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Francis Galton Quotes
1822–1911 England
Sir Francis Galton F.R.S. (16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English Victorian anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician. He was a half-cousin of Charles Darwin's and famously coined the study of desirable human characteristics: "eugenics" (from the Greek eugenes, meaning “good in birth” or "stock").
England Anthropologists Biologists Explorers Geographers Also known as: Francis galton, Galton, Galton's
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All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.
Anthropology teaches us to sympathise with other races, and to regard them as kinsmen rather than aliens.
Opening Remarks by the President (1886)
What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.
One of the effects of civilisation is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.
One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.
I do not plead guilty to a shallow view of human nature, when I propose to apply, as it were, a foot-rule to its heights and depths.
The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.
There is a steady check in an old civilisation upon the fertility of the abler classes: the improvident and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high civilisation.
Hereditary Genius (1869)
A collection of living magnates in various branches of intellectual achievement is always a feast to my eyes; being, as they are, such massive, vigorous, capable-looking animals.
Hereditary Genius (1869)
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 over looked than a bird’s nest in the playground of a school.
The following question had been much in my mind. How is it possible for a population to remain alike in its features, as a whole, during many successive generations, if the average produce of each couple resemble their parents? Their children are not alike but vary...
The practical application of the doctrine of deferred marriage would therefore lead indirectly to most mischievous results, that were overlooked owing to the neglect of considerations bearing on race. (1907, p. 207)
A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)
“There is strong reason for believing that national rise and decline is closely connected with this influence [“of the rates with which the various classes of society (classified according to civic usefulness) have contributed to the population”]
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