WCP2755

[1]¹

42 Rutland Gate S.W.²

May 24.

Dear Mr. Wallace³

I send the paper with pleasure and am glad that you will read it, and I hope then see more clearly than the abstract could show, the grounds of my argument.

These finger marks are most remarkable things.⁴ Of course I have made out much more about them since writing that memoir.⁵ Indeed I have another paper on them next Thursday at the Royal Soc[iety]:⁶ but that only refers to [a] way of cataloguing them, either for criminal administration, or what I am more interested in viz: racial & hereditary inquiry.

What I have done in this way, is not ready for publication but I may mention (privately please) that these persistent marks which seem fully developed in the 6th. month of foetal life and appear under the reservations and on the evidence published in the memoir to be practically quite unchanged during life, are not correlated with any ordinary characteristic that I can discover. They are the same in the lowest idiots as in an ordinary person (I took the impressions of some 80 of these so idiotic that they mostly could not speak or even stand at the great Darenth Asylum Dartford⁷) they are the same in clodhoppers as in the upper classes and yet they are as hereditary as other qualities, I think. Their tendency to symmetrical distribution on the 2 hands is marked, & symmetry is a form of kinship. My argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with the patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits, & so forth, because they are not correleated with them. They must go [at] their own gait, uninfluenced by any/thing that we can find or reasonably [2] believe in, of a naturally selective influence, in the plain meaning of the phrase.

Very sincerely y[ou]rs | (signed) FRANCIS GALTON

P.S. You probably have seen the programme that Ray Lankaster,⁸ Poulton⁹ & Romanes¹⁰ are issuing to press on Oxford the establishment of an experimental farm &c for hereditary & evolutionary experiment[in]g.

[1] [p. 48]

SIR FRANCIS GALTON TO A. R. WALLACE

42 Rutland Gate, S.W.

May 24, 1890

Dear Mr. Wallace, —

I send the paper with pleasure, and am glad that you will read it, and I hope then see more clearly than the abstract could show the grounds of my argument.

These finger-marks are most remarkable things. Of course I have made out much more about them since writing that memoir. Indeed I have another paper on them next Thursday at the Royal Society, but that only refers to ways of cataloguing them, either for criminal administration, or what I am more interested in, viz. racial and hereditary inquiry.

What I have done in this way is not ready for publication, but I may mention (privately, please) that these persistent marks, which seem fully developed in the sixth month of foetal life, and appear under the reservations and in the evidence published in the memoir to be practically quite unchanged during life, are not correlated with [2] [p. 49] any ordinary characteristic that I can discover. They are the same in the lowest idiots as in ordinary persons. (I took the impressions of some 80 of these, so idiotic that they mostly could not speak, or even stand, at the great Darenth Asylum, Dartford.) They are the same in clodhoppers as in the upper classes, and yet they are as hereditary as other qualities, I think. Their tendency to symmetrical distribution on the two hands in marked, and symmetry is a form of kinship. My argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with the patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits, and so forth, because they are not correlated with them,. They just go on at their own gait, uninfluenced by anything that we can find or reasonably believe in, of a naturally selective influence, in the plain meaning of the phrase.—

Very sincerely yours,

FRANCIS GALTON.