ils and adenoids. It could not be found that mental
capacity was closely related to any of the characters dealt with.[8] The
particular set of characters measured was taken because it happened to
be furnished by data collected for another purpose; the various items
are suggestive rather than directly conclusive. Here again, the
correlation in most cases was less than .1, as compared with the general
heredity correlation of .5.

The investigation need not be limited to problems of bad breeding.
Eugenics, as its name shows, is primarily interested in "good breeding;"
it is particularly worth while, therefore, to examine the relations
between heredity and environment in the production of mental and moral
superiority.

If success in life--the kind of success that is due to great mental and
moral superiority--is due to the opportunities a man has, then it ought
to be pretty evenly distributed among all persons who have had favorable
opportunities, provided a large enough number of persons be taken to
allow the laws of probability full play. England offers a good field to
investigate this point, because Oxford and Cambridge, her two great
universities, turn out most of the eminent men of the country, or at
least have done so until recently. If nothing more is necessary to
ensure a youth's success than to give him a first-class education and
the chance to associate with superior people, then the prizes of life
ought to be pretty evenly distributed among the graduates of the two
universities, during a period of a century or two.

This is not the case. When we look at the history of England, as Galton
did nearly half a century ago, we find success in life to an unexpected
degree a family affair. The distinguished father is likely to have a
distinguished son, while the son of two "nobodies" has a very small
chance of becoming distinguished. To cite one concrete case, Galton
found[9] that the son of a distinguished judge had about one chance in
four of becoming himself distinguished, while the son of a man picked
out at random from the population had about one chance in 4,000 of
becoming similarly distinguished.

The objection at once occurs that perhaps social opportunities might
play the predominant part; that the son of an obscure man never gets a
chance, while the son of the prominent man is pushed forward regardless
of his inherent abilities. This, as Galton argued at length, can not be
true of men of really eminent attai