them had received 3 marks;
101, 2 marks; 104, 1 mark; so the three subdivisions were approximately
equal in number. The marks being too few to justify detailed treatment,
I have grouped the kinsmen into first, second, and third degrees, and
into first cousins, the latter requiring a group to themselves. The
first degree contains father and brothers; the second, grandfathers and
uncles; the third, great-grandparents and great-uncles. The results are
shown in Table VI. The marks assigned to each of the groups are given in
the first line (total 657), and the number of the noteworthy persons in
each group who received any mark at all is shown in the third line
(total 329). In order to compare the first and third lines of entries on equal terms, those in the first
were multiplied by 329 and divided by 657, and then entered in the
second line. The closeness of resemblance between the second and third
lines emphatically answers the question to be solved. There is no
significant difference between the results of the marked and the
unmarked observations. The reason probably is that the distribution of
triple, double, and single marks separately is much the same in each of
the groups, and therefore remains alike when the three sets of marks are
in use at the same time. It is thus made clear that trouble taken in
carefully marking names for different degrees of noteworthiness would be
wasted in such a rough inquiry as this.
Table VI.—Comparison of results with and without Marks in the
Sixty-five Families.
| |
First Degree. |
Second Degree. |
Third Degree. |
First Cousins. |
Total |
| Number of marks assigned |
225 |
208 |
102 |
122 |
657 |
| Number of marks reduced
proportionately |
113 |
104 |
51 |
61 |
329 |
| Number of individuals unmarked |
110 |
112 |
46 |
61 |
329 |
| Mean |
111 |
108 |
49 |
61 |
329 |
Table VII., in the next chapter, affords an interesting illustration
of the character of the ignorance concerning the noteworthiness of kinsmen in distant
degrees, showing that it is much lessened when they bear the same
surname as their father, or even as the maiden surname of their mother.
The argument is this: Table V. has already shown that me bros
are, speaking roughly, as frequently noteworthy as fa
bros—fifty-two of the one to forty-five of the other—so
noteworthiness is so far an equal characteristic of the maternal and
paternal lines, resembling in that respect nearly all the qualities that
are transmitted purely through heredity. There ought, therefore, to be
as many persons recorded as noteworthy in each of the four different
kinds of great-grandparents. The same should be the case in each of the
four kinds of great-uncles. But this is not so in either case. The
noteworthy great-grandfathers, fa fa fa, who bear the same name
as the subject are twice as numerous as the me fa fa who bear the
maiden surname of the mother, and more than five times as numerous as
either of the other two, the fa me fa and me me fa, whose
surnames differ from both, unless it be through some accident, whether
of a cross marriage or a chance similarity of names. It is just the same
with the great-uncles. Now, the figures for great-grandfathers and
great-uncles run so closely alike that they may fairly be grouped
together, in order to obtain a more impressive whole—namely, two
sorts of these kinsmen, bearing the same name as the Subject, contain
between them 23 noteworthies, or 11.50 each; two sorts having the
mother's maiden surname contain together 11 noteworthies, or 5.50 each; four sorts containing between
them 7 names, or an average of 1.75 each. These figures are
self-consistent, being each the sum of two practically equal
constituents, and they are sufficiently numerous to be significant. The
remarkable differences in their numbers, 11.50, 5.50, 1.75, when they
ought to have been equal, has therefore to be accounted for, and the
explanation given above seems both reasonable and sufficient.
The most casual glance at Table VII. leaves no doubt as to the rapid
diminution in the frequency of noteworthiness as the distance of kinship
to the F.R.S. increases, and it would presumably do the same to any
other class of noteworthy persons.
In drawing more exact conclusions, the returns must be deemed to
refer not to a group of 207 F.R.S., because they are not a fair sample
of the whole body of 467, and, for reasons already given, they are too
rich in noteworthiness for the one and too poor for the other. They
will, therefore, be referred to the number that is the mean of these two
limits—namely, to 337. I am aware of no obvious guidance to any
better hypothesis.
The value of the expectation that noteworthiness would be found in
any specified kinsman of an F.R.S.,
of whom nothing else is known, may be easily calculated from Table VII.
on the two hypotheses already mentioned and justified: (1) That the
figures should be taken to refer to 337, and not to 207; (2) that 1 per
cent. of the generality are noteworthy—that is to say, there are
3.37 noteworthies to every 337 persons of the generality.
Table VII.—Number of Noteworthy Kinsmen Recorded in 207
Returns.
| Kinship. |
Numbers
Recorded. |
Kinship. |
Numbers
Recorded. |
| fa |
81 |
— |
— |
| bro |
104 |
— |
— |
| fa fa |
40 |
fa fa fa |
11 |
| me fa |
42 |
fa me fa |
2 |
| fa bro |
45 |
me fa fa |
5 |
| me bro |
52 |
me me fa |
1 |
| fa bro son |
30 |
fa fa bro |
12 |
| me bro son |
19 |
fa me bro |
2 |
| fa si son |
28 |
me fa bro |
6 |
| me si son |
22 |
me me bro |
2 |
Thus, for the fathers of F.R.S., 81 are recorded as noteworthy,
against 3.37 of fathers of the generality—that is, they are 24.1
times as numerous. For the first cousins of F.R.S. there are 99
noteworthies, divided amongst four kinds of male first-cousins, or 24.75
on an average to each kind, against the 3.37 of the
generality—that is, they are 7.3 times as numerous.
On this principle the expectation of noteworthiness in a kinsman of an F.R.S. (or of other
noteworthy person) is greater in the following proportion than in one
who has no such kinsman: If he be a father, 24 times as great; if a
brother, 31 times; if a grandfather, 12 times; if an uncle, 14 times; if
a male first cousin, 7 times; if a great-great-grandfather on the
paternal line, 3½ times.
The reader may work out results for himself on other hypotheses as to
the percentage of noteworthiness among the generality. A considerably
larger proportion would be noteworthy in the higher classes of society,
but a far smaller one in the lower; it is to the bulk, say, to
three-quarters of them, that the 1 per cent. estimate applies, the
extreme variations from it tending to balance one another.
The figures on which the above calculations depend may each or all of
them be changed to any reasonable amount, without shaking the truth of
the great fact upon which Eugenics is based, that able fathers produce
able children in a much larger proportion than the generality.
The
parents of the 207 Fellows of the Royal Society occupy a wide variety of
social positions. A list is given in the Appendix of the more or less
noteworthy parents of those Fellows whose names occur in the list of
sixty-six families. The parents are classified according to their
pursuits. Many parents of the other Fellows in the 207 families were not
noteworthy in the technical sense of the word, but were reported to be
able. It was also often said in the replies that the general level of
ability among the members of the family of the F.R.S. was high. Other
parents were in no way remarkable, so the future Fellow was simply a
“sport,” to use the language of horticulturists and
breeders, in respect to his taste and ability. It is to be remembered
that “sports” are transmissible by heredity, and have been,
through careful selection, the origin of most of the valuable varieties
of domesticated plants and animals. Sports have been conspicuous in the
human race, especially in some individuals of the highest eminence in
music, painting, and in art generally, but this is not the place to
enter further into so large a subject. It has been treated at length by
many writers, especially by Bateson and De Vries, also by myself in the
third chapter of “Natural Inheritance” and in the preface to
the second edition of “Hereditary Genius.”