ABSTRACT
Francis Galton founded “eugenics” in 1883 for improving the “human race.” He devoted much of his life to exploring variation in human populations and its implications. The Galtons were Quakers and businessmen who prospered over generations. Francis Galton was Charles Darwin’s half-cousin, both sharing the common grandparent Erasmus Darwin. Francis Galton was a polymath whose restless intellect touched upon several fields of endeavor, often leaving them much enlightened and clarified. Galton’s interest in personal identification led him to develop the foundations for the fingerprint systems, which are used by the law enforcement forces throughout the world. Galton suggested that moral and intellectual qualities were closely tied together among the nineteenth century English and that “many of the wild instincts of our savage forefathers” had been bred out. Galton conducted wide-ranging inquiries into heredity, which led him to challenge Charles Darwin’s hypothetical theory of “pangenesis.”
