WCP2755

Letter (WCP2755.2645)

[1]1

42 Rutland Gate SW

May 24 [1896]

Dear Mr. Wallace

I send the paper with pleasure and I 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.2 Indeed I have another paper on them [2] next Thursday at the Royal Soc[iety] but that only refers to way of cataloguing them,3 either for criminal administration, or what I am more interested in viz [namely]: racial and hereditary enquiry.

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, [3]4 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 Dartford)5 they are the same in clodhoppers as in the upper classes and yet they are as markedly[?] hereditary as other qualities, I think. Their tendency to symmetrical distribution on the 2 hands is marked, & symmetry is a form of kinship. [4] My argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with them patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits, & so forth, because they are not correlated with them. They just go 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 y[ou]rs | Francis Galton6

PS

You probably have seen the program that Ray Lankester,7Poulton8 & Romanes9 are signing[?] issuing to press on Oxford the establishment of an experimental farm &c for hereditary and evolutionary experiments.

1
This document bears the British Museum's stamp and this folio is numbered "14". It is the original of the typescript copy in WCP2755_L4169.
2
Galton, F. (1891). The Patterns in Thumb and Finger Marks: On Their Arrangement into Naturally Distinct Classes, the Permanence of the Papillary Ridges That Make Them, and the Resemblance of Their Classes to Ordinary Genera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 182:1-23.
3
Galton published a follow-up to his original memoir (see Endnote 2) in 1891, in which he described a method for cataloguing finger-prints: Galton, F. (1891) Method of Indexing Finger-Marks Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 49: 540-548. Publication of a paper presented to the Royal Society on the subject in May 1896 not found.
4
This folio is numbered "15".
5
Darenth Park Hospital was founded by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in Darent, near Dartford, Kent as "Darenth School" for 500 children with learning disabilities on 18 November 1878. By 1890 it housed over 1,000 children and adults.
6
Galton, Francis (1822-1911). English polymath, geographer, explorer, anthropologist, eugenicist and statistician. He was Charles Darwin’s half-cousin. Following publication of On the Origin of Species, Galton devoted much of the rest of his life to exploring variation in human populations and its implications, at which Darwin had only hinted. In so doing, he studied multiple aspects of human variation, from mental characteristics to height; from facial images to fingerprint patterns. This required inventing novel measures of traits, devising large-scale collection of measurements and devising new statistical techniques for describing and understanding the data.
7
Lankester, Edwin Ray (Ray Lankester) (1847-1929). British zoologist and comparative anatomist, working mostly on invertebrates. He was a fellow of Exeter College Oxford, studying under Thomas Henry Huxley.
8
Poulton, Edward Bagnall (1856-1943). British evolutionary biologist, friend of ARW and lifelong advocate of natural selection.
9
Romanes, George John (1848-1894). Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist and friend of Charles Darwin. He invented the term neo-Darwinism, used to indicate an updated form of Darwinism.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2755.2645)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Transcription (WCP2755.4169)

[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
The following text is typed at the top right of the page "COPY of Letter from SIR FRANCIS GALTON to Dr. WALLACE 24 May 1896.", followed on the next line, to the left of the page, "4".
2
Francis Galton lived at 42 Rutland Gate, London SW7 1PD for fifty years. English Heritage. n.d. Galton Sir Francis (1822-1911). About Blue Plaques. <https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/francis-galton/> [accessed 29 May 2019].
3
ARW had received an LL.D (Doctor of Laws) from Trinity College, University of Dublin, in 1882. Beccaloni, G. 2016. Honours Wallace Received. The Alfred Russel Wallace Website. <http://wallacefund.info/honours-wallace-received#> [accessed 29 May 2019]
4
Galton was the first person to provide a scientific basis for the study of fingerprints so that they could be used in criminal cases. Tredoux, G. n.d. Francis Galton and Fingerprints. galton.org. <http://galton.org/fingerprinter.html> [accessed 29 May 2019]
5
Galton, F. 1982. Finger Prints. London: Macmillan.
6
The Royal Society was founded in 1660 to meet weekly to discuss scientific topics. In 1847 it was decided Fellows should be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work. The Royal Society. n.d. History of the Royal Society. royalsociety.org. <https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/> [accessed 29 May 2019].
7

The Asylum opened in 1878 and could accommodate about 2,000 children. The Editors. n.d. Darenth Park. countyasylums.co.uk. <https://www.countyasylums.co.uk/darenth-park-hospital/> [accessed 29 May 2019]

8.

8
Lankester, Edwin Ray ("Ray") (1847-1929). British zoologist.
9
Poulton, Edward Bagnall (1856-1943). British Entomologist.
10
Romanes, George John (1848-1894). Canadian-born British evolutionary biologist and physiologist.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Transcription (WCP2755.4169)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcription checked by Ghosh, Susan [2019-12-17] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10] Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2022-06-19]

Published letter (WCP2755.7854)

[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.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Published letter (WCP2755.7854)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Congerton, John [2019-01-19]

Please cite as “WCP2755,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2755