Natural inheritance / by Francis Galton.

  • Galton, Francis, 1822-1911.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Natural inheritance / by Francis Galton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    п.] PROCESSES IN HEREDITY. 7 6 feet, as 6 feet + 6 inches ; if 5^ feet, as 5^ feet + 5^ inches ; that is to say, as 5 feet + 11^ inches/ Similarly as regards sons and daughters ; whatever may be observed or concluded concerning daughters will, if transmuted, be held true as regarding sons, and whatever is said concerning sons, will if re- transmuted, be held true for daughters. We shall see further on that it is easy to apply this principle to all measurable qualities. Particulate Inheritance.—All living beings are indi¬ viduals in one aspect and composite in another. They are stable fabrics of ал inconceivably large number of cells, each of which has in some sense a separate life of its own, and which have been combined under influences that are the subjects of much speculation, but are as yet little understood. We seem to inherit bit by bit, this element from one progenitor that from another, under conditions that will be more clearly expressed as we proceed, while the several bits are themselves liable to some small change during the process of transmission. Inheritance may therefore be described as largely if not wholly particulate, and as such it will be treated in these pages. Though this word is good English and accurately expresses its own meaning, the application ^ The proportion I use is as 100 to 108 ; that is, I multiply every female nieasure by 108, which is a very easy operation to those who possess that most useful book to statisticians, Crelle^s Tables (G. Reimer, Berlin, 1875). It gives the products of all numbers under 1000, each into each ; so by referring to the column headed 108^ the transmuted vahies of the female statures can be read off at once.