Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development

Francis Galton, credited with the discovery of identification by fingerprinting, also took a long term interest in the study of biometrics. In this book, many different faculties, both observable and measurable are discussed in length and methods of collecting data suggested. In addition, casual observations from personal memoirs, and drawing similar cases from other reputable sources are also compared. A wide variety of topics are mentioned, including differences in appearance within family members, to subtle habits and emotional responses comparing humans and animals are mentioned in a series of chapter length essays.

By : Sir Francis Galton (1822 - 1911)

00 - Preface 01 - Section 1. Introduction, Variety of Human Nature, Features, Composite Portraiture, Description of the Composites, Bodily Qualities, Energy, Sensitivity 02 - Section 2. Sequence of Test Weights, Whitles for Audibility of Shrill Notes, Anthropometric Registers, Unconsciousness of Peculiarities, Statistical Methods, Character, Criminals and the Insane 03 - Section 3. Gregarious and Slavish Instincts, Intellectual Differences, Mental Imagery, Vividness of Mental Imagery 04 - Section 4. Colour Representation 05 - Section 5. Number Forms 06 - Section 6. Colour Associations, Visionaries 07 - Section 7. Nature and Nurture, Associations, Psychometric Experiments, Antechamber of Consciousness, Early Sentiments 08 - Section 8. History of Twins 09 - Section 9. Domestication of Animals 10 - Section 10. The Observed Order of Events, Selection and Race, Influence of Man upon Race, Population, Early and Late Marriages, Marks for Family Merit, Endowments, Conclusion 11 - Section 11. Appendix 1, Composite Portraiture 12 - Section 12. Appendix 2, The Relative Supplies from Town and Country Families to the Population of Future Generations, An Apparatus For Testing The Delicacy With Which Weights Can Be Discriminated By Handling Them, Whistles For Testing The Upper Limits Of Audible Sound In Different Individuals, Questions On Visualising And Other Allied Faculties 13 - Section 13. Addenda: Restored Sections, Enthusiasm, Possibilities of Theocratic Intervention, Statistical Inquiries Into The Efficacy Of Prayer

Since the publication of my work on Hereditary Genius in 1869, I have written numerous memoirs, of which a list is given in an earlier page, and which are scattered in various publications. They may have appeared desultory when read in the order in which they appeared, but as they had an underlying connection it seems worth while to bring their substance together in logical sequence into a single volume. I have revised, condensed, largely re-written, transposed old matter, and interpolated much that is new; but traces of the fragmentary origin of the work still remain, and I do not regret them. They serve to show that the book is intended to be suggestive, and renounces all claim to be encyclopedic. I have indeed, with that object, avoided going into details in not a few cases where I should otherwise have written with fulness, especially in the Anthropometric part. My general object has been to take note of the varied hereditary faculties of different men, and of the great differences in different families and races, to learn how far history may have shown the practicability of supplanting inefficient human stock by better strains, and to consider whether it might not be our duty to do so by such efforts as may be reasonable, thus exerting ourselves to further the ends of evolution more rapidly and with less distress than if events were left to their own course. The subject is, however, so entangled with collateral considerations that a straightforward step-by-step inquiry did not seem to be the most suitable course. I thought it safer to proceed like the surveyor of a new country, and endeavour to fix in the first instance as truly as I could the position of several cardinal points. The general outline of the results to which I finally arrived became more coherent and clear as this process went on; they are brieflv summarised in the concluding chapter.