Galton founded the science of Eugenics and coined the word in 1883. He investigated the families of great men and thought genius was hereditary.

I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.-from "Classification of Men According to Their Natural Gifts"One of the greatest names in Victorian science, Francis Galton has been all but forgotten in the popular culture, but his work on philosophy of genetics and the inheritability of human characteristics broke new ground in the late 19th century. With this 1869 book (along with his 1889 work Natural Inheritance), he founded an entirely new scientific discipline, one that approached human biology with a systematic rigor as he explored the degree of "eminence" among British men and determined that intelligence and accomplishment were inheritable. Though some of Galton's work has been dismissed because of its causal connection to the deplorable applications of eugenics programs in the 20th century, this remains an important work in the history of biological science. "I do not think I ever in all my life read anything more interesting and original" Charles Darwin said about this extraordinary book.Among his many significant accomplishments, British scientist SIR FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911) was an explorer, a geographer, a statistician, and inventor of fingerprint identification. In addition to more than 300 scientific papers, he wrote the books Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa (1853), Finger Prints (1893), Memories of My Life (1908), and others.

Excerpt from Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences I trust the reader will pardon a small percentage of error and inaccuracy, if it be so small as not to affect the general value of my results. N 0 one can hate inaccuracy more than myself, or can have a higher idea of what an author owes to his readers, in respect to precision but, in a subject like this, it is exceedingly difficult to correct every mistake, and still more so to avoid omissions. I have often had to run my eyes over many pages of large bio graphical dictionaries and volumes of memoirs to arrive at data, destined to be packed into half a dozen lines, in an appendix to one of my many chapters. The theory of hereditary genius, though usually scouted, has been advocated by a few writers in past as well as in modern times. But I may claim to be the first to treat the subject in a statistical manner, to arrive at numerical results, and to introduce the law of deviation from an average into discussions on heredity. A great many subjects are discussed in the following pages, which go beyond the primary issue, - whether or no genius be hereditary. I could not refuse to consider them, because the bearings of the theory I advocate are too important to be passed over in silence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws And Consequences Sir Francis Galton D. Appleton, 1871 Science; Life Sciences; Genetics & Genomics; Eugenics; Genius; Heredity; Heredity, Human; Science / Life Sciences / Genetics & Genomics