Scheduled to read a paper at a meeting of the British Association in 1866, Galton felt ill, excused himself, arranged to have the paper read for him by another, and hurried away. It would be not until 1869 that he was once more entirely right in the head.

We know how it ended. But what was Sir Francis Galton thinking of when eugenics began? What led from the quiet book-lined study of a Victorian scientific worthy, loved by his family and admired by his peers, to the charnel houses of the Nazi era? Did he in fact have a crack-up, and did this lead inexorably step by step to the mother of all cultural crack-ups in Germany?

He had that rarest of all things human, an original mindand it developed early. By age six he had learned the Iliad and the Odyssey well enough to correct his elders. When his fathers friend Leonard Horner visited one day and tiresomely quizzed the child on their fine points, Galton replied: Pray, Mr. Horner, look at the last line in the Twelfth Book of the Odyssey, and scampered off. This translates as But why rehearse all this again? For even yesterday I told it to them and thy noble wife in thy house: and it liketh me not twice to tell a plain-told tale.

But there were early signs of mental fragility too. An erratic school career led eventually to Trinity College, Cambridge, but the strain of the Mathematics Tripos proved too much. Affected by dizziness and other symptoms of mental stress when trying to concentrate, he settled for a pass degree, and for six years dropped out of academic and intellectual life almost entirely. The time from 1844 to 1850 was spent adventuring in Africa and the Middle East and socialising with the hunting set back home.

When The Origin of Species appeared in 1859 it was a turning point. Charles Darwin was a cousin. Coming at a critical stage of both his scientific career and his domestic life, Darwins book shattered Galtons religious beliefs and turned him towards biological research. He always had what he called a hereditary bent of mind, and from 1859 he proceeded to investigate, he said later, matters clustered round the central topics of Heredity and the possible improvement of the Human Race.

But the two topicsheredity and racial improvementare not inseparable. Why was it that the human race needed to be improved? How was it that for Galton the central topic of heredity became indissolubly associated with the biological improvement of human kind, a worthy enough project in the abstract, but ethically hazardous in the extreme?

Doubtless there was more than one cause, but my argument here is that it mainly originated in the private grief of childlessness. Although his cousin Charles Darwin fathered several children, Galtons marriage was infertile, and as each year passed without issue he developed a growing obsession with heredity, fertility, procreation, and the need for a controlled and managed caste system that would ensure the reproduction of people like himself.

Between the idle years after university from 1844 to 1850, and the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Galton built a considerable reputation as an explorer, geographer, and travel writer. David Livingstone had reached Lake Ngami from the south and east, and in 1850 Galton proposed to approach it from the west through todays Namibia, a route of some 550 miles from Walvis Bay. With African experience in the Sudan behind him, he had the support of the Royal Geographical Society, and took the precaution of visiting Drury Lane for theatrical supplies before he left. There he bought beads and belts for trade-goods, along with a nice little crown.

This came in handy in Ovamboland. There, King Nangoro expected Galton to stand still while he (the king) spat well-gargled water all over his guests face. This was to discourage any lurking evil spiritsand no doubt it did. When Galton declined to submit to this ritual, however, the king retaliated by refusing to let the expedition continue. There matters stood for some time until Nangoro hospitably offered his daughter Princess Chipanga as a temporary wife. Galton found her installed in his tent largely naked except for a covering of

red ochre and butter, and as capable of leaving a mark on anything she touched as a well-inked printers roller. I was dressed in my one well-preserved suit of white linen, so I had her ejected with scant ceremony.

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How Eugenics Began | Roger Sandall