Hereditary Character and Talent

<p>A half-cousin of Charles Darwin Francis Galton was uniquely positioned to be one of the first to consider how the principles Darwin laid out in his "Origin of the Species" could be applied to the human race.  Indeed Galton would be the one to coin the word 'eugenics.'  In Galton's influential "Hereditary Character and Talent" he argued that if physical attributes could be subjected to Darwinian principles of selection 'mental qualities' could be as well.  He generated a list of 'notable persons' in order to demonstrate that intelligence and excellence were hereditary.  Today such applications of Darwinism are cavalierly dismissed as 'pseudo-science' but there was a time not so long ago when they were simply accepted as pure straight-forward rock solid science.  This edition is carefully reproduced from Galton's essay published in two parts in MacMillan's Magazine in 1865.</p>