Since the publication of my work on _Hereditary Genius_ in 1

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this

file which includes the original illustrations.

See 11562-h.htm or 11562-h.zip:

(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/5/6/11562/11562-h/11562-h.htm)

or

(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/5/6/11562/11562-h.zip)

INQUIRIES INTO HUMAN FACULTY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

by

FRANCIS GALTON

F-R-S

First issue of this Edition 1907

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

After some years had passed subsequent to the publication of this

book in 1883, its publishers, Messrs. Macmillan, informed me that

the demand for it just, but only just warranted a revised issue. I

shrank from the great trouble of bringing it up to date because it,

or rather many of my memoirs out of which it was built up, had

become starting-points for elaborate investigations both in England

and in America, to which it would be difficult and very laborious to

do justice in a brief compass. So the question of a Second Edition

was then entirely dropped. Since that time the book has by no means

ceased to live, for it continues to be quoted from and sought for,

but is obtainable only with difficulty, and at much more than its

original cost, at sales of second-hand books. Moreover, it became

the starting point of that recent movement in favour of National

Eugenics (see note p. 24 in first edition) which is recognised by

the University of London, and has its home in University College.

Having received a proposal to republish the book in its present

convenient and inexpensive form, I gladly accepted it, having first

sought and received an obliging assurance from Messrs. Macmillan

that they would waive all their claims to the contrary in my favour.

The following small changes are made in this edition. The

illustrations are for the most part reduced in size to suit the

smaller form of the volume, the lettering of the composites is

rearranged, and the coloured illustration is reproduced as closely

as circumstances permit. Two chapters are omitted, on "Theocratic

Intervention" and on the "Objective Efficacy of Prayer." The earlier

part of the latter was too much abbreviated from the original memoir

in the _Fortnightly Review_, 1872, and gives, as I now perceive, a

somewhat inexact impression of its object, which was to investigate

certain views then thought orthodox, but which are growing obsolete.

I could not reinsert these omissions now with advantage, unless

considerable additions were made to the references, thus giving more

appearance of personal controversy to the memoirs than is desirable.

After all, the omission of these two chapters, in which I find

nothing to recant, improves, as I am told, the general balance of the

book. FRANCIS GALTON.

LIST OF WORKS.

The Teletype: a printing Electric Telegraph, 1850;

The Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, 1853,

in "Minerva Library of Famous Books," 1889;

Notes on Modern Geography (Cambridge Essays, 1855, etc.);

Arts of Campaigning: an Inaugural Lecture delivered at Aldershot, 1855;

The Art of Travel, or Shifts and Contrivances available in Wild Countries,

1855, 1856, 1860 (1859);

fourth edition, recast and enlarged, 1867, 1872;

Vacation Tourists and Notes on Travel, 1861, 1862, 1864;

Meteorographica, or Methods of Mapping the Weather, 1863;

Hereditary Genius: an Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences, 1869;

English Men of Science: their Nature and Nurture, 1874;

Address to the Anthropological Departments of the British Association

(Plymouth, 1877);

Generic Images: with Autotype Illustrations

(from the Proceedings of the Royal Institution), 1879;

Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, 1883;

Record of Family Faculties, 1884; Natural Inheritance, 1889;

Finger-Prints, 1892;

Decipherments of Blurred Finger-Prints

(supplementary chapters to former work), 1893;

Finger-Print Directories, 1895;

Introduction to Life of W. Cotton Oswell, 1900;

Index to Achievements of Near Kinsfolk

of some of the Fellows of the Royal Society, 1904;

Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims

(Sociological Society Papers, vols. I. and II.), 1905;

Noteworthy Families (Modern Science);

And many papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society,

Journals of the Geographical Society and the Anthropological Institute,

the Reports of the British Association, the Philosophical Magazine,

and Nature.

Galton also edited:

Hints to Travellers, 1878;

Life-History Album (British Medical Association), 1884,

second edition, 1902;

Biometrika (edited in consultation with F.G. and W.F.R. Weldon), 1901,

etc.;

and under his direction was designed a

Descriptive List of Anthropometric Apparatus, etc., 1887.

LIST OF MEMOIRS.

The following Memoirs by the author have been freely made use of in

the following pages:--

1863: The First Steps towards the Domestication of Animals

(_Journal of Ethnological Society_);

1871: Gregariousness in Cattle and in Men

(_Macmillan's Magazine_);

1872: Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer

(_Fortnightly Review_);

1873: Relative Supplies from Town and Country Families

to the Population of Future Generations

(_Journal of Statistical Society_);

Hereditary Improvement (_Fraser's Magazine_);

Africa for the Chinese (_Times_, June 6);

1875: Statistics by Intercomparison (_Philosophical Magazine_);

Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Power of Nature and Nurture

(_Fraser's Magazine_, and

_Journal of Anthropological Institute_);

1876: Whistles for Determining the Upper Limits of Audible Sound

(_S. Kensington Conferences_, in connection with the

Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments, p. 61);

1877: Presidential Address to the Anthropological Department

of the British Association at Plymouth

(_Report of British Association_);

1878: Composite Portraits (_Nature_, May 23, and

_Journal of Anthropological Institute_);

1879: Psychometric Experiments (_Nineteenth Century_,

and _Brain_, part vi.);

Generic Images (_Nineteenth Century; Proceedings of

Royal Institution_, with plates);

Geometric Mean in Vital and Social Statistics (_Proceedings

of Royal Society_);

1880: Visualised Numerals (_Nature_, Jan. 15 and March 25, and

_Journal of Anthropological Institute_);

Mental Imagery (_Fortnightly Review; Mind_);

1881: Visions of Sane Persons (_Fortnightly Review_, and

_Proceedings of Royal Institution_);

Composite Portraiture (_Journal of Photographical Society

of Great Britain_, June 24);

1882: Physiognomy of Phthisis (_Guy's Hospital Reports_, vol. xxv.);

Photographic Chronicles from Childhood to Age (_Fortnightly Review_);

The Anthropometric Laboratory (_Fortnightly Review_);

1883: Some Apparatus for Testing the Delicacy of the Muscular

and other Senses (_Journal of Anthropological Institute_,

1883, etc.).

_Memoirs in Eugenics_.

1901: Huxley Lecture, Anthropological Institute (_Nature,_ Nov. 1901);

Smithsonian Report for 1901 (_Washington_, p. 523);

1904: Eugenics, its Definition, Scope and Aims

(Sociological Paper, vol. i., _Sociological Institute_);

1905: Restrictions in Marriage, Studies in National Eugenics,

Eugenics as a Factor in Religion (Sociological Papers, vol. ii.);

1907: Herbert Spencer Lecture, University of Oxford,

on Probability the Foundation of Eugenics.

The following books by the author have been referred or alluded to

in the following pages:--

1853: Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South-Western Africa

(_Murray)_;

1854: Art of Travel (several subsequent editions,

the last in 1872, _Murray_);

1869: Hereditary Genius, its Laws and Consequences

(_Macmillan_);

1874: English Men of Science, their Nature and their Nurture

(_Macmillan_).

CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

INTRODUCTION

Origin and object of book.

VARIETY OF HUMAN NATURE

Many varieties may each be good of its kind; advantage

of variety; some peculiarities are, however, harmful.

FEATURES

Large number of elements in the human expression; of

touches in a portrait; difficulty of measuring the separate

features; or of selecting typical individuals; the typical

English face; its change at different historical periods;

colour of hair of modern English; caricatures.

COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE

(See Appendix for three Memoirs describing successive

stages of the method).--Object and principle of the process;

description of the plate--composites of medals; of family

portraits; of the two sexes and of various ages; of Royal

Engineers; the latter gives a clue to one direction in which

the English race might be improved; of criminals; of the

consumptive; ethnological application of the process.

BODILY QUALITIES

Anthropometric Committee; statistical anomalies in stature

as dependent on age; town and rural population; athletic

feats now and formerly; increase of stature of middle classes;

large number of weakly persons; some appearances of weakness

may be fallacious; a barrel and a wheel; definition

of word "eugenic."

ENERGY

It is the attribute of high races; useful stimuli to activity;

fleas, etc.; the preservation of the weakly as exercises for

pity; that of foxes for sport.

SENSITIVITY

Sensation and pain; range and grades of sensation;

idiots; men and women; the blind; reading by touch;

sailors; paucity of words to express gradation.

SEQUENCE OF TEST WEIGHTS

(See also Appendix, p. 248).--Geometric series of

weights; method of using them; the same principle is

applicable to other senses; the tests only measure the state

of faculties at time of trial; cautions in constructing the

test weights; multiplicity of the usual perceptions.

WHISTLES FOR AUDIBILITY OF SHRILL NOTES

(See also Appendix, p. 252).--Construction of them; loss

of power of hearing high notes as age advances; trials upon

animals; sensitivity of cats to high notes; of small dogs and

ponies.

ANTHROPOMETRIC REGISTERS

Want of anthropometric laboratories; of family records;

opportunities in schools; Admiralty records of life of each

seaman; family registers (see also 220); autotypes; medical

value of ancestral life-histories (see also 220); of their

importance to human eugenics.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF PECULIARITIES

Colour blindness usually unsuspected; unconsciousness of

high intellectual gifts; of peculiarities of mental imagery;

heredity of colour blindness in Quakers; Young and Dalton.

STATISTICAL METHODS

Objects of statistical science; constancy and continuity

of statistical results; groups and sub-groups; augival or

ogival curves; wide application of the ogival; method;

example; first method of comparing two ogival groups;

centesimal grades; example; second method of comparing

ogival groups; statistical records easily made with a

pricker.

CHARACTER

Caprice and coyness of females; its cause; observations

of character at schools; varieties of likings and antipathies;

horror of snakes is by no means universal; the horror of

blood among cattle is variable.

CRIMINALS AND THE INSANE

Peculiarities of criminal character; some of them are

normal and not morbid; their inheritance as in the Jukes

family; epileptics and their nervous instability; insanity;

religious rapture; strange views of the insane on individuality;

their moody segregation; the religious discipline of

celibacy, fasting and solitude (see also 125); large field of

study among the insane and idiotic.

GREGARIOUS AND SLAVISH INSTINCTS

Most men shrink from responsibility; study of gregarious

animals: especially of the cattle of the Damaras; fore-oxen

to waggon teams; conditions of safety of herds; cow and

young calf when approached by lions; the most effective

size of herd; corresponding production of leaders; similarly

as regards barbarian tribes and their leaders; power of

tyranny vested in chiefs; political and religious persecutions;

hence human servility; but society may flourish without

servility; its corporate actions would then have statistical

constancy; nations who are guided by successive orators,

etc., must be inconstant; the romantic side of servility; free

political life.

INTELLECTUAL DIFFERENCES

Reference to _Hereditary Genius_.

MENTAL IMAGERY

Purport of inquiry; circular of questions (see Appendix

for this); the first answers were from scientific men,

and were negative; those from persons in general society

were quite the reverse; sources of my materials; they are

mutually corroborative. Analysis of returns from 100

persons mostly of some eminence; extracts from replies of

those in whom the visualising faculty is highest; those in

whom it is mediocre; lowest; conformity between these

and other sets of haphazard returns; octile, median, etc.,

values; visualisation of colour; some liability to exaggeration;

blindfold chess-players; remarkable instances of visualisation;

the faculty is not necessarily connected with keen sight or

tendency to dream; comprehensive imagery; the faculty in different

sexes and ages; is strongly hereditary; seems notable among

the French; Bushmen; Eskimo; prehistoric men; admits of being

educated; imagery usually fails in flexibility; special and generic

images (see also Appendix); use of the faculty.

NUMBER-FORMS

General account of the peculiarity; mutually corroborative

statements; personal evidence given at the Anthropological

Institute; specimens of a few descriptions and

illustrative woodcuts; great variety in the Forms; their

early origin; directions in which they run; bold conceptions

of children concerning height and depth; historical

dates, months, etc.; alphabet; derivation of the Forms

from the spoken names of numerals; fixity of the Form

compared to that of the handwriting; of animals working

in constant patterns; of track of eye when searching for

lost objects; occasional origin from figures on clock; from

various other sources; the non-decimal nomenclature of

numerals; perplexity caused by it. Description of figures

in Plate I.; Plate II.; Plate III.; Plate IV. Colours

assigned to numerals (see 105); personal characters; sex;

frequency with which the various numerals are used in the

Talmud.

COLOUR ASSOCIATIONS

(Description of Plate IV. continued) Associations with

numerals; with words and letters; illustrations by Dr. J.

Key; the scheme of one seer unintelligible to other seers;

mental music, etc.

VISIONARIES

Sane persons often see visions; the simpler kinds of

visions; unconsciousness of seers, at first, of their

peculiarity; subsequent dislike to speak about it; imagery

connected with words; that of Mrs. Haweis; automatic changes

in dark field of eye; my own experiences; those of Rev. G. Henslow;

visions frequently unlike vivid visualisations; phantasmagoria;

hallucinations; simile of a seal in a pond; dreams and partial

sensitiveness of brain; hallucinations and illusions, their causes;

"faces in the fire," etc.; sub-conscious picture-drawing; visions

based on patched recollections; on blended recollections; hereditary

seership; visions caused by fasting, etc.; by spiritual discipline

(see also 47); star of Napoleon I.; hallucinations of

great men; seers commoner at some periods than at others;

reasons why.

NURTURE AND NATURE

Their effects are difficult to separate; the same character

has many phases; Renaissance; changes owing merely to

love of change; feminine fashions; periodical sequences of

changed character in birds; the interaction of nurture and

nature.

ASSOCIATIONS

Derived from experience; especially from childish recollections

(see 141); abstract ideas; cumulative ideas, like composite

portraits (see also Appendix, "Generic Images," p. 229);

their resemblance even in details.

PSYCHOMETRIC EXPERIMENTS

Difficulty of watching the mind in operation; how it may

be overcome; irksomeness of the process; tentative experiments;

method used subsequently; the number of recurrent

associations; memory; ages at which associations are

formed; similarity of the associations in persons of the same

country and class of society; different descriptions of

associations,

classified; their relative frequency; abstract ideas are

slowly formed; multifariousness of sub-conscious operations.

ANTECHAMBER OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Act of thinking analysed; automatic mental work; fluency

of words and of imagery; processes of literary composition;

fluency of spiritual ideas; visionary races of men; morbid

ideas of inspiration (see Enthusiasm).

EARLY SENTIMENTS

Accidents of education, religion, country, etc.; deaf-mutes

and religious ritual; religion in its essentials; all religious

teachers preach faith and instil prejudices; origin of the

faculty of conscience; evolution is always behindhand;

good men of various faiths; the fear of death; terror is

easily taught; gregarious animals (see also 47); suspiciousness

in the children of criminals; Dante and contemporary

artists on the terrors of hell; aversion is easily taught,

Eastern ideas of clean and unclean acts; the foregoing

influences affect entire classes.

HISTORY OF TWINS

It supplies means of comparing the effects of nurture and

nature; physiological signification of twinship; replies to

a circular of inquiries; eighty cases of close resemblance

between twins; the points in which their resemblance was

closest; extracts from the replies; interchangeableness of

likeness; cases of similar forms of insanity in both twins;

their tastes and dispositions; causes of growing dissimilarity

mainly referred to illness; partly to gradual development of

latent elements of dissimilarity; effect of childish illnesses

in permanently checking growth of head; parallel lives and

deaths among twins; necessitarianism; twenty cases of great

dissimilarity; extracts from the replies; evidence of slight

exaggeration; education is almost powerless to diminish

natural difference of character; simile of sticks floating

down a brook; depth of impressions made in childhood;

they are partly due to the ease with which parents and

children understand one another; cuckoos forget the teachings

of their foster-mothers.

DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS

Alternative hypotheses of the prehistoric process of

domestication; savages rear captive animals; instances in

North America; South America; North Africa; Equatorial

Africa; South Africa; Australia; New Guinea Group;

Polynesia; ancient Syria. Sacred animals; menageries

and shows in amphitheatres; instances in ancient Egypt;

Assyria; Rome; Mexico; Peru; Syria and Greece.

Domestication is only possible when the species has certain

natural faculties, viz.--great hardiness; fondness for man;

desire of comfort; usefulness to man; fertility; being easy

to tend. Habitual selection of the tamest to breed from.

Exceptions; summary.

THE OBSERVED ORDER OF EVENTS

Steady improvement in the birthright of successive generations;

our ignorance of the origin and purport of all existence;

of the outcome of life on this earth; of the conditions

of consciousness; slow progress of evolution and its

system of ruthless routine; man is the heir of long bygone

ages; has great power in expediting the course of evolution;

he might render its progress less slow and painful;

does not yet understand that it may be his part to do so.

SELECTION AND RACE

Difference between the best specimens of a poor race and

the mediocre ones of a high race; typical centres to which

races tend to revert; delicacy of highly-bred animals; their

diminished fertility; the misery of rigorous selection; it is

preferable to replace poor races by better ones; strains of

emigrant blood; of exiles.

INFLUENCE OF MAN UPON RACE

Conquest, migrations, etc.; sentiment against extinguishing

races; is partly unreasonable; the so-called "aborigines";

on the variety and number of different races

inhabiting the same country; as in Spain; history of the

Moors; Gypsies; the races in Damara Land; their recent

changes; races in Siberia; Africa; America; West Indies;

Australia and New Zealand; wide diffusion of Arabs and

Chinese; power of man to shape future humanity.

POPULATION

Over-population; Malthus--the danger of applying his

prudential check; his originality; his phrase of misery check

is in many cases too severe; decaying races and the cause

of decay.

EARLY AND LATE MARRIAGES

Estimate of their relative effects on a population in a few

generations; example.

MARKS FOR FAMILY MERIT

On the demand for definite proposals how to improve

race; the demand is not quite fair, and the reasons why;

nevertheless attempt is made to suggest the outline of one;

on the signs of superior race; importance of giving weight

to them when making selections from candidates who are

personally equal; on families that have thriven; that are

healthy and long-lived; present rarity of our knowledge

concerning family antecedents; Mr. F.M. Hollond on the

superior morality of members of large families; Sir William

Gull on their superior vigour; claim for importance of

further inquiries into the family antecedents of those who

succeed in after life; probable large effect of any system

by which marks might be conferred on the ground of family

merit.

ENDOWMENTS

These have frequently been made in order to furnish

marriage portions; they, as well as the adoption of gifted

children of gifted families, may hereafter become common;

college statutes enjoining celibacy on Fellows; reverse effect

to that for which prizes at races were established; the recent

reform of those statutes and numerous marriages in consequence;

the English race has yet to be explored for its

natural wealth; those who are naturally gifted would be

disinclined to squander their patrimony; social consideration;

honest pride in goodness of race.

CONCLUSION

Epitome of data; the apparent place of man in nature;

he should look upon himself as a freeman; he should assist

in furthering evolution; his present ability to do so; the

certainty that his ability of doing so will increase; importance

of life-histories; brief summary.

APPENDIX

A. COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE

I. Extract of Memoir read in 1878 before the Anthropological

Institute;

II. Generic Images, extract from Lecture in 1879 to Royal

Institution;

III. Memoir read in 1881 before the Photographic Society.

B. THE RELATIVE SUPPLIES FROM TOWN AND COUNTRY FAMILIES

TO THE POPULATION OF FUTURE GENERATIONS

Memoir read in 1873 before the Statistical Society.

C. AN APPARATUS FOR TESTING THE DELICACY WITH WHICH WEIGHTS

CAN BE DISCRIMINATED BY HANDLING THEM

Memoir read in 1882 before the Anthropological Institute.

D. WHISTLES FOR TESTING THE UPPER LIMITS OF AUDIBLE SOUND

IN DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS

Read in 1876 at the South Kensington Conferences in

connection with the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments.

E. QUESTIONS ON VISUALISING AND OTHER ALLIED FACULTIES

Circulated in 1880.

PLATES

SPECIMENS OF COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE

EXAMPLES OF NUMBER-FORMS

EXAMPLES OF NUMBER-FORMS

EXAMPLES OF NUMBER FORMS, HEREDITARY

COLOUR ASSOCIATIONS AND MENTAL IMAGERY

INQUIRIES INTO HUMAN FACULTY

INTRODUCTION.

Since the publication of my work on _Hereditary Genius_ in 1869, I

have written numerous memoirs, of which a list is given in an

earlier page, and which are scattered in various publications. They

may have appeared desultory when read in the order in which they

appeared, but as they had an underlying connection it seems worth

while to bring their substance together in logical sequence into a

single volume. I have revised, condensed, largely re-written,

transposed old matter, and interpolated much that is new; but traces

of the fragmentary origin of the work still remain, and I do not

regret them. They serve to show that the book is intended to be

suggestive, and renounces all claim to be encyclopedic. I have indeed,

with that object, avoided going into details in not a few cases

where I should otherwise have written with fulness, especially in

the Anthropometric part. My general object has been to take note of

the varied hereditary faculties of different men, and of the great

differences in different families and races, to learn how far

history may have shown the practicability of supplanting inefficient

human stock by better strains, and to consider whether it might not

be our duty to do so by such efforts as may be reasonable, thus

exerting ourselves to further the ends of evolution more rapidly and

with less distress than if events were left to their own course. The

subject is, however, so entangled with collateral considerations

that a straightforward step-by-step inquiry did not seem to be the

most suitable course. I thought it safer to proceed like the

surveyor of a new country, and endeavour to fix in the first

instance as truly as I could the position of several cardinal points.

The general outline of the results to which I finally arrived became

more coherent and clear as this process went on; they are brieflv

summarised in the concluding chapter.

VARIETY OF HUMAN NATURE.

We must free our minds of a great deal of prejudice before we can

rightly judge of the direction in which different races need to be

improved. We must be on our guard against taking our own instincts

of what is best and most seemly, as a criterion for the rest of

mankind. The instincts and faculties of different men and races

differ in a variety of ways almost as profoundly as those of animals

in different cages of the Zoological Gardens; and however diverse and

antagonistic they are, each may be good of its kind. It is obviously

so in brutes; the monkey may have a horror at the sight of a snake,

and a repugnance to its ways, but a snake is just as perfect an

animal as a monkey. The living world does not consist of a

repetition of similar elements, but of an endless variety of them,

that have grown, body and soul, through selective influences into

close adaptation to their contemporaries, and to the physical

circumstances of the localities they inhabit. The moral and

intellectual wealth of a nation largely consists in the multifarious

variety of the gifts of the men who compose it, and it would be the

very reverse of improvement to make all its members assimilate to a

common type. However, in every race of domesticated animals, and

especially in the rapidly-changing race of man, there are elements,

some ancestral and others the result of degeneration, that are of

little or no value, or are positively harmful. We may, of course, be

mistaken about some few of these, and shall find in our fuller

knowledge that they subserve the public good in some indirect manner;

but, notwithstanding this possibility, we are justified in roundly

asserting that the natural characteristics of every human race admit

of large improvement in many directions easy to specify.

I do not, however, offer a list of these, but shall confine myself

to directing attention to a very few hereditary characteristics of a

marked kind, some of which are most desirable and others greatly the

reverse; I shall also describe new methods of appraising and

defining them. Later on in the book I shall endeavour to define the

place and duty of man in the furtherance of the great scheme of

evolution, and I shall show that he has already not only adapted

circumstance to race, but also, in some degree and often

unconsciously, race to circumstance; and that his unused powers in

the latter direction are more considerable than might have been

thought.

It is with the innate moral and intellectual faculties that the book

is chiefly concerned, but they are so closely bound up with the

physical ones that these must be considered as well. It is, moreover,

convenient to take them the first, so I will begin with the features.

FEATURES.

The differences in human features must be reckoned great, inasmuch

as they enable us to distinguish a single known face among those of

thousands of strangers, though they are mostly too minute for

measurement. At the same time, they are exceedingly numerous. The

general expression of a face is the sum of a multitude of small

details, which are viewed in such rapid succession that we seem to

perceive them all at a single glance. If any one of them disagrees

with the recollected traits of a known face, the eye is quick at

observing it, and it dwells upon the difference. One small

discordance overweighs a multitude of similarities and suggests a

general unlikeness; just as a single syllable in a sentence

pronounced with a foreign accent makes one cease to look upon the

speaker as a countryman. If the first rough sketch of a portrait be

correct so far as it goes, it may be pronounced an excellent likeness;

but a rough sketch does not go far; it contains but few traits for

comparison with the original. It is a suggestion, not a likeness; it

must be coloured and shaded with many touches before it can really

resemble the face, and whilst this is being done the maintenance of

the likeness is imperilled at every step. I lately watched an able

artist painting a portrait, and endeavoured to estimate the number

of strokes with his brush, every one of which was thoughtfully and

firmly given. During fifteen sittings of three working hours

each--that is to say, during forty-five hours, or two thousand four

hundred minutes--he worked at the average rate of ten strokes of the

brush per minute. There were, therefore, twenty-four thousand

separate traits in the completed portrait, and in his opinion some,

I do not say equal, but comparably large number of units of

resemblance with the original.

The physiognomical difference between different men being so

numerous and small, it is impossible to measure and compare them

each to each, and to discover by ordinary statistical methods the

true physiognomy of a race. The usual way is to select individuals

who are judged to be representatives of the prevalent type, and to

photograph them; but this method is not trustworthy, because the

judgment itself is fallacious. It is swayed by exceptional and

grotesque features more than by ordinary ones, and the portraits

supposed to be typical are likely to be caricatures. One fine Sunday

afternoon I sat with a friend by the walk in Kensington Gardens that

leads to the bridge, and which on such occasions is thronged by

promenaders. It was agreed between us that whichever first caught

sight of a typical John Bull should call the attention of the other.

We sat and watched keenly for many minutes, but neither of us found

occasion to utter a word.

The prevalent type of English face has greatly changed at different

periods, for after making large allowance for the fashion in

portrait painting of the day, there remains a great difference

between the proportion in which certain casts of features are to be

met with at different dates. I have spent some time in studying the

photographs of the various portraits of English worthies that have

been exhibited at successive loan collections, or which are now in

the National Portrait Gallery, and have traced what appear to be

indisputable signs of one predominant type of face supplanting

another. For instance, the features of the men painted by and about

the time of Holbein have usually high cheekbones, long upper lips,

thin eyebrows, and lank dark hair. It would be impossible, I think,

for the majority of modern Englishmen so to dress themselves and

clip and arrange their hair, as to look like the majority of these

portraits.

Englishmen are now a fair and reddish race, as may be seen from the

Diagram, taken from the Report of the Anthropometric Committee to

the British Association in 1880 and which gives the proportion in

which the various colours of hair are found among our professional

classes.

[Illustration: ]

I take the professional classes because they correspond with the

class of English worthies better than any of the others from which

returns have been collected. The Diagram, however, gives a fair

representation of other classes of the community. For instance, I

have analysed the official records of the very carefully-selected

crews of H.M. S. _Alert_ and _Discovery_ in the Arctic Expedition of

1875-6, and find the proportion of various shades of hair to be the

same among them as is shown in the Diagram. Seven-tenths of the

crews had complexions described as light, fair, fresh, ruddy or

freckled, and the same proportion had blue or gray eyes. They would

have contrasted strongly with Cromwell's regiment of Ironsides, who

were recruited from the dark-haired men of the fen districts, and

who are said to have left the impression on contemporary observers

as being men of a peculiar breed. They would also probably have

contrasted with any body of thoroughgoing Puritan soldiers taken at

haphazard; for there is a prevalence of dark hair among men of

atrabilious and sour temperament.

If we may believe caricaturists, the fleshiness and obesity of many

English men and women in the earlier years of this century must have

been prodigious. It testifies to the grosser conditions of life in

those days, and makes it improbable that the types best adapted to

prevail then would be the best adapted to prevail now.

COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE.

As a means of getting over the difficulty of procuring really

representative faces, I contrived the method of composite portraiture,

which has been explained of late on many occasions, and of which a

full account will be found in Appendix A. The principle on which the

composites are made will best be understood by a description of my

earlier and now discarded method; it was this--(1) I collected

photographic portraits of different persons, all of whom had been

photographed in the same aspect (say full face), and under the same

conditions of light and shade (say with the light coming from the

right side). (2) I reduced their portraits photographically to the

same size, being guided as to scale by the distance between any two

convenient points of reference in the features; for example, by the

vertical distance between two parallel lines, one of which passed

through the middle of the pupils of the eyes and the other between

the lips. (3) I superimposed the portraits like the successive

leaves of a book, so that the features of each portrait lay as

exactly as the case admitted, in front of those of the one behind it,

eye in front of eye and mouth in front of mouth. This I did by

holding them successively to the light and adjusting them, then by

fastening each to the preceding one with a strip of gummed paper

along one of the edges. Thus I obtained a book, each page of which

contained a separate portrait, and all the portraits lay exactly in

front of one another. (4) I fastened the book against the wall in

such a way that I could turn over the pages in succession, leaving

in turn each portrait flat and fully exposed. (5) I focused my

camera on the book fixed it firmly, and put a sensitive plate inside

it. (6) I began photographing, taking one page after the other in

succession without moving the camera, but putting on the cap whilst I

was turning over the pages, so that an image of each of the

portraits in succession was thrown on the same part of the

sensitised plate.

Only a fraction of the exposure required to make a good picture was

allowed to each portrait. Suppose that period was twenty seconds,

and that there were ten portraits, then an exposure of two seconds

would be allowed for each portrait, making twenty seconds in all.

This is the principle of the process, the details of that which I

now use are different and complex. They are fully explained in the

Appendix for the use of those who may care to know about them.

The effect of composite portraiture is to bring into evidence all

the traits in which there is agreement, and to leave but a ghost of

a trace of individual peculiarities. There are so many traits in

common in all faces that the composite picture when made from many

components is far from being a blur; it has altogether the look of

an ideal composition.

It may be worth mentioning that when I take any small bundle of

portraits, selected at hazard, I have generally found it easy to

sort them into about five groups, four of which have enough

resemblance among themselves to make as many fairly clear composites,

while the fifth consists of faces that are too incongruous to be

grouped in a single class. In dealing with portraits of brothers and

sisters, I can generally throw most of them into a single group, with

success.

In the small collection of composites given in the Plate facing p. 8,

I have purposely selected many of those that I have previously

published, and whose originals, on a larger scale, I have at various

times exhibited, together with their components, in order to put the

genuineness of the results beyond doubt. Those who see them for the

first time can hardly believe but that one dominant face has

overpowered the rest, and that they are composites only in name. When,

however, the details are examined, this objection disappears. It is

true that with careless photography one face may be allowed to

dominate, but with the care that ought to be taken, and with the

precautions described in the Appendix, that does not occur. I have

often been amused when showing composites and their components to

friends, to hear a strong expression of opinion that the

predominance of one face was evident, and then on asking which face

it was, to discover that they disagreed. I have even known a

composite in which one portrait seemed unduly to prevail, to be

remade without the component in question, and the result to be much

the same as before, showing that the reason of the resemblance was

that the rejected portrait had a close approximation to the ideal

average picture of the rest.

These small composites give a better notion of the utmost capacity

of the process than the larger ones, from which they are reduced.

In the latter, the ghosts of individual peculiarities are more

visible, and usually the equal traces left by every member of a

moderately-sized group can be made out by careful inspection; but it

is hardly possible to do this in the pictures in the Plate, except

in a good light and in a very few of the cases. On the other hand,

the larger pictures do not contain more detail of value than the

smaller ones.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPOSITES.

The medallion of Alexander the Great was made by combining the

images of six different medals, with a view of obtaining the type of

features that the makers of those medals concurred in desiring to

ascribe to him. The originals were kindly selected for me by Mr. R.

Stuart Poole from the collection in the British Museum. This

composite was one of the first I ever made, and is printed together

with its six components in the _Journal of the Royal Institution_,

in illustration of a lecture I gave there in April 1879. It seems to

me that it is possible on this principle to obtain a truer likeness

of a man than in any other way. Every artist makes mistakes; but by

combining the conscientious works of many artists, their separate

mistakes disappear, and what is common to all of their works remains.

So as regards different photographs of the same person, those

accidental momentary expressions are got rid of, which an ordinary

photograph made by a brief exposure cannot help recording. On the

other hand, any happy sudden trait of expression is lost. The

composite gives the features in repose.

The next pair of composites (full face and profile) on the Plate has

not been published before. The interest of the pair lies chiefly in

their having been made from only two components, and they show how

curiously even two faces that have a moderate family likeness will

blend into a single one. That neither of these predominated in the

present case will be learned from the following letter by the father

of the ladies, who is himself a photographer:--

"I am exceedingly obliged for the very curious and interesting

composite portraits of my two children. Knowing the faces so well,

it caused me quite a surprise when I opened your letter. I put one

of the full faces on the table for the mother to pick up casually.

She said, 'When did you do this portrait of A? how _like_ she is to B!

Or _is_ it B? I never thought they were so like before.' It has

puzzled several people to say whether the profile was intended for A

or B. Then I tried one of them on a friend who has not seen the

girls for years. He said, 'Well, it is one of the family for certain,

but I don't know which.'"

[Illustration: ]

I have made several other family portraits, which to my eye seem

great successes, but must candidly own that the persons whose

portraits are blended together seldom seem to care much for the

result, except as a curiosity. We are all inclined to assert our

individuality, and to stand on our own basis, and to object to being

mixed up indiscriminately with others. The same feeling finds

expression when the resident in a suburban street insists on calling

his house a villa with some fantastic name, and refuses, so long as

he can, to call it simply Number so and so in the street.

The last picture in the upper row shows the easy way in which young

and old, male and female, combine to form an effective picture. The

components consist in this case of the father and mother, two sons,

and two daughters. I exhibited the original of this, together with

the portraits from which it was taken, at the Loan Photographic

Exhibition at the Society of Arts in February 1882. I also sent

copies of the original of this same composite to several amateur

photographers, with a circular letter asking them to get from me

family groups for the purpose of experiments, to see how far the

process was suitable for family portraiture.

The middle row of portraits illustrates health, disease, and

criminality. For health, I have combined the portraits of twelve

officers of the Royal Engineers with about an equal number of

privates, which were taken for me by Lieutenant Darwin, R.E. The

individuals from whom this composite was made, which has not come

out as clearly as I should have liked, differed considerably in

feature, and they came from various parts of England. The points they

had in common were the bodily and mental qualifications required for

admission into their select corps, and their generally British

descent. The result is a composite having an expression of

considerable vigour, resolution, intelligence, and frankness. I have

exhibited both this and others that were made respectively from the

officers, from the whole collection of privates--thirty-six in

number--and from that selected portion of them that is utilised in

the present instance.

This face and the qualities it connotes probably gives a clue to the

direction in which the stock of the English race might most easily

be improved. It is the essential notion of a race that there should

be some ideal typical form from which the individuals may deviate in

all directions, but about which they chiefly cluster, and towards

which their descendants will continue to cluster. The easiest

direction in which a race can be improved is towards that central

type, because nothing new has to be sought out. It is only necessary

to encourage as far as practicable the breed of those who conform

most nearly to the central type, and to restrain as far as may be

the breed of those who deviate widely from it. Now there can hardly

be a more appropriate method of discovering the central

physiognomical type of any race or group than that of composite

portraiture.

As a contrast to the composite of the Royal Engineers, I give those

of two of the coarse and low types of face found among the criminal

classes. The photographs from which they were made are taken from

two large groups. One are those of men undergoing severe sentences

for murder and other crimes connected with violence; the other of

thieves. They were reprints from those taken by order of the prison

authorities for purposes of identification. I was allowed to obtain

copies for use in my inquiries by the kind permission of Sir Edmund

Du Cane, H.M. Director of Prisons. The originals of these and their

components have frequently been exhibited. It is unhappily a fact

that fairly distinct types of criminals breeding true to their kind

have become established, and are one of the saddest disfigurements

of modern civilisation. To this subject I shall recur.

I have made numerous composites of various groups of convicts, which

are interesting negatively rather than positively. They produce

faces of a mean description, with no villainy written on them. The

individual faces are villainous enough, but they are villainous in

different ways, and when they are combined, the individual

peculiarities disappear, and the common humanity of a low type is all

that is left.

The remaining portraits are illustrations of the application of the

process to the study of the physiognomy of disease. They were

published a year ago with many others, together with several of

the portraits from which they were derived, in a joint memoir by

Dr. Mahomed and myself, in vol. xxv. of the _Guy's Hospital Reports_.

The originals and all the components have been exhibited on several

occasions.

In the lower division of the Plate will be found three composites,

each made from a large number of faces, unselected, except on the

ground of the disease under which they were suffering. When only few

portraits are used, there must be some moderate resemblance between

them, or the result would be blurred; but here, dealing with as many

as 56, 100, and 50 cases respectively, the combination of any medley

group results in an ideal expression.

It will be observed that the composite of 56 female faces is made by

the blending of two other composites, both of which are given. The

history was this--I took the 56 portraits and sorted them into two

groups; in the first of these were 20 portraits that showed a

tendency to thin features, in the other group there were 36 that

showed a tendency to thickened features. I made composites of each

of them as shown in the Plate. Now it will be remarked that,

notwithstanding the attempt to make two contrasted groups, the

number of mediocre cases was so great that the composities of the

two groups are much alike. If I had divided the 56 into two

haphazard groups, the results would have been closely alike, as I

know from abundant experience of the kind. The co-composite of the

two will be observed to have an intermediate expression. The test

and measure of statistical truth lies in the degree of accordance

between results obtained from different batches of instances of the

same generic class. It will be gathered from these instances that

composite portraiture may attain statistical constancy, within

limits not easily distinguished by the eye, after some 30 haphazard

portraits of the same class have been combined. This at least has

been my experience thus far.

The two faces illustrative of the same type of tubercular disease

are very striking; the uppermost is photographically interesting as

a case of predominance of one peculiarity, happily of no harm to the

effect of the ideal wan face. It is that one of the patients had a

sharply-checked black and white scarf, whose pattern has asserted

itself unduly in the composite. In such cases I ought to throw the

too clearly defined picture a little out of focus. The way in which

the varying brightness of different pictures is reduced to a uniform

standard of illumination is described in the Appendix.

It must be clearly understood that these portraits do not profess to

give the whole story of the physiognomy of phthisis. I have not room

to give illustrations of other types--namely, that with coarse and

blunted features, or the strumous one, nor any of the intermediates.

These have been discussed chiefly by Dr. Mahomed in the memoir

alluded to above.