Early Anthropological Researches 101
lower degree than I might otherwise have been inclined to suppose to ancestral natural peculiarities. All of us are familiar with another and an exactly opposite opinion. It is popularly said that the children of religious parents frequently turn out badly, and numerous instances are quoted to support this assertion. If a wider induction and a careful analysis should prove the correctness of this view, it might appear to strongly oppose the theory of heredity.
On both these accounts, it is absolutely necessary, to the just treatment of my subjectAo inquire into the history of religious people, and learn the extent of their hereditary peculiarities, and whether or no their lives are attended by exceptionally good fortune." (pp. 257-8.)
Galton then starts on his analysis and finds that
"As a general rule, the men in Middleton's collection had considerable intellectual capacity and natural eagerness for study, both-of which qualities were commonly manifest in boyhood. Most of them wrote voluminously, and were continually engaged in preachings and religious services. They had evidently a strong need of utterance. They were generally, but by no means universally, of religious parentage There is no case in which either or both parents are distinctly described as having been sinful, though there are two cases of meanness and one of
over-spending The Divines, as a whole, have had hardly any appreciable influence in founding the governing families of England, or in producing our judges, statesmen, commanders, men of literature and science, poets or artists. The Divines are but moderately prolific." (pp. 260-2.)
Those who marry often marry several times ; thus out of Galton's 100, three married four times, two three times, and twelve had two wives apiece. Galton accounts for the early deaths of the wives of Divines by the hypothesis that their constitutions were on the whole weak. They were usually women of great piety, and
"there is a frequent correlation between an unusually devout disposition and a weak constitution." (p. 264.)
Galton finds the median age at death of Divines to be 62 to 63, which is rather less than that of eminent men dealt with in other parts of his volume.
"As regards health, the constitutions of most of the divines were remarkably bad." (p. 265.)
Studying young scholars or students he finds that they either die young, or strengthening as they grow retain their scholarly tastes and indulge them with sustained energy, or lastly live on in a sickly way. The Divines are largely recruited from the last class.
"There is an air of invalidism about most religious biographies It is curious how large
a part of religious biographies is commonly given up to the occurrences of the sick room'
I can add other reasons to corroborate my very strong impression that the Divines are, on the whole, an ailing body of men." (pp. 265-74.)
Those who were of vigorous constitution had too frequently been wild in their youth. Galton generally concludes that a pious disposition is decidedly hereditary, but there are also frequent cases of the sons of pious parents turning out badly.
' Thus Rivet's biography is cited. He died after twelve days' suffering of strangulation of the intestines, the remedies attempted, each successive pang and each corresponding religious ejaculation is recorded,; the history of his bowel attack being protracted through forty-five pages or as much space as is allotted to the entire biographies of four average divines. Where the piety of the divine is not witnessed by his martyrdom by men, it must be illustrated by his martyrdom by disease.