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Francis Galton's contribution to genetics

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References

  1. See, for example, the treatment of Galton in RobertC. Olby, Origins of Mendelism (London, 1966) pp. 70–83; L. C. Dunn, A Short History of Genetics (New York, 1965) pp. 37–39; Eric Nordenskjold, History of Biology (New York, 1929) pp. 585–587. Karl Pearson's monumental study, The Life, Letters and Labours of Sir Francis Galton, 3 vols. in 4 (Cambridge, 1914–1930) is useful for information but not for critical judgments.

  2. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1863 (Spencer's Principles of Biology) as the earliest date for “heredity” used in a biological sense. The second date is 1869 (Galton's Hereditary Genius).

  3. Memories of My Life (1908), p. 288.

  4. Darwin, Variations in Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 2 vols. (London, 1868), II, chaps. 12, 13, 14, 27.

  5. Darwin made this distinction in Variations, II, 29–36.

  6. See Darwin, Variations, II, 32; Charles Lyell, The Antiquity of Man (London, 1863), p. 420; J. D. Hooker, Flora of Australia (London, 1859), p. ix. Also Darwin, Origin of Species (London, 1859), p. 14.

  7. See, for example, CharlesNaudin, “Nouvelles recherches sur l'hybridité dan les végétaux”, Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot., ser. 4, 19 (1863), 15–42.

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  8. Darwin makes this point in his criticism of Naudin, Variations, II, 49 and 56.

  9. Henri de Vilmorin, “Note sur une experience relative à l'étude de l'hérédité dans les végétaux”, Mem. Soc. Nat. Agric. France (1879), as translated in H. F. Roberts, Plant Hybridization before Mendel (Princeton, 1929), p. 147.

  10. Darwin, Variations, II, 70.

  11. Ibid., II. 48.

  12. Lucas, Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité, 2 vols. (Paris, 1847). Darwin's copy of this book was heavily annotated.

  13. Lucas's analysis of the various interpretations of variation is in vol. I, 170–185.

  14. Origin of Species, chaps. I, V.

  15. See, for example, Duke of Argyll, “On Variety as an Aim in Nature”, Cont. Rev., n.s. 6 (May, 1871), 154–160.

  16. Asa Gray raised this objection. See A. Hunter Dupree, Asa Gray (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 357; and a letter of Gray to Darwin (1882) in Francis Darwin, ed., Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (London, 1887), I, 624.

  17. FleemingJenkins, “The Origin of Species”, North Brit. Rev., 46 (1867) 149–171.

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  18. See, Peter J. Vorzimmer, Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy. The ‘Origin of Species’ and Its Critics 1859–1882 (Philadelphia, 1970).

  19. Origin of Species, p. 12.

  20. Variations, II, chap. 27.

  21. See Francis Darwin, ed., More Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (London, 1903), I, 301. Also, Leonard Huxley, ed., The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (London, 1903), I, 384–387.

  22. Compare, for example, Variations, II, chaps. 12 and 13, with Variations, II, 371–373.

  23. Principles of Biology, I, 253.

  24. Darwin's ‘Variations in Animals and Plants’ (anon. rev.), North Am. Rev., 107 (1868) 366.

  25. See, Variations, II, 217, 221.

  26. Principles of Biology, I, 252–56.

  27. William Bateson recognized the existence of these implicit force models and frequently inveighed against their use. See Materials for the Study of Variation (London, 1894), p. 75, and “Presidential Address to the British Association [Zoology],” (1904) in Beatrice Bateson, William Bateson, Naturalist (Cambridge, 1928), p. 257.

  28. Romanes to Poulton, 27 January 1890; E. Romanes, ed. Life and Letters of G. J. Romanes, 2nd ed. (London, 1896) p. 267.

  29. Romanes to Poulton, 16 February 1890; loc. cit., p. 268.

  30. Variations, II, 48.

  31. Alexander Walker, Intermarriage: or the Mode in which and the Causes why Beauty, Health and Intellect Result from Certain Unions (London, 1838). Walker (1779–1852) was a professor of anatomy of Edinburgh.

  32. See Roberts, Plant Hybridization Before Mendel, p. 178; also R. C. Olby, Origins of Mendelism, pp. 20, 35.

  33. See, for example, Sir Henry Holland, Medical Notes and Reflections (London, 1839) chap. 3, and Allen Thomson, “Generation,” in R. B. Todd and William Bowman, Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology (London, 1836–1859).

  34. The annotations in Darwin's copy of Intermarriage (Darwin Library, University Library, Cambridge) indicate that Darwin was impressed by Walker's argument.

  35. Variations, II, 65.

  36. Variations, II, 69.

  37. As just one example, the “pangenes” invented by Hugo de Vries were hereditary units which were similar to chemical molecules except that they could not be isolated and could not be analyzed experimentally. See GarlandAllen, “Hugo de Vries and the Reception of the ‘Mutation theory,’” J. Hist. Biol., 2 (1969) 59.

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  38. Some commentators on the Ancestral Law were surprised by it, not because Galton had arrived at a numerical value for the contribution of each ancestor, but because ancestors beyond the parents were implicated in the first place. See, for example, J. A. Thomson, Heredity (London, 1908), pp. 321–323.

  39. This is said despite the fact that the Mendelians and the Galtonians did battle with each other during the first decade of genetics. As with many warring married couples, they had much in common despite their differences. In this connection it is interesting that William Bateson criticized the concept of “reversion” several years before the rediscovery of Mende's work and several years after the publication of Galton's. “It would probably help the science of Biology,” Bateson wrote, “if the word ‘Reversion’ and the ideas which it denotes were wholly dropped” (Materials for the Study of Variation [London, 1894], p. 78).

  40. See for example, August Weismann, Studies in the Theory of Descent, R. Meldola, trans., 2 vols. (London, 1882), esp. II, 675–680.

  41. Natural Inheritance (London, 1889), p. 9.

  42. Galton, “Discontinuity in Evolution,” Mind n.s. 3 (1894) 362.

  43. Hugo de Vries, The Mutation Theory (1901–1903), trans. J. B. Farmer and A. D. Darbishire (Chicago, 1909), I, esp. 45–53; 135–142. See also Garland E. Allen, “Hugo de Vries and the Reception of the ‘Mutation Theory’,” (above, n. 37), esp. pp. 58–65.

  44. The polyhedron theory is presented in Galton, Natural Inheritance, chap. 3. See Bateson, Materials for the Study of Variation, esp. pp. 36–43.

  45. William Coleman, “Bateson and Chromosomes: Conservative Thought in Science,” Centaurus (1970).

  46. Galton, “Discontinuity in Evolution,” passim.

  47. See the introductory chapter to Natural Inheritance, “Processes in Hereditary,” for a summary of Galton's views.

  48. Thomson, Heredity, p. 13, The dedication of Thomson's book is revealing: “I dedicate this book, with their kind permission, to Francis Galton and August Weismann, whose magistral studies of heredity have made us all their debtors.”

  49. William Bateson, “Problems of Heredity as a Subject for Horticultural Investigation,” J. Roy. Hort. Soc. 25 (1900) as reprinted in Beatrice Bateson, ed., William Bateson, Naturalist (Cambridge, 1928) p. 172.

  50. Natural Inheritance, p. 192.

  51. This is precisely what Galton did in Natural Inheritance, chaps. 2 and 3.

  52. Variations, II, 358–373.

  53. See, Galton, “Hereditary Talent and Character Macmillan's Magazine 12 (August 1865) esp. pp. 321–323.

  54. See my paper, “Sir Francis Galton and the Continuity of Germplasm: A Biological Idea with Political Roots,” Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of the History of Science (Paris, 1970), 181–186.

  55. Dunn, A Short History of Genetics, p. 34.

  56. See, Marc Haller, Eugenics, Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1963) and Donald K. Pickens, Eugenics and the Progressives (Vanderbilt University Press, 1968) for American eugenics; C. P. Blacker, Eugenics, Galton and After (London, 1952) for English developments.

  57. See, for example, English Men of Science, Their Nature and Nurture (London, 1874), and “The History of Twins as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture,” J. Roy. Anthro. Inst. 5 (1875–1876) 392–406. The quotations are from p. 392.

  58. See, for example, publications of the Eugenics Education Society, especially, Eugenics Review (begun in 1907); the writings of C. W. Saleeby, esp. Parenthood and Race Culture (London, 1909), and The Progress of Eugenics (London, 1914); C. B. Davenport, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (New York, 1911); and W. E. Castle, et al., eds., Heredity and Eugenics (Chicago, 1912). This last is a series of lectures given at the University of Chicago in 1911.

  59. See, for example, Francis Galton, Life History Album (London, 1904); Davenport and Laughlin, How to Make a Eugenical Family Study, Eugenics Record Office, Bull. No. 13 (Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1913); Henry H. Goddard, Feeblemindedness, Its Causes and Consequences (New York, 1914). Goddard's study began in 1910.

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    Ruth Schwartz Cowan

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Cowan, R.S. Francis Galton's contribution to genetics. Journal of the History of Biology 5, 389–412 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00346665

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