Inquiries into human faculty and its development

POPULATION

Over-population and its attendant miseries may not improbably become a more serious subject of consideration than it ever yet has been, owing to improved sanatation and consequent diminution of the mortality of children, and to the filling up of the spare places of the earth which are still void and able to receive the overflow of Europe. There are no doubt conflicting possibilities which I need not stop to discuss.

The check to over-population mainly advocated by Malthus is a prudential delay in the time of marriage; but the practice of such a doctrine would assuredly be limited, and if limited it would be most prejudicial to the race, as I have pointed out in Hereditary Genius, but may be permitted to do so again. The doctrine would only be followed by the prudent and self-denying; it would be neglected by the impulsive and self-seeking. Those whose race we especially want to have, would leave few descendants, while those whose race we especially want to be quit of, would crowd the vacant space with their progeny, and the strain of population would thenceforward be just as pressing as before. There would have been a little relief during one or two generations, but no permanent increase of the general happiness, while the race of the nation would have deteriorated. The practical application of the doctrine of deferred marriage would therefore lead indirectly to most mischievous results, that were overlooked owing to the neglect of considerations bearing on race. While criticising the main conclusion to which Malthus came, I must take the opportunity of paying my humble tribute of admiration to his great and original work, which seems to me like the rise of a morning star before a day of free social investigation. There is nothing whatever in his book that would be in the least offensive to this generation, but he wrote in advance of his time and consequently roused virulent attacks, notably from his fellow-clergymen, whose doctrinaire notions upon the paternal dispensation of the world were rudely shocked.

The misery check, as Malthus called all those influences that are not prudential, is an ugly phrase not fully justified. It no doubt includes death through inadequate food and shelter, through pestilence from overcrowding, through war, and the like; but it also includes many causes that do not deserve so hard a name. Population decays under conditions that cannot be charged to the presence or absence of misery, in the common sense of the word. These exist when native races disappear before the presence of the incoming white man, when after making the fullest allowances for imported disease, for brandy drinking, and other assignable causes, there is always a large residuum of effect not clearly accounted for. It is certainly not wholly due to misery, but rather to listlessness, due to discouragement, and acting adversely in many ways.

One notable result of dulness and apathy is to make a person unattractive to the opposite sex and to be unattracted by them. It is antagonistic to sexual affection, and the result is a diminution of offspring. There exists strong evidence that the decay of population in some parts of South America under the irksome tyranny of the Jesuits, which crushed what little vivacity the people possessed, was due to this very cause. One cannot fairly apply the term "misery" to apathy; I should rather say that strong affections restrained from marriage by prudential considerations more truly deserved that name.

EARLY AND LATE MARRIAGES

It is important to obtain a just idea of the relative effects of early and late marriages. I attempted this in Hereditary Genius, but I think the following is a better estimate. We are unhappily still deficient in collected data as regards the fertility of the upper and middle classes at different ages; but the facts collected by Dr. Matthews Duncan as regards the lower orders will serve our purpose approximately, by furnishing the required ratios, though not the absolute values. The following are his results,[17] from returns kept at the Lying-in Hospital of St. Georges-in-the-East:--

Age of Mother at her Marriage. Average Fertility. 15-19 9.12 20-24 7.92 25-29 6.30 30-34 4.60

The meaning of this Table will be more clearly grasped after a little modification of its contents. We may consider the fertility of each group to refer to the medium age of that group, as by writing 17 instead of 15-19, and we may slightly smooth the figures, then we have--

Age of Mother at her Approximate average Marriage. Fertility. 17 9.00 = 6 × 1.5 22 7.50 = 5 × 1.5 27 6.00 = 4 × 1.5 32 4.50 = 3 × 1.5

Which shows that the relative fertility of mothers married at the ages of 17, 22, 27, and 32 respectively is as 6, 5, 4, and 3 approximately.

The increase in population by a habit of early marriages is further augmented by the greater rapidity with which the generations follow each other. By the joint effect of these two causes, a large effect is in time produced.

Let us compute a single example. Taking a group of 100 mothers married at the age of 20, whom we will designate as A, and another group of 100 mothers married at the age of 29, whom we will call B, we shall find by interpolation that the fertility of A and B respectively would be about 8.2 and 5.4. We need not, however, regard their absolute fertility, which would differ in different classes of society, but will only consider their relative production of such female children as may live and become mothers, and we will suppose the number of such descendants in the first generation to be the same as that of the A and B mothers together[17]--namely, 200. Then the number of such children in the A and B classes respectively, being in the proportion of 8.2 to 5.4, will be 115 and 85.

[Footnote 17: Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility, etc., by Dr. Matthews Duncan. A. & C. Black: Edinburgh, 1871, p. 143.]

We have next to determine the average lengths of the A and B generations, which may be roughly done by basing it on the usual estimate of an average generation, irrespectively of sex, at a third of a century, or say of an average female generation at 31.5 years. We will further take 20 years as being 4.5 years earlier than the average time of marriage, and 29 years as 4.5 years later than it, so that the length of each generation of the A group will be 27 years, and that of the B group will be 36 years. All these suppositions appear to be perfectly fair and reasonable, while it may easily be shown that any other suppositions within the bounds of probability would lead to results of the same general order.

The least common multiple of 27 and 36 is 108, at the end of which term of years A will have been multiplied four times over by the factor 1.5, and B three times over by the factor 0.85. The results are given in the following Table:--

Number of Female Descendants who themselves become Mothers.

The general result is that the group B gradually disappears, and the group A more than supplants it. Hence if the races best fitted to occupy the land are encouraged to marry early, they will breed down the others in a very few generations.

MARKS FOR FAMILY MERIT

It may seem very reasonable to ask how the result proposed in the last paragraph is to be attained, and to add that the difficulty of carrying so laudable a proposal into effect lies wholly in the details, and therefore that until some working plan is suggested, the consideration of improving the human race is Utopian. But this requirement is not altogether fair, because if a persuasion of the importance of any end takes possession of men's minds, sooner or later means are found by which that end is carried into effect. Some of the objections offered at first will be discovered to be sentimental, and of no real importance--the sentiment will change and they will disappear; others that are genuine are not met, but are in some way turned or eluded; and lastly, through the ingenuity of many minds directed for a long time towards the achievement of a common purpose, many happy ideas are sure to be hit upon that would not have occurred to a single individual.

This being premised, it will suffice to faintly sketch out some sort of basis for eugenics, it being now an understanding that we are provisionally agreed, for the sake of argument, that the improvement of race is an object of first-class importance, and that the popular feeling has been educated to regard it in that light.

The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals who bore the signs of membership of a superior race, the proximate aim would be to ascertain what those signs were, and these we will consider first.

The indications of superior breed are partly personal, partly ancestral. We need not trouble ourselves about the personal part, because full weight is already given to it in the competitive careers; energy, brain, morale, and health being recognised factors of success, while there can hardly be a better evidence of a person being adapted to his circumstances than that afforded by success. It is the ancestral part that is neglected, and which we have yet to recognise at its just value. A question that now continually arises is this: a youth is a candidate for permanent employment, his present personal qualifications are known, but how will he turn out in later years? The objections to competitive examinations are notorious, in that they give undue prominence to youths whose receptive faculties are quick, and whose intellects are precocious. They give no indication of the directions in which the health, character, and intellect of the youth will change through the development, in their due course, of ancestral tendencies that are latent in youth, but will manifest themselves in after life. Examinations deal with the present, not with the future, although it is in the future of the youth that we are especially interested. Much of the needed guidance may be derived from his family history. I cannot doubt, if two youths were of equal personal merit, of whom one belonged to a thriving and long-lived family, and the other to a decaying and short-lived family, that there could be any hesitation in saying that the chances were greater of the first-mentioned youth becoming the more valuable public servant of the two.

A thriving family may be sufficiently defined or inferred by the successive occupations of its several male members in the previous generation, and of the two grandfathers. These are patent facts attainable by almost every youth, which admit of being verified in his neighbourhood and attested in a satisfactory manner.

A healthy and long-lived family may be defined by the patent facts of ages at death, and number and ages of living relatives, within the degrees mentioned above, all of which can be verified and attested. A knowledge of the existence of longevity in the family would testify to the stamina of the candidate, and be an important addition to the knowledge of his present health in forecasting the probability of his performing a large measure of experienced work.

Owing to absence of data and the want of inquiry of the family antecedents of those who fail and of those who succeed in life, we are much more ignorant than we ought to be of their relative importance. In connection with this, I may mention some curious results published by Mr. F.M. Holland[18] of Boston, U.S., as to the antecedent family history of persons who were reputed to be more moral than the average, and of those who were the reverse. He has

been good enough to reply to questions that I sent to him concerning his criterion of morality, and other points connected with the statistics, in a way that seems satisfactory, and he has very obligingly furnished me with additional MS. materials. One of his conclusions was that morality is more often found among members of large families than among those of small ones. It is reasonable to expect this would be the case owing to the internal discipline among members of large families, and to the wholesome sustaining and restraining effects of family pride and family criticism. Members of small families are apt to be selfish, and when the smallness of the family is due to the deaths of many of its members at early ages, it is some evidence either of weakness of the family constitution, or of deficiency of common sense or of affection on the part of the parents in not taking better care of them. Mr. Holland quotes in his letter to me a piece of advice by Franklin to a young man in search of a wife, "to take one out of a bunch of sisters," and a popular saying that kittens brought up with others make the best pets, because they have learned to play without scratching. Sir William Gull[19] has remarked that those candidates for the Indian Civil Service who are members of large families are on the whole the strongest.

[Footnote 18: Index Newspaper, Boston, U.S. July 27, 1882.]

Far be it from me to say that any scheme of marks for family merit would not require a great deal of preparatory consideration. Careful statistical inquiries have yet to be made into the family antecedents of public servants of mature age in connection with their place in examination lists at the earlier age when they first gained their appointments. This would be necessary in order to learn the amount of marks that should be assigned to various degrees of family merit. I foresee no peculiar difficulty in conducting such an inquiry; indeed, now that competitive examinations have been in general use for many years, the time seems ripe for it, but of course its conduct would require much confidential inquiry and a great deal of trouble in verifying returns. Still, it admits of being done, and if the results, derived from different sources, should confirm one another, they could be depended on.

[Footnote 19: Blue Book C--1446, 1876. On the Selection and Training of Candidates for the Indian Civil Service.]

Let us now suppose that a way was seen for carrying some such idea as this into practice, and that family merit, however defined, was allowed to count, for however little, in competitive examinations. The effect would be very great: it would show that ancestral qualities are of present current value; it would give an impetus to collecting family histories; it would open the eyes of every family and or society at large to the importance of marriage alliance with a good stock; it would introduce the subject of race into a permanent topic of consideration, which (on the supposition of its bonâ fide importance that has been assumed for the sake of argument) experience would show to be amply justified. Any act that first gives a guinea stamp to the sterling guinea's worth of natural nobility might set a great social avalanche in motion.

ENDOWMENTS

Endowments and bequests have been freely and largely made for various social purposes, and as a matter of history they have frequently been made to portion girls in marriage. It so happens that the very day that I am writing this, I notice an account in the foreign newspapers (September 19, 1882) of an Italian who has bequeathed a sum to the corporation of London to found small portions for three poor girls to be selected by lot. And again, a few weeks ago I read also in the French papers of a trial, in reference to the money adjudged to the "Rosière" of a certain village. Many cases in which individuals and states have portioned girls may be found in Malthus. It is therefore far from improbable that if the merits of good race became widely recognised and its indications were rendered more surely intelligible than they now are, that local endowments, and perhaps adoptions, might be made in favour of those of both sexes who showed evidences of high race and of belonging to prolific and thriving families. One cannot forecast their form, though we may reckon with some assurance that in one way or another they would be made, and that the better races would be given a better chance of marrying early.

A curious relic of the custom which was universal three or four centuries ago, of entrusting education to celibate priests, forbade Fellows of Colleges to marry, under the penalty of losing their fellowships. It is as though the winning horses at races were rendered ineligible to become sires, which I need hardly say is the exact reverse of the practice. Races were established and endowed by "Queen's plates" and otherwise at vast expense, for the purpose of discovering the swiftest horses, who are thenceforward exempted from labour and reserved for the sole purpose of propagating their species. The horses who do not win races, or who are not otherwise specially selected for their natural gifts, are prevented from becoming sires. Similarly, the mares who win races as fillies, are not allowed to waste their strength in being ridden or driven, but are tended under sanatory conditions for the sole purpose of bearing offspring. It is better economy, in the long-run, to use the best mares as breeders than as workers, the loss through their withdrawal from active service being more than recouped in the next generation through what is gained by their progeny.

The college statutes to which I referred were very recently relaxed at Oxford, and have been just reformed at Cambridge. I am told that numerous marriages have ensued in consequence, or are ensuing. In Hereditary Genius I showed that scholastic success runs strongly in families; therefore, in all seriousness, I have no doubt, that the number of Englishmen naturally endowed with high scholastic faculties, will be sensibly increased in future generations by the repeal of these ancient statutes.

The English race has yet to be explored and their now unknown wealth of hereditary gifts recorded, that those who possess such a patrimony should know of it. The natural impulses of mankind would then be sufficient to ensure that such wealth should no more continue to be neglected than the existence of any other possession suddenly made known to a man. Aristocracies seldom make alliances out of their order, except to gain wealth. Is it less to be expected that those who become aware that they are endowed with the power of transmitting valuable hereditary gifts should abstain from squandering their future children's patrimony by marrying persons of lower natural stamp? The social consideration that would attach itself to high races would, it may be hoped, partly neutralise a social cause that is now very adverse to the early marriages of the most gifted, namely, the cost of living in cultured and refined society. A young man with a career before him commonly feels it would be an act of folly to hamper himself by too early a marriage. The doors of society that are freely open to a bachelor are closed to a married couple with small means, unless they bear patent recommendations such as the public recognition of a natural nobility would give. The attitude of mind that I should expect to predominate among those who had undeniable claims to rank as members of an exceptionally gifted race, would be akin to that of the modern possessors of ancestral property or hereditary rank. Such persons feel it a point of honour not to alienate the old place or make misalliances, and they are respected for their honest family pride. So a man of good race would shrink from spoiling it by a lower marriage, and every one would sympathise with his sentiments.

CONCLUSION

It remains to sketch in outline the principal conclusions to which we seem to be driven by the results of the various inquiries contained in this volume, and by what we know on allied topics from the works of others.

We cannot but recognise the vast variety of natural faculty, useful and harmful, in members of the same race, and much more in the human family at large, all of which tend to be transmitted by inheritance. Neither can we fail to observe that the faculties of men generally, are unequal to the requirements of a high and growing civilisation. This is principally owing to their entire ancestry having lived up to recent times under very uncivilised conditions, and to the somewhat capricious distribution in late times of inherited wealth, which affords various degrees of immunity from the usual selective agencies.

In solution of the question whether a continual improvement in education might not compensate for a stationary or even retrograde condition of natural gifts, I made inquiry into the life history of twins, which resulted in proving the vastly preponderating effects of nature over nurture.

The fact that the very foundation and outcome of the human mind is dependent on race, and that the qualities of races vary, and therefore that humanity taken as a whole is not fixed but variable, compels us to reconsider what may be the true place and function of man in the order of the world. I have examined this question freely from many points of view, because whatever may be the vehemence with which particular opinions are insisted upon, its solution is unquestionably doubtful. There is a wide and growing conviction among truth-seeking, earnest, humble-minded, and thoughtful men, both in this country and abroad, that our cosmic relations are by no means so clear and simple as they are popularly supposed to be, while the worthy and intelligent teachers of various creeds, who have strong persuasions on the character of those relations, do not concur in their several views.

The results of the inquiries I have made into certain alleged forms of our relations with the unseen world do not, so far as they go, confirm the common doctrines. One, for example, on the objective efficacy of prayer[20] was decidedly negative. It showed that while contradicting the commonly expressed doctrine, it concurred with the almost universal practical opinion of the present day. Another inquiry into visions showed that, however ill explained they may still be, they belong for the most part, if not altogether, to an order of phenomena which no one dreams in other cases of calling supernatural. Many investigations concur in showing the vast multiplicity of mental operations that are in simultaneous action, of which only a minute part falls within the ken of consciousness, and suggest that much of what passes for supernatural is due to one portion of our mind being contemplated by another portion of it, as if it had been that of another person. The term "individuality" is in fact a most misleading word.

[Footnote 20: Not reprinted in this edition.]

I do not for a moment wish to imply that the few inquiries published in this volume exhaust the list of those that might be made, for I distinctly hold the contrary, but I refer to them in corroboration of the previous assertion that our relations with the unseen world are different to those we are commonly taught to believe.

In our doubt as to the character of our mysterious relations with the unseen ocean of actual and potential life by which we are surrounded, the generally accepted fact of the solidarity of the universe--that is, of the intimate connections between distant parts that bind it together as a whole--justifies us, I think, in looking upon ourselves as members of a vast system which in one of its aspects resembles a cosmic republic.

On the one hand, we know that evolution has proceeded during an enormous time on this earth, under, so far as we can gather, a system of rigorous causation, with no economy of time or of instruments, and with no show of special ruth for those who may in pure ignorance have violated the conditions of life.

On the other hand, while recognising the awful mystery of conscious existence and the inscrutable background of evolution, we find that as the foremost outcome of many and long birth-throes, intelligent and kindly man finds himself in being. He knows how petty he is, but he also perceives that he stands here on this particular earth, at this particular time, as the heir of untold ages and in the van of circumstance. He ought therefore, I think, to be less diffident than he is usually instructed to be, and to rise to the conception that he has a considerable function to perform in the order of events, and that his exertions are needed. It seems to me that he should look upon himself more as a freeman, with power of shaping the course of future humanity, and that he should look upon himself less as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it would be his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regulated for him, and to render abject obedience.

The question then arises as to the way in which man can assist in the order of events. I reply, by furthering the course of evolution. He may use his intelligence to discover and expedite the changes that are necessary to adapt circumstance to race and race to circumstance, and his kindly sympathy will urge him to effect them mercifully.

When we begin to inquire, with some misgiving perhaps, as to the evidence that man has present power to influence the quality of future humanity, we soon discover that his past influence in that direction has been very large indeed. It has been exerted hitherto for other ends than that which is now contemplated, such as for conquest or emigration, also through social conditions whose effects upon race were imperfectly foreseen. There can be no doubt that the hitherto unused means of his influence are also numerous and great. I have not cared to go much into detail concerning these, but restricted myself to a few broad considerations, as by showing how largely the balance of population becomes affected by the earlier marriages of some of its classes, and by pointing out the great influence that endowments have had in checking the marriage of monks and scholars, and therefore the yet larger influence they might be expected to have if they were directed not to thwart but to harmonise with natural inclination, by promoting early marriages in the classes to be favoured. I also showed that a powerful influence might flow from a public recognition in early life of the true value of the probability of future performance, as based on the past performance of the ancestors of the child. It is an element of forecast, in addition to that of present personal merit, which has yet to be appraised and recognised. Its recognition would attract assistance in various ways, impossible now to specify, to the young families of those who were most likely to stock the world with healthy, moral, intelligent, and fair-natured citizens. The stream of charity is not unlimited, and it is requisite for the speedier evolution of a more perfect humanity that it should be so distributed as to favour the best-adapted races. I have not spoken of the repression of the rest, believing that it would ensue indirectly as a matter of course; but I may add that few would deserve better of their country than those who determine to live celibate lives, through a reasonable conviction that their issue would probably be less fitted than the generality to play their part as citizens.

It would be easy to add to the number of possible agencies by which the evolution of a higher humanity might be furthered, but it is premature to do so until the importance of attending to the improvement of our race shall have been so well established in the popular mind that a discussion of them would be likely to receive serious consideration.

It is hardly necessary to insist on the certainty that our present imperfect knowledge of the limitations and conditions of hereditary transmission will be steadily added to; but I would call attention again to the serious want of adequate materials for study in the form of life-histories. It is fortunately the case that many of the rising medical practitioners of the foremost rank are become strongly impressed with the necessity of possessing them, not only for the better knowledge of the theory of disease, but for the personal advantage of their patients, whom they now have to treat less appropriately than they otherwise would, through ignorance of their hereditary tendencies and of their illnesses in past years, the medical details of which are rarely remembered by the patient, even if he ever knew them. With the help of so powerful a personal motive for keeping life-histories, and of so influential a body as the medical profession to advocate its being done,[21] and to show how to do it, there is considerable hope that the want of materials to which I have alluded will gradually be supplied.

[Footnote 21: See an address on the Collective Investigation of Disease, by Sir William Gull, British Medical Journal, January 27, 1883, p. 143; also the following address by Sir James Paget, p. 144.]

To sum up in a few words. The chief result of these Inquiries has been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty which is supposed to be exercised concurrently with, and not in opposition to the old ones upon which the social fabric depends, is an endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race.

APPENDIX

A. COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE

The object and methods of Composite Portraiture will be best explained by the following extracts from memoirs describing its successive stages, published in 1878, 1879, and 1881 respectively:--

I. PORTRAITS, MADE BY COMBINING THOSE OF MANY DIFFERENT PERSONS INTO A SINGLE RESULTANT FIGURE.

[Extract from Memoir read before the Anthropological Institute, in 1878.]

I submit to the Anthropological Institute my first results in carrying out a process that I suggested last August [1877] in my presidential address to the Anthropological Subsection of the British Association at Plymouth, in the following words:--

"Having obtained drawings or photographs of several persons alike in most respects, but differing in minor details, what sure method is there of extracting the typical characteristics from them? I may mention a plan which had occurred both to Mr. Herbert Spencer and myself, the principle of which is to superimpose optically the various drawings, and to accept the aggregate result. Mr. Spencer suggested to me in conversation that the drawings reduced to the same scale might be traced on separate pieces of transparent paper and secured one upon another, and then held between the eye and the light. I have attempted this with some success. My own idea was to throw faint images of the several portraits, in succession, upon the same sensitised photographic plate. I may add that it is perfectly easy to superimpose optically two portraits by means of a stereoscope, and that a person who is used to handle instruments will find a common double eyeglass fitted with stereoscopic lenses to be almost as effectual and far handier than the boxes sold in shops."

Mr. Spencer, as he informed me, had actually devised an instrument, many years ago, for tracing mechanically, longitudinal, transverse, and horizontal sections of heads on transparent paper, intending to superimpose them, and to obtain an average result by transmitted light.

Since my address was published, I have caused trials to be made, and have found, as a matter of fact, that the photographic process of which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would doubt its being the likeness of a living person, yet, as I have said, it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type and not of an individual.

I begin by collecting photographs of the persons with whom I propose to deal. They must be similar in attitude and size, but no exactness is necessary in either of these respects. Then, by a simple contrivance, I make two pinholes in each of them, to enable me to hang them up one in front of the other, like a pack of cards, upon the same pair of pins, in such a way that the eyes of all the portraits shall be as nearly as possible superimposed; in which case the remainder of the features will also be superimposed nearly enough. These pinholes correspond to what are technically known to printers as "register marks."

They are easily made: A slip of brass or card has an aperture cut out of its middle, and threads are stretched from opposite sides, making a cross.[22] Two small holes are drilled in the plate, one on either side of the aperture. The slip of brass is laid on the portrait with the aperture over its face. It is turned about until one of the cross threads cuts the pupils of both the eyes, and it is further adjusted until the other thread divides the interval between the pupils in two equal parts. Then it is held firmly, and a prick is made through each of the holes.

[Footnote 22: I am indebted for the woodcuts to the Editor of Nature, in which journal this memoir first appeared.]

The portraits being thus arranged, a photographic camera is directed upon them. Suppose there are eight portraits in the pack, and that under existing circumstances it would require an exposure of eighty seconds to give an exact photographic copy of any one of them. The general principle of proceeding is this, subject in practice to some variations of detail, depending on the different brightness of the several portraits. We throw the image of each of the eight portraits in turn upon the same part of the sensitised plate for ten seconds. Thus, portrait No. 1 is in the front of the pack; we take the cap off the object glass of the camera for ten seconds, and afterwards replace it. We then remove No. 1 from the pins, and No. 2 appears in the front; we take off the cap a second time for ten seconds, and again replace it. Next we remove No. 2, and No. 3 appears in the front, which we treat as its predecessors, and so we go on to the last of the pack.

The sensitised plate will now have had its total exposure of eighty seconds; it is then developed, and the print taken from it is the generalised picture of which I speak. It is a composite of eight component portraits. Those of its outlines are sharpest and darkest that are common to the largest number of the components; the purely individual peculiarities leave little or no visible trace. The latter being necessarily disposed equally on both sides of the average, the outline of the composite is the average of all the components. It is a band and not a fine line, because the outlines of the components are seldom exactly superimposed. The band will be darkest in its middle whenever the component portraits have the same general type of features, and its breadth, or amount of blur, will measure the tendency of the components to deviate from the common type. This is so for the very same reason that the shot-marks on a target are more thickly disposed near the bull's-eye than away from it, and in a greater degree as the marksmen are more skilful. All that has been said of the outlines is equally true as regards the shadows; the result being that the composite represents an averaged figure, whose lineaments have been softly drawn. The eyes come out with appropriate distinctness, owing to the mechanical conditions under which the components are hung.

A composite portrait represents the picture that would rise before the mind's eye of a man who had the gift of pictorial imagination in an exalted degree. But the imaginative power even of the highest artists is far from precise, and is so apt to be biassed by special cases that may have struck their fancies, that no two artists agree in any of their typical forms. The merit of the photographic composite is its mechanical precision, being subject to no errors beyond those incidental to all photographic productions.

I submit several composites made for me by Mr. H. Reynolds. The first set of portraits are those of criminals convicted of murder, manslaughter, or robbery accompanied with violence. It will be observed that the features of the composites are much better looking than those of the components. The special villainous irregularities in the latter have disappeared, and the common humanity that underlies them has prevailed. They represent, not the criminal, but the man who is liable to fall into crime. All composites are better looking than their components, because the averaged portrait of many persons is free from the irregularities that variously blemish the looks of each of them.

I selected these for my first trials because I happened to possess a large collection of photographs of criminals, through the kindness of Sir Edmund Du Cane, the Director-General of Prisons, for the purpose of investigating criminal types. They were peculiarly adapted to my present purpose, being all made of about the same size, and taken in much the same attitudes. It was while endeavouring to elicit the principal criminal types by methods of optical superimposition of the portraits, such as I had frequently employed with maps and meteorological traces,[23] that the idea of composite figures first occurred to me.

[Footnote 23: Conference at the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments, 1878. Chapman and Hall. Physical Geography Section, p. 312, On Means of Combining Various Data in Maps and Diagrams, by Francis Galton, F.R.S.]

The other set of composites are made from pairs of components. They are selected to show the extraordinary facility of combining almost any two faces whose proportions are in any way similar.

It will, I am sure, surprise most persons to see how well defined these composites are. When we deal with faces of the same type, the points of similarity far outnumber those of dissimilarity, and there is a much greater resemblance between faces generally than we who turn our attention to individual differences are apt to appreciate. A traveller on his first arrival among people of a race very different to his own thinks them closely alike, and a Hindu has much difficulty in distinguishing one Englishman from another.

The fairness with which photographic composites represent their components is shown by six of the specimens. I wished to learn whether the order in which the components were photographed made any material difference in the result, so I had three of the portraits arranged successively in each of their six possible combinations. It will be observed that four at least of the six composites are closely alike. I should say that in each of this set (which was made by the wet process) the last of the three components was always allowed a longer exposure than the second, and the second than the first, but it is found better to allow an equal time to all of them.

The accompanying woodcut is as fair a representation of one of the composites as is practicable in ordinary printing. It was photographically transferred to the wood, and the engraver has used his best endeavour to translate the shades into line engraving. This composite is made out of only three components, and its threefold origin is to be traced in the ears, and in the buttons to the vest. To the best of my judgment, the original photograph is a very exact average of its components; not one feature in it appears identical with that of any one of them, but it contains a resemblance to all, and is not more like to one of them than to another. However, the judgment of the wood engraver is different. His rendering of the composite has made it exactly like one of its components, which it must be borne in mind he had never seen. It is just as though an artist drawing a child had produced a portrait closely resembling its deceased father, having overlooked an equally strong likeness to its deceased mother, which was apparent to its relatives. This is to me a most striking proof that the composite is a true combination.

The stereoscope, as I stated last August in my address at Plymouth, affords a very easy method of optically superimposing two portraits, and I have much pleasure in quoting the following letter, pointing out this fact as well as some other conclusions to which I also had arrived. The letter was kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Darwin; it is dated last November, and was written to him by Mr. A.L. Austin, from New Zealand, thus affording another of the many curious instances of two persons being independently engaged in the same novel inquiry at nearly the same time, and coming to similar results:--

INVERCARGILL, NEW ZEALAND, November 6th, 1877.

To CHARLES DARWIN, Esq.

SIR,--Although a perfect stranger to you, and living on the reverse side of the globe, I have taken the liberty of writing to you on a small discovery I have made in binocular vision in the stereoscope. I find by taking two ordinary carre-de-visite photos of two different persons' faces, the portraits being about the same sizes, and looking about the same direction, and placing them in a stereoscope, the faces blend into one in a most remarkable manner, producing in the case of some ladies' portraits, in every instance, a decided improvement in beauty. The pictures were not taken in a binocular camera, and therefore do not stand out well, but by moving one or both until the eyes coincide in the stereoscope the pictures blend perfectly. If taken in a binocular camera for the purpose, each person being taken on one half of the negative, I am sure the results would be still more striking. Perhaps something might be made of this in regard to the expression of emotions in man and the lower animals, etc. I have not time or opportunities to make experiments, but it seems to me something might be made of this by photographing the faces of different animals, different races of mankind, etc. I think a stereoscopic view of one of the ape tribe and some low-caste human face would make a very curious mixture; also in the matter of crossing of animals and the resulting offspring. It seems to me something also might result in photos of husband and wife and children, etc. In any case, the results are curious, if it leads to nothing else. Should this come to anything you will no doubt acknowledge myself as suggesting the experiment, and perhaps send me some of the results. If not likely to come to anything, a reply would much oblige me.

Yours very truly, A.L. AUSTIN, C.E., F.R.A.S."

Dr. Carpenter informs me that the late Mr. Appold, the mechanician, used to combine two portraits of himself under the stereoscope. The one had been taken with an assumed stern expression, the other with a smile, and this combination produced a curious and effective blending of the two.

Convenient as the stereoscope is, owing to its accessibility, for determining whether any two portraits are suitable in size and attitude to form a good composite, it is nevertheless a makeshift and imperfect way of attaining the required result. It cannot of itself combine two images; it can only place them so that the office of attempting to combine them may be undertaken by the brain. Now the two separate impressions received by the brain through the stereoscope do not seem to me to be relatively constant in their vividness, but sometimes the image seen by the left eye prevails over that seen by the right, and vice versâ. All the other instruments I am about to describe accomplish that which the stereoscope fails to do; they create true optical combinations. As regards other points in Mr. Austin's letter, I cannot think that the use of a binocular camera for taking the two portraits intended to be combined into one by the stereoscope would be of importance. All that is wanted is that the portraits should be nearly of the same size. In every other respect I cordially agree with Mr. Austin.

The best instrument I have as yet contrived and used for optical superimposition is a "double-image prism" of Iceland spar (see Fig., p. 228), formerly procured for me by the late Mr. Tisley, optician, Brompton Road. They have a clear aperture of a square, half an inch in the side, and when held at right angles to the line of sight will separate the ordinary and extraordinary images to the amount of two inches, when the object viewed is held at seventeen inches from the eye. This is quite sufficient for working with carte-de-visite portraits. One image is quite achromatic, the other shows a little colour. The divergence may be varied and adjusted by inclining the prism to the line of sight. By its means the ordinary image of one component is thrown upon the extraordinary image of the other, and the composite may be viewed by the naked eye, or through a lens of long focus, or through an opera-glass (a telescope is not so good) fitted with a sufficiently long draw-tube to see an object at that short distance with distinctness. Portraits of somewhat different sizes may be combined by placing the larger one farther from the eye, and a long face may be fitted to a short one by inclining and foreshortening the former. The slight fault of focus thereby occasioned produces little or no sensible ill effect on the appearance of the composite.

The front, or the profile, faces of two living persons sitting side by side or one behind the other, can be easily superimposed by a double-image prism. Two such prisms set one behind the other can be made to give four images of equal brightness, occupying the four corners of a rhombus whose acute angles are 45°. Three prisms will give eight images, but this is practically not a good combination; the images fail in distinctness, and are too near together for use. Again, each lens of a stereoscope of long focus can have one or a pair of these prisms attached to it, and four or eight images may be thus combined.

Another instrument I have made consists of a piece of glass inclined at a very acute angle to the line of sight, and of a mirror beyond it, also inclined, but in the opposite direction to the line of sight. Two rays of light will therefore reach the eye from each point of the glass; the one has been reflected from its surface, and the other has been first reflected from the mirror, and then transmitted through the glass. The glass used should be extremely thin, to avoid the blur due to double reflections; it may be a selected piece from those made to cover microscopic specimens. The principle of the instrument may be yet further developed by interposing additional pieces of glass, successively less inclined to the line of sight, and each reflecting a different portrait.

Fig. 1 shows the simple apparatus which carries the prism and on which the photograph is mounted. The former is set in a round box which can be rotated in the ring at the end of the arm and can be clamped when adjusted. The arm can be rotated and can also be pulled out or in if desired, and clamped. The floor of the instrument is overlaid with cork covered with black cloth, on which the components can easily be fixed by drawing-pins. When using it, one portrait is pinned down and the other is moved near to it, overlapping its margin if necessary, until the eye looking through the prism sees the required combination; then the second portrait is pinned down also. It may now receive its register-marks from needles fixed in a hinged arm, and this is a more generally applicable method than the plan with cross threads, already described, as any desired feature--the nose, the ear, or the hand, may thus be selected for composite purposes. Let A, B, C, ... Y, Z, be the components. A is pinned down, and B, C, ... Y, Z, are successfully combined with A, and registered. Then before removing Z, take away A and substitute any other of the already registered portraits, say B, by combining it with Z; lastly, remove Z and substitute A by combining it with B, and register it. Fig. 2 shows one of three similarly jointed arms, which clamp on to the vertical covered with cork and cloth, and the other carries Fig. 3, which is a frame having lenses of different powers set into it, and on which, or on the third frame, a small mirror inclined at 45º may be laid. When a portrait requires foreshortening it can be pinned on one of these frames and be inclined to the line of sight; when it is smaller than its fellow it can be brought nearer to the eye and an appropriate lens interposed; when a right-sided profile has to be combined with a left-handed one, it must be pinned on one of the frames and viewed by reflection from the mirror in the other. The apparatus I have drawn is roughly made, and being chiefly of wood is rather clumsy, but it acts well.

I have tried many other plans; indeed the possible methods of optically superimposing two or more images are very numerous. Thus I have used a sextant (with its telescope attached); also strips of mirrors placed at different angles, their several reflections being simultaneously viewed through a telescope. I have also used a divided lens, like two stereoscopic lenses brought close together, in front of the object glass of a telescope.

II. GENERIC IMAGES.

[Extract from Proceedings Royal Institution, 25th April 1879]

Our general impressions are founded upon blended memories, and these latter will be the chief topic of the present discourse. An analogy will be pointed out between these and the blended portraits first described by myself a year ago under the name of "Composite Portraits," and specimens of the latter will be exhibited.

The physiological basis of memory is simple enough in its broad outlines. Whenever any group of brain elements has been excited by a sense impression, it becomes, so to speak, tender, and liable to be easily thrown again into a similar state of excitement. If the new cause of excitement differs from the original one, a memory is the result. Whenever a single cause throws different groups of brain elements simultaneously into excitement, the result must be a blended memory.

We are familiar with the fact that faint memories are very apt to become confused. Thus some picture of mountain and lake in a country which we have never visited, often recalls a vague sense of identity with much we have seen elsewhere. Our recollections cannot be disentangled, though general resemblances are recognised. It is also a fact that the memories of persons who have great powers of visualising, that is, of seeing well-defined images in the mind's eye, are no less capable of being blended together. Artists are, as a class, possessed of the visualising power in a high degree, and they are at the same time pre-eminently distinguished by their gifts of generalisation. They are of all men the most capable of producing forms that are not copies of any individual, but represent the characteristic features of classes.

There is then, no doubt, from whatever side the subject of memory is approached, whether from the material or from the mental, and, in the latter case, whether we examine the experiences of those in whom the visualising faculty is faint or in whom it is strong, that the brain has the capacity of blending memories together. Neither can there be any doubt that general impressions are faint and perhaps faulty editions of blended memories. They are subject to errors of their own, and they inherit all those to which the memories are themselves liable.

Specimens of blended portraits will now be exhibited; these might, with more propriety, be named, according to the happy phrase of Professor Huxley, "generic" portraits. The word generic presupposes a genus, that is to say, a collection of individuals who have much in common, and among whom medium characteristics are very much more frequent than extreme ones. The same idea is sometimes expressed by the word "typical," which was much used by Quetelet, who was the first to give it a rigorous interpretation, and whose idea of a type lies at the basis of his statistical views. No statistician dreams of combining objects into the same generic group that do not cluster towards a common centre; no more should we attempt to compose generic portraits out of heterogeneous elements, for if we do so the result is monstrous and meaningless.

It might be expected that when many different portraits are fused into a single one, the result would be a mere smudge. Such, however, is by no means the case, under the conditions just laid down, of a great prevalence of the mediocre characteristics over the extreme ones. There are then so many traits in common, to combine and to reinforce one another, that they prevail to the exclusion of the rest. All that is common remains, all that is individual tends to disappear.

The first of the composites exhibited on this occasion is made by conveying the images of three separate portraits by means of three separate magic-lanterns upon the same screen. The stands on which the lanterns are mounted have been arranged to allow of nice adjustment. The composite about to be shown is one that strains the powers of the process somewhat too severely, the portraits combined being those of two brothers and their sister, who have not even been photographed in precisely the same attitudes. Nevertheless, the result is seen to be the production of a face, neither male nor female, but more regular and handsome than any of the component portraits, and in which the common family traits are clearly marked. Ghosts of portions of male and female attire, due to the peculiarities of the separate portraits, are seen about and around the composite, but they are not sufficiently vivid to distract the attention. If the number of combined portraits had been large, these ghostly accessories would have become too faint to be visible.

The next step is to compare this portrait of two brothers and their sister which has been composed by optical means before the eyes of the audience, and concerning the truthfulness of which there can be no doubt, with a photographic composite of the same group. The latter is now placed in a fourth magic-lantern with a brighter light behind it, and its image is thrown on the screen by the side of the composite produced by direct optical superposition. It will be observed that the two processes lead to almost exactly the same result, and therefore the fairness of the photographic process may be taken for granted. However, two other comparisons will be made for the sake of verification, namely, between the optical and photographic composites of two children, and again between those of two Roman contadini.

The composite portraits that will next be exhibited are made by the photographic process, and it will now be understood that they are truly composite, notwithstanding their definition and apparent individuality. Attention is, however, first directed to a convenient instrument not more than 18 inches in length, which is, in fact, a photographic camera with six converging lenses and an attached screen, on which six pictures can be adjusted and brilliantly illuminated by artificial light. The effect of their optical combination can thus be easily studied; any errors of adjustment can be rectified, and the composite may be photographed at once.

It must not be supposed that any one of the components fails to leave its due trace in the photographic composite, much less in the optical one. In order to allay misgivings on the subject, a small apparatus is laid on the table together with some of the results obtained by it. It is a cardboard frame, with a spring shutter closing an aperture of the size of a wafer, that springs open on the pressure of a finger, and shuts again as suddenly when the pressure is withdrawn. A chronograph is held in the other hand, whose index begins to travel the moment the finger presses a spring, and stops instantly on lifting the finger. The two instruments are worked simultaneously; the chronograph checking the time allowed for each exposure and summing all the times. It appears from several trials that the effect of 1000 brief exposures is practically identical with that of a single exposure of 1000 times the duration of any one of them. Therefore each of a thousand components leaves its due photographic trace on the composite, though it is far too faint to be visible unless reinforced by many similar traces.

The composites now to be exhibited are made from coins or medals, and in most instances the aim has been to obtain the best likeness attainable of historical personages, by combining various portraits of them taken at different periods of their lives, and so to elicit the traits that are common to each series. A few of the individual portraits are placed in the same slide with each composite to give a better idea of the character of these blended representatives. Those that are shown are (1) Alexander the Great, from six components; (2) Antiochus, King of Syria, from six; (3) Demetrius Poliorcetes, from six; (4) Cleopatra, from five. Here the composite is as usual better looking than any of the components, none of which, however, give any indication of her reputed beauty; in fact, her features are not only plain, but to an ordinary English taste are simply hideous. (5) Nero, from eleven; (6) A combination of five different Greek female faces; and (7) A singularly beautiful combination of the faces of six different Roman ladies, forming a charming ideal profile.

My cordial acknowledgment is due to Mr. R. Stuart Poole, the learned curator of the coins and gems in the British Museum, for his kind selection of the most suitable medals, and for procuring casts of them for me for the present purpose. These casts were, with one exception, all photographed to a uniform size of four-tenths of an inch between the pupils of the eyes and the division between the lips, which experience shows to be the most convenient size on the whole to work with, regard being paid to many considerations not worth while to specify in detail. When it was necessary the photograph was reversed. These photographs were made by Mr. H. Reynolds; I then adjusted and prepared them for taking the photographic composite.

The next series to be exhibited consists of composites taken from the portraits of criminals convicted of murder, manslaughter, or crimes accompanied by violence. There is much interest in the fact that two types of features are found much more frequently among these than among the population at large. In one, the features are broad and massive, like those of Henry VIII., but with a much smaller brain. The other, of which five composites are exhibited, each deduced from a number of different individuals, varying four to nine, is a face that is weak and certainly not a common English face. Three of these composites, though taken from entirely different sets of individuals, are as alike as brothers, and it is found on optically combining any three out of the five composites, that is on combining almost any considerable number of the individuals, the result is closely the same. The combination of the three composites just alluded to will now be effected by means of the three converging magic-lanterns, and the result may be accepted as generic in respect of this particular type of criminals.

The process of composite portraiture is one of pictorial statistics. It is a familiar fact that the average height of even a dozen men of the same race, taken at hazard, varies so little, that for ordinary statistical purposes it may be considered constant. The same may be said of the measurement of every separate feature and limb, and of every tint, whether of skin, hair, or eyes. Consequently a pictorial combination of any one of these separate traits would lead to results no less constant than the statistical averages. In a portrait, there is another factor to be considered besides the measurement of the separate traits, namely, their relative position; but this, too, in a sufficiently large group, would necessarily have a statistical constancy. As a matter of observation, the resemblance between persons of the same "genus" (in the sense of "generic," as already explained) is sufficiently great to admit of making good pictorial composites out of even small groups, as has been abundantly shown.

Composite pictures, are, however, much more than averages; they are rather the equivalents of those large statistical tables whose totals, divided by the number of cases, and entered in the bottom line, are the averages. They are real generalisations, because they include the whole of the material under consideration. The blur of their outlines, which is never great in truly generic composites, except in unimportant details, measures the tendency of individuals to deviate from the central type. My argument is, that the generic images that arise before the mind's eye, and the general impressions which are faint and faulty editions of them, are the analogues of these composite pictures which we have the advantage of examining at leisure, and whose peculiarities and character we can investigate, and from which we may draw conclusions that shall throw much light on the nature of certain mental processes which are too mobile and evanescent to be directly dealt with.

III. COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE.

[Read before the Photographic Society, 24th June, 1881.]

I propose to draw attention to-night to the results of recent experiments and considerable improvements in a process of which I published the principles three years ago, and which I have subsequently exhibited more than once.

I have shown that, if we have the portraits of two or more different persons, taken in the same aspect and under the same conditions of light and shade, and that if we put them into different optical lanterns converging on the same screen and carefully adjust them--first, so as to bring them to the same scale, and, secondly, so as to superpose them as accurately as the conditions admit--then the different faces will blend surprisingly well into a single countenance. If they are not very dissimilar, the blended result will always have a curious air of individuality, and will be unexpectedly well defined; it will exactly resemble none of its components, but it will have a sort of family likeness to all of them, and it will be an ideal and an averaged portrait. I have also shown that the image on the screen might be photographed then and there, or that the same result may be much more easily obtained by a method of successive photography, and I have exhibited many specimens made on this principle. Photo-lithographs of some of these will be found in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, as illustrations of a lecture I gave there "On Generic Images" in 1879.

The method I now use is much better than those previously described; it leads to more accurate results, and is easier to manage. I will exhibit and explain the apparatus as it stands, and will indicate some improvements as I go on. The apparatus is here. I use it by gaslight, and employ rapid dry plates, which, however, under the conditions of a particularly small aperture and the character of the light, require sixty seconds of total exposure. The apparatus is 4 feet long and 6-1/2 inches broad; it lies with its side along the edge of the table at which I sit, and it is sloped towards me, so that, by bending my neck slightly, I can bring my eye to an eye-hole, where I watch the effect of the adjustments which my hands are free to make. The entire management of the whole of these is within an easy arm's length, and I complete the process without shifting my seat.

The apparatus consists of three parts, A, B, and C. A is rigidly fixed; it contains the dark slide and the contrivances by which the position of the image can be viewed; the eye-hole, e, already mentioned, being part of A. B is a travelling carriage that holds the lens, and is connected by bellows-work with A. In my apparatus it is pushed out and in, and clamped where desired, but it ought to be moved altogether by pinion and rack-work.[24] The lens I use is a I B Dallmeyer. Its focal length is appropriate to the size of the instrument, and I find great convenience in a lens of wide aperture when making the adjustments, as I then require plenty of light; but, as to the photography, the smaller the aperture the better. The hole in my stop is only two-tenths of an inch in diameter, and I believe one-tenth would be more suitable.

[Footnote 24: I have since had a more substantial instrument made with these and similar improvements.]