From Francis Galton to William Huggins   15 February 1873

Dear D^r. Huggins

Enclosed are the family documents about Kepler, wh: you kindly lent. I am ashamed to see how much time has gone by, but plead some illness & much work in partial excuse. Right glad I was, to see the account published & so ably prefaced by Darwin in Nature.¹

There remains still some want of investigation into the precise mental condition of Kepler & his relatives.

Kepler fears a butchers’ shop others are rendered furious at the sight of a butcher. Is Kepler ever angry or is it pure aversion & dread, that he feels? What aspect of a butchers shop is it that offends them   Not the sight of raw meat? I suppose they like raw meat. And dogs like to worry living things & to turn them to raw meat. Is it smell,? (? as to the well dressed master butcher) or is it the hooks & the knives & the sight of a murderous man?

Does Kepler object to a butcher’s cart, or to a boy with a tray on his head? or to your cook?

Are he & the rest of his breed brave dogs, given to fighting? Have they squeamish tastes of any kind, as regards food?

I send all these just in hopes that something new might occur to you; the case so richly deserves labour of investigation. It is very remarkable, in the inheritance of instinct, how some of those few which are first acquired & then transmitted are singularly complex. While simple ones do not seem to have much superior chance of being transmitted, on account of their simplicity.

What you say about dog’s reasoning, reminds me of a phrase used by the master of some performing dogs “Dogs, Sir, do a deal of pondering”

About the medium:— I fear the room in which the man sits who is tied is far to dark to allow of his being kept in view through an aperture. but I will suggest to Crookes,² that previous experiment may be made—

Very sincerely y^rs. Francis Galton