Hereditary genius : an inquiry into its laws and consequences / by Francis Galton.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hereditary genius : an inquiry into its laws and consequences / by Francis Galton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    three or four hundred thousand Protestants perished in prison, at the galleys, in their attempts to escape, or on the scaffold, and an equal number emigrated. Mr. Smiles, in his admirable book on the Huguenots, has traced the influence of these and of the Flemish emigrants on England, and shows clearly that she owes to them almost all her industrial arts and very much of the most valuable life-blood of her modern race. There has been another emigration from France of not unequal magnitude, but followed by very different results, namely that of the Revolution in 1789. It is most instructive to contrast the effects of the two. The Protestant emigrants were able men, and have profoundly influenced for good both our breed and our history ; on the other hand, the political refugees had but poor average stamina, and have left scarcely any traces behind them. It is very remarkable how large a proportion of the eminent men of all countries bear foreign names, and are the children of political refugees,—men well qualified to introduce a valuable strain of blood. We cannot fail to reflect on the glorious destiny of a country that should maintain, during many generations, the policy of attracting eminently desirable refugees, but no others, and of en- couraging their settlement and the naturalization of their children. No nation has parted with more emigrants than England, but whether she has hitherto been on the whole a gainer or a loser by the practice, I am not sure. No doubt she has lost a very large number of families of sterling worth, especially of labourers and artisans ; but, as a rule, the very ablest men are strongly disinclined to emigrate ; they feel that their fortune is assured at home, and unless their spirit of adventure is overwhelmingly strong, they prefer to live in the high intellectual and moral atmosphere of the more intelligent circles of English society, to a self-