truest piety seems to me to reside in taking action, and not in submissive acquiescence to the routine of Nature. It was thought impious at one time to attach lightning conductors to churches, as showing a want of trust in the tutelary care of the Deity to whom they were dedicated; now I think most persons would be inclined to apply some contemptuous epithet to such as obstinately refused, on those grounds, to erect them.
The direct pursuit of studies in Eugenics, as to what could practically be done, and the amount of change in racial qualities that could reasonably be anticipated, did not at first attract investigators. The idea of effecting an improvement in that direction was too much in advance of the march of popular imagination, so I had to wait. In the meantime I occupied myself with collateral problems, more especially with that of dealing measurably with faculties that are variously distributed in a large population. The results were published in my ‘Natural Inheritance’ in 1889, and I shall have occasion to utilize some of them later on, in this very lecture. The publication of that book proved to be more timely than the former. The methods were greatly elaborated by Professor Karl Pearson, and applied by him to Biometry. Professor Weldon, of this University, whose untimely death is widely deplored, aided powerfully. A new science was thus created primarily on behalf of Biometry, but equally applicable to Eugenics, because their provinces overlap.
The publication of Biometrika, in which I took little more than a nominal part, appeared in 1901.
Being myself appointed Huxley Lecturer before the Anthropological Institute in 1901 I took for my title ‘The possible improvement of the Human Breed under the existing conditions of Law and Sentiment’ (Nature, November 1, 1901, Report of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, for the same year, and reprinted in this volume.)