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POPULATION.
Over-population and its attendant miseries may not improbably become
a more serious subject of consideration than it ever yet has been,
owing to improved sanatation and consequent diminution of the
mortality of children, and to the filling up of the spare places of
the earth which are still void and able to receive the overflow of
Europe. There are no doubt conflicting possibilities which I need
not stop to discuss.
The check to over-population mainly advocated by Malthus is a
prudential delay in the time of marriage; but the practice of such a
doctrine would assuredly be limited, and if limited it would be most
prejudicial to the race, as I have pointed out in _Hereditary Genius_,
but may be permitted to do so again. The doctrine would only be
followed by the prudent and self-denying; it would be neglected by
the impulsive and self-seeking. Those whose race we especially want
to have, would leave few descendants, while those whose race we
especially want to be quit of, would crowd the vacant space with
their progeny, and the strain of population would thenceforward be
just as pressing as before. There would have been a little relief
during one or two generations, but no permanent increase of the
general happiness, while the race of the nation would have
deteriorated. The practical application of the doctrine of deferred
marriage would therefore lead indirectly to most mischievous results,
that were overlooked owing to the neglect of considerations bearing
on race. While criticising the main conclusion to which Malthus came,
I must take the opportunity of paying my humble tribute of admiration
to his great and original work, which seems to me like the rise of
a morning star before a day of free social investigation. There is
nothing whatever in his book that would be in the least offensive to
this generation, but he wrote in advance of his time and consequently
roused virulent attacks, notably from his fellow-clergymen, whose
doctrinaire notions upon the paternal dispensation of the world were
rudely shocked.
The misery check, as Malthus called all those influences that are
not prudential, is an ugly phrase not fully justified. It no doubt
includes death through inadequate food and shelter, through
pestilence from overcrowding, through war, and the like; but it also
includes many causes that do not deserve so hard a name. Population
decays under conditions that cannot be charged to the presence or
absence of misery, in the common sense of the word. These exist when
native races disappear before the presence of the incoming white man,
when after making the fullest allowances for imported disease, for
brandy drinking, and other assignable causes, there is always a
large residuum of effect not clearly accounted for. It is certainly
not wholly due to misery, but rather to listlessness, due to
discouragement, and acting adversely in many ways.
One notable result of dulness and apathy is to make a person
unattractive to the opposite sex and to be unattracted by them. It
is antagonistic to sexual affection, and the result is a diminution
of offspring. There exists strong evidence that the decay of
population in some parts of South America under the irksome tyranny
of the Jesuits, which crushed what little vivacity the people
possessed, was due to this very cause. One cannot fairly apply the
term "misery" to apathy; I should rather say that strong affections
restrained from marriage by prudential considerations more truly
deserved that name.
EARLY AND LATE MARRIAGES
It is important to obtain a just idea of the relative effects of
early and late marriages. I attempted this in _Hereditary Genius_,
but I think the following is a better estimate. We are unhappily
still deficient in collected data as regards the fertility of the
upper and middle classes at different ages; but the facts collected
by Dr. Matthews Duncan as regards the lower orders will serve our
purpose approximately, by furnishing the required _ratios_, though
not the absolute values. The following are his results,[17] from
returns kept at the Lying-in Hospital of St. Georges-in-the-East:--
Age of Mother
at her Marriage. Average Fertility.
15-19 9.12
20-24 7.92
25-29 6.30
30-34 4.60
The meaning of this Table will be more clearly grasped after a
little modification of its contents. We may consider the fertility
of each group to refer to the medium age of that group, as by writing
17 instead of 15-19, and we may slightly smooth the figures, then
we have--
Age of Mother at her Approximate average
Marriage. Fertility.
17 9.00 = 6 x 1.5
22 7.50 = 5 x 1.5
27 6.00 = 4 x 1.5
32 4.50 = 3 x 1.5
Which shows that the relative fertility of mothers married at the
ages of 17, 22, 27, and 32 respectively is as 6, 5, 4, and 3
approximately.
The increase in population by a habit of early marriages is further
augmented by the greater rapidity with which the generations follow
each other. By the joint effect of these two causes, a large effect
is in time produced.
Let us compute a single example. Taking a group of 100 mothers
married at the age of 20, whom we will designate as A, and another
group of 100 mothers married at the age of 29, whom we will call B,
we shall find by interpolation that the fertility of A and B
respectively would be about 8.2 and 5.4. We need not, however,
regard their absolute fertility, which would differ in different
classes of society, but will only consider their relative production
of such female children as may live and become mothers, and we will
suppose the number of such descendants in the first generation to be
the same as that of the A and B mothers together[17]--namely, 200.
Then the number of such children in the A and B classes respectively,
being in the proportion of 8.2 to 5.4, will be 115 and 85.
[Footnote 17: _Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility_, etc.,
by Dr. Matthews Duncan. A. & C. Black: Edinburgh, 1871, p. 143.]
We have next to determine the average lengths of the A and B
generations, which may be roughly done by basing it on the usual
estimate of an average generation, irrespectively of sex, at a third
of a century, or say of an average female generation at 31.5 years.
We will further take 20 years as being 4.5 years earlier than the
average time of marriage, and 29 years as 4.5 years later than it,
so that the length of each generation of the A group will be 27 years,
and that of the B group will be 36 years. All these suppositions
appear to be perfectly fair and reasonable, while it may easily be
shown that any other suppositions within the bounds of probability
would lead to results of the same general order.
The least common multiple of 27 and 36 is 108, at the end of which
term of years A will have been multiplied four times over by the
factor 1.5, and B three times over by the factor 0.85. The results
are given in the following Table:--
Number of Female Descendants who themselves
become Mothers.
======================================================================
After Number | A | B |
of Years | Of 100 Mothers whose | Of 100 Mothers whose |
as below. | Marriages and those of | Marriages and those of |
| their Daughters all take | their Daughters take |
| place at the Age of | place at the Age of |
| 20 Years. | 29 Years. |
| --- | ---- |
| (Ratio of Increase in | (Ratio of Decrease in |
| each successive | each successive Generation |
| Generation being 1.15.) | being 0.85.) |
-------------+--------------------------+----------------------------|
108 | 175 | 61 |
216 | 299 | 38 |
324 | 535 | 23 |
======================================================================
The general result is that the group B gradually disappears, and the
group A more than supplants it. Hence if the races best fitted to
occupy the land are encouraged to marry early, they will breed down
the others in a very few generations.
MARKS FOR FAMILY MERIT
It may seem very reasonable to ask how the result proposed in the
last paragraph is to be attained, and to add that the difficulty of
carrying so laudable a proposal into effect lies wholly in the
details, and therefore that until some working plan is suggested,
the consideration of improving the human race is Utopian. But this
requirement is not altogether fair, because if a persuasion of the
importance of any end takes possession of men's minds, sooner or
later means are found by which that end is carried into effect. Some
of the objections offered at first will be discovered to be
sentimental, and of no real importance--the sentiment will change
and they will disappear; others that are genuine are not met, but
are in some way turned or eluded; and lastly, through the ingenuity
of many minds directed for a long time towards the achievement of a
common purpose, many happy ideas are sure to be hit upon that would
not have occurred to a single individual.
* * * * *
This being premised, it will suffice to faintly sketch out some sort
of basis for eugenics, it being now an understanding that we are
provisionally agreed, for the sake of argument, that the improvement
of race is an object of first-class importance, and that the popular
feeling has been educated to regard it in that light.
The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals
who bore the signs of membership of a superior race, the proximate
aim would be to ascertain what those signs were, and these we will
consider first.
The indications of superior breed are partly personal, partly
ancestral. We need not trouble ourselves about the personal part,
because full weight is already given to it in the competitive careers;
energy, brain, morale, and health being recognised factors of success,
while there can hardly be a better evidence of a person being
adapted to his circumstances than that afforded by success. It is
the ancestral part that is neglected, and which we have yet to
recognise at its just value. A question that now continually arises
is this: a youth is a candidate for permanent employment, his
present personal qualifications are known, but how will he turn out
in later years? The objections to competitive examinations are
notorious, in that they give undue prominence to youths whose
receptive faculties are quick, and whose intellects are precocious.
They give no indication of the directions in which the health,
character, and intellect of the youth will change through the
development, in their due course, of ancestral tendencies that are
latent in youth, but will manifest themselves in after life.
Examinations deal with the present, not with the future, although it
is in the future of the youth that we are especially interested.
Much of the needed guidance may be derived from his family history.
I cannot doubt, if two youths were of equal personal merit, of whom
one belonged to a thriving and long-lived family, and the other to a
decaying and short-lived family, that there could be any hesitation
in saying that the chances were greater of the first-mentioned youth
becoming the more valuable public servant of the two.
A thriving family may be sufficiently defined or inferred by the
successive occupations of its several male members in the previous
generation, and of the two grandfathers. These are patent facts
attainable by almost every youth, which admit of being verified in
his neighbourhood and attested in a satisfactory manner.
A healthy and long-lived family may be defined by the patent facts
of ages at death, and number and ages of living relatives, within
the degrees mentioned above, all of which can be verified and
attested. A knowledge of the existence of longevity in the family
would testify to the stamina of the candidate, and be an important
addition to the knowledge of his present health in forecasting the
probability of his performing a large measure of experienced work.
Owing to absence of data and the want of inquiry of the family
antecedents of those who fail and of those who succeed in life, we
are much more ignorant than we ought to be of their relative
importance. In connection with this, I may mention some curious
results published by Mr. F.M. Holland[18] of Boston, U.S., as to the
antecedent family history of persons who were reputed to be more
moral than the average, and of those who were the reverse. He has
been good enough to reply to questions that I sent to him concerning
his criterion of morality, and other points connected with the
statistics, in a way that seems satisfactory, and he has very
obligingly furnished me with additional MS. materials. One of his
conclusions was that morality is more often found among members of
large families than among those of small ones. It is reasonable to
expect this would be the case owing to the internal discipline among
members of large families, and to the wholesome sustaining and
restraining effects of family pride and family criticism. Members of
small families are apt to be selfish, and when the smallness of the
family is due to the deaths of many of its members at early ages, it
is some evidence either of weakness of the family constitution, or of
deficiency of common sense or of affection on the part of the
parents in not taking better care of them. Mr. Holland quotes in his
letter to me a piece of advice by Franklin to a young man in search
of a wife, "to take one out of a bunch of sisters," and a popular
saying that kittens brought up with others make the best pets,
because they have learned to play without scratching. Sir William
Gull[19] has remarked that those candidates for the Indian Civil
Service who are members of large families are on the whole the
strongest.
[Footnote 18: _Index Newspaper_, Boston, U.S. July 27, 1882.]
Far be it from me to say that any scheme of marks for family merit
would not require a great deal of preparatory consideration. Careful
statistical inquiries have yet to be made into the family
antecedents of public servants of mature age in connection with
their place in examination lists at the earlier age when they first
gained their appointments. This would be necessary in order to learn
the amount of marks that should be assigned to various degrees of
family merit. I foresee no peculiar difficulty in conducting such an
inquiry; indeed, now that competitive examinations have been in
general use for many years, the time seems ripe for it, but of
course its conduct would require much confidential inquiry and a
great deal of trouble in verifying returns. Still, it admits of
being done, and if the results, derived from different sources,
should confirm one another, they could be depended on.
[Footnote 19: _Blue Book C_--1446, 1876. On the Selection and
Training of Candidates for the Indian Civil Service.]
Let us now suppose that a way was seen for carrying some such idea
as this into practice, and that family merit, however defined, was
allowed to count, for however little, in competitive examinations.
The effect would be very great: it would show that ancestral
qualities are of present current value; it would give an impetus to
collecting family histories; it would open the eyes of every family
and or society at large to the importance of marriage alliance with
a good stock; it would introduce the subject of race into a
permanent topic of consideration, which (on the supposition of its
_bona fide_ importance that has been assumed for the sake of
argument) experience would show to be amply justified. Any act that
first gives a guinea stamp to the sterling guinea's worth of natural
nobility might set a great social avalanche in motion.
ENDOWMENTS.
Endowments and bequests have been freely and largely made for
various social purposes, and as a matter of history they have
frequently been made to portion girls in marriage. It so happens
that the very day that I am writing this, I notice an account in the
foreign newspapers (September 19, 1882) of an Italian who has
bequeathed a sum to the corporation of London to found small
portions for three poor girls to be selected by lot. And again, a
few weeks ago I read also in the French papers of a trial, in
reference to the money adjudged to the "Rosiere" of a certain village.
Many cases in which individuals and states have portioned girls may
be found in Malthus. It is therefore far from improbable that if the
merits of good race became widely recognised and its indications
were rendered more surely intelligible than they now are, that local
endowments, and perhaps adoptions, might be made in favour of those
of both sexes who showed evidences of high race and of belonging to
prolific and thriving families. One cannot forecast their form,
though we may reckon with some assurance that in one way or another
they would be made, and that the better races would be given a
better chance of marrying early.
A curious relic of the custom which was universal three or four
centuries ago, of entrusting education to celibate priests, forbade
Fellows of Colleges to marry, under the penalty of losing their
fellowships. It is as though the winning horses at races were
rendered ineligible to become sires, which I need hardly say is the
exact reverse of the practice. Races were established and endowed by
"Queen's plates" and otherwise at vast expense, for the purpose of
discovering the swiftest horses, who are thenceforward exempted from
labour and reserved for the sole purpose of propagating their species.
The horses who do not win races, or who are not otherwise specially
selected for their natural gifts, are prevented from becoming sires.
Similarly, the mares who win races as fillies, are not allowed to
waste their strength in being ridden or driven, but are tended under
sanatory conditions for the sole purpose of bearing offspring. It is
better economy, in the long-run, to use the best mares as breeders
than as workers, the loss through their withdrawal from active
service being more than recouped in the next generation through what
is gained by their progeny.
The college statutes to which I referred were very recently relaxed
at Oxford, and have been just reformed at Cambridge. I am told that
numerous marriages have ensued in consequence, or are ensuing. In
_Hereditary Genius_ I showed that scholastic success runs strongly
in families; therefore, in all seriousness, I have no doubt, that
the number of Englishmen naturally endowed with high scholastic
faculties, will be sensibly increased in future generations by the
repeal of these ancient statutes.
The English race has yet to be explored and their now unknown wealth
of hereditary gifts recorded, that those who possess such a
patrimony should know of it. The natural impulses of mankind would
then be sufficient to ensure that such wealth should no more
continue to be neglected than the existence of any other possession
suddenly made known to a man. Aristocracies seldom make alliances
out of their order, except to gain wealth. Is it less to be expected
that those who become aware that they are endowed with the power of
transmitting valuable hereditary gifts should abstain from
squandering their future children's patrimony by marrying persons of
lower natural stamp? The social consideration that would attach
itself to high races would, it may be hoped, partly neutralise a
social cause that is now very adverse to the early marriages of the
most gifted, namely, the cost of living in cultured and refined
society. A young man with a career before him commonly feels it
would be an act of folly to hamper himself by too early a marriage.
The doors of society that are freely open to a bachelor are closed
to a married couple with small means, unless they bear patent
recommendations such as the public recognition of a natural nobility
would give. The attitude of mind that I should expect to predominate
among those who had undeniable claims to rank as members of an
exceptionally gifted race, would be akin to that of the modern
possessors of ancestral property or hereditary rank. Such persons
feel it a point of honour not to alienate the old place or make
misalliances, and they are respected for their honest family pride.
So a man of good race would shrink from spoiling it by a lower
marriage, and every one would sympathise with his sentiments.
CONCLUSION.
It remains to sketch in outline the principal conclusions to which
we seem to be driven by the results of the various inquiries
contained in this volume, and by what we know on allied topics from
the works of others.
We cannot but recognise the vast variety of natural faculty, useful
and harmful, in members of the same race, and much more in the human
family at large, all of which tend to be transmitted by inheritance.
Neither can we fail to observe that the faculties of men generally,
are unequal to the requirements of a high and growing civilisation.
This is principally owing to their entire ancestry having lived up
to recent times under very uncivilised conditions, and to the
somewhat capricious distribution in late times of inherited wealth,
which affords various degrees of immunity from the usual selective
agencies.
In solution of the question whether a continual improvement in
education might not compensate for a stationary or even retrograde
condition of natural gifts, I made inquiry into the life history of
twins, which resulted in proving the vastly preponderating effects
of nature over nurture.
The fact that the very foundation and outcome of the human mind is
dependent on race, and that the qualities of races vary, and
therefore that humanity taken as a whole is not fixed but variable,
compels us to reconsider what may be the true place and function of
man in the order of the world. I have examined this question freely
from many points of view, because whatever may be the vehemence with
which particular opinions are insisted upon, its solution is
unquestionably doubtful. There is a wide and growing conviction
among truth-seeking, earnest, humble-minded, and thoughtful men,
both in this country and abroad, that our cosmic relations are by no
means so clear and simple as they are popularly supposed to be,
while the worthy and intelligent teachers of various creeds, who
have strong persuasions on the character of those relations, do not
concur in their several views.
The results of the inquiries I have made into certain alleged forms
of our relations with the unseen world do not, so far as they go,
confirm the common doctrines. One, for example, on the objective
efficacy of prayer[20] was decidedly negative. It showed that while
contradicting the commonly expressed doctrine, it concurred with the
almost universal practical opinion of the present day. Another
inquiry into visions showed that, however ill explained they may
still be, they belong for the most part, if not altogether, to an
order of phenomena which no one dreams in other cases of calling
supernatural. Many investigations concur in showing the vast
multiplicity of mental operations that are in simultaneous action,
of which only a minute part falls within the ken of consciousness,
and suggest that much of what passes for supernatural is due to one
portion of our mind being contemplated by another portion of it, as
if it had been that of another person. The term "individuality" is
in fact a most misleading word.
[Footnote 20: Not reprinted in this edition.]
I do not for a moment wish to imply that the few inquiries published
in this volume exhaust the list of those that might be made, for I
distinctly hold the contrary, but I refer to them in corroboration
of the previous assertion that our relations with the unseen world
are different to those we are commonly taught to believe.
In our doubt as to the character of our mysterious relations with
the unseen ocean of actual and potential life by which we are
surrounded, the generally accepted fact of the solidarity of the
universe--that is, of the intimate connections between distant parts
that bind it together as a whole--justifies us, I think, in looking
upon ourselves as members of a vast system which in one of its
aspects resembles a cosmic republic.
On the one hand, we know that evolution has proceeded during an
enormous time on this earth, under, so far as we can gather, a
system of rigorous causation, with no economy of time or of
instruments, and with no show of special ruth for those who may in
pure ignorance have violated the conditions of life.
On the other hand, while recognising the awful mystery of conscious
existence and the inscrutable background of evolution, we find that
as the foremost outcome of many and long birth-throes, intelligent
and kindly man finds himself in being. He knows how petty he is, but
he also perceives that he stands here on this particular earth, at
this particular time, as the heir of untold ages and in the van of
circumstance. He ought therefore, I think, to be less diffident than
he is usually instructed to be, and to rise to the conception that
he has a considerable function to perform in the order of events,
and that his exertions are needed. It seems to me that he should
look upon himself more as a freeman, with power of shaping the
course of future humanity, and that he should look upon himself less
as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it would be
his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regulated for him,
and to render abject obedience.
The question then arises as to the way in which man can assist in
the order of events. I reply, by furthering the course of evolution.
He may use his intelligence to discover and expedite the changes
that are necessary to adapt circumstance to race and race to
circumstance, and his kindly sympathy will urge him to effect them
mercifully.
When we begin to inquire, with some misgiving perhaps, as to the
evidence that man has present power to influence the quality of
future humanity, we soon discover that his past influence in that
direction has been very large indeed. It has been exerted hitherto
for other ends than that which is now contemplated, such as for
conquest or emigration, also through social conditions whose effects
upon race were imperfectly foreseen. There can be no doubt that the
hitherto unused means of his influence are also numerous and great.
I have not cared to go much into detail concerning these, but
restricted myself to a few broad considerations, as by showing how
largely the balance of population becomes affected by the earlier
marriages of some of its classes, and by pointing out the great
influence that endowments have had in checking the marriage of monks
and scholars, and therefore the yet larger influence they might be
expected to have if they were directed not to thwart but to
harmonise with natural inclination, by promoting early marriages in
the classes to be favoured. I also showed that a powerful influence
might flow from a public recognition in early life of the true value
of the probability of future performance, as based on the past
performance of the ancestors of the child. It is an element of
forecast, in addition to that of present personal merit, which has
yet to be appraised and recognised. Its recognition would attract
assistance in various ways, impossible now to specify, to the young
families of those who were most likely to stock the world with
healthy, moral, intelligent, and fair-natured citizens. The stream
of charity is not unlimited, and it is requisite for the speedier
evolution of a more perfect humanity that it should be so
distributed as to favour the best-adapted races. I have not spoken
of the repression of the rest, believing that it would ensue
indirectly as a matter of course; but I may add that few would
deserve better of their country than those who determine to live
celibate lives, through a reasonable conviction that their issue
would probably be less fitted than the generality to play their part
as citizens.
It would be easy to add to the number of possible agencies by which
the evolution of a higher humanity might be furthered, but it is
premature to do so until the importance of attending to the
improvement of our race shall have been so well established in the
popular mind that a discussion of them would be likely to receive
serious consideration.
It is hardly necessary to insist on the certainty that our present
imperfect knowledge of the limitations and conditions of hereditary
transmission will be steadily added to; but I would call attention
again to the serious want of adequate materials for study in the
form of life-histories. It is fortunately the case that many of the
rising medical practitioners of the foremost rank are become strongly
impressed with the necessity of possessing them, not only for the
better knowledge of the theory of disease, but for the personal
advantage of their patients, whom they now have to treat less
appropriately than they otherwise would, through ignorance of their
hereditary tendencies and of their illnesses in past years, the
medical details of which are rarely remembered by the patient, even
if he ever knew them. With the help of so powerful a personal motive
for keeping life-histories, and of so influential a body as the
medical profession to advocate its being done,[21] and to show how
to do it, there is considerable hope that the want of materials to
which I have alluded will gradually be supplied.
[Footnote 21: See an address on the Collective Investigation of
Disease, by Sir William Gull, _British Medical Journal_, January 27,
1883, p. 143; also the following address by Sir James Paget, p. 144.]
To sum up in a few words. The chief result of these Inquiries has
been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of
evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and
imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a
greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the
new duty which is supposed to be exercised concurrently with, and
not in opposition to the old ones upon which the social fabric
depends, is an endeavour to further evolution, especially that of
the human race.
APPENDIX
A.--COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE.
The object and methods of Composite Portraiture will be best
explained by the following extracts from memoirs describing its
successive stages, published in 1878, 1879, and 1881 respectively:--
I. COMPOSITE PORTRAITS, MADE BY COMBINING
THOSE OF MANY DIFFERENT PERSONS INTO A SINGLE RESULTANT FIGURE.
[_Extract from Memoir read before the Anthropological Institute,
in 1878_.]
I submit to the Anthropological Institute my first results in
carrying out a process that I suggested last August [1877] in my
presidential address to the Anthropological Subsection of the
British Association at Plymouth, in the following words:--
"Having obtained drawings or photographs of several persons alike in
most respects, but differing in minor details, what sure method is
there of extracting the typical characteristics from them? I may
mention a plan which had occurred both to Mr. Herbert Spencer and
myself, the principle of which is to superimpose optically the
various drawings, and to accept the aggregate result. Mr. Spencer
suggested to me in conversation that the drawings reduced to the
same scale might be traced on separate pieces of transparent paper
and secured one upon another, and then held between the eye and the
light. I have attempted this with some success. My own idea was to
throw faint images of the several portraits, in succession, upon the
same sensitised photographic plate. I may add that it is perfectly
easy to superimpose optically two portraits by means of a stereoscope,
and that a person who is used to handle instruments will find a
common double eyeglass fitted with stereoscopic lenses to be almost
as effectual and far handier than the boxes sold in shops."
Mr. Spencer, as he informed me, had actually devised an instrument,
many years ago, for tracing mechanically, longitudinal, transverse,
and horizontal sections of heads on transparent paper, intending to
superimpose them, and to obtain an average result by transmitted
light.
Since my address was published, I have caused trials to be made, and
have found, as a matter of fact, that the photographic process of
which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a
generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but
portrays an imaginary figure possessing the average features of any
given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of
reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would
doubt its being the likeness of a living person, yet, as I have said,
it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type and not of an
individual.
I begin by collecting photographs of the persons with whom I propose
to deal. They must be similar in attitude and size, but no exactness
is necessary in either of these respects. Then, by a simple
contrivance, I make two pinholes in each of them, to enable me to
hang them up one in front of the other, like a pack of cards, upon
the same pair of pins, in such a way that the eyes of all the
portraits shall be as nearly as possible superimposed; in which case
the remainder of the features will also be superimposed nearly enough.
These pinholes correspond to what are technically known to printers
as "register marks." They are easily made: A slip of brass or card
has an aperture cut out of its middle, and threads are stretched
from opposite sides, making a cross.[22] Two small holes are drilled
in the plate, one on either side of the aperture. The slip of brass
is laid on the portrait with the aperture over its face. It is turned
about until one of the cross threads cuts the pupils of both the eyes,
and it is further adjusted until the other thread divides the
interval between the pupils in two equal parts. Then it is held
firmly, and a prick is made through each of the holes.
[Footnote 22: I am indebted for the woodcuts to the Editor of
_Nature_, in which journal this memoir first appeared.]
[Illustration: ]
The portraits being thus arranged, a photographic camera is directed
upon them. Suppose there are eight portraits in the pack, and
that under existing circumstances it would require an exposure of
eighty seconds to give an exact photographic copy of any one
of them. The general principle of proceeding is this, subject in
practice to some variations of detail, depending on the different
brightness of the several portraits. We throw the image of each of
the eight portraits in turn upon the same part of the sensitised
plate for ten seconds. Thus, portrait No. 1 is in the front of the
pack; we take the cap off the object glass of the camera for ten
seconds, and afterwards replace it. We then remove No. 1 from the
pins, and No. 2 appears in the front; we take off the cap a second
time for ten seconds, and again replace it. Next we remove No. 2,
and No. 3 appears in the front, which we treat as its predecessors,
and so we go on to the last of the pack. The sensitised plate will
now have had its total exposure of eighty seconds; it is then
developed, and the print taken from it is the generalised picture of
which I speak. It is a composite of eight component portraits. Those
of its outlines are sharpest and darkest that are common to the
largest number of the components; the purely individual
peculiarities leave little or no visible trace. The latter being
necessarily disposed equally on both sides of the average, the
outline of the composite is the average of all the components. It is
a band and not a fine line, because the outlines of the components
are seldom exactly superimposed. The band will be darkest in its
middle whenever the component portraits have the same general type
of features, and its breadth, or amount of blur, will measure the
tendency of the components to deviate from the common type. This is
so for the very same reason that the shot-marks on a target are more
thickly disposed near the bull's-eye than away from it, and in a
greater degree as the marksmen are more skilful. All that has been
said of the outlines is equally true as regards the shadows; the
result being that the composite represents an averaged figure, whose
lineaments have been softly drawn. The eyes come out with
appropriate distinctness, owing to the mechanical conditions under
which the components are hung.
[Illustration: ]
A composite portrait represents the picture that would rise before
the mind's eye of a man who had the gift of pictorial imagination in
an exalted degree. But the imaginative power even of the highest
artists is far from precise, and is so apt to be biassed by special
cases that may have struck their fancies, that no two artists agree
in any of their typical forms. The merit of the photographic
composite is its mechanical precision, being subject to no errors
beyond those incidental to all photographic productions.
I submit several composites made for me by Mr. H. Reynolds. The
first set of portraits are those of criminals convicted of murder,
manslaughter, or robbery accompanied with violence. It will be
observed that the features of the composites are much better looking
than those of the components. The special villainous irregularities
in the latter have disappeared, and the common humanity that
underlies them has prevailed. They represent, not the criminal, but
the man who is liable to fall into crime. All composites are better
looking than their components, because the averaged portrait of many
persons is free from the irregularities that variously blemish the
looks of each of them.
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