may a very tall person.

The fact is that in this matter of beauty and breeding for beauty we
are groping in a corner where science has not been established. No
doubt the corner is marked out as a part of the "sphere of influence"
of anthropology, but there is not the slightest indication of an
effective occupation among these raiding considerations and uncertain
facts. Until anthropology produces her Daltons and Davys we must fumble
in this corner, just as the old alchemists fumbled for centuries before
the dawn of chemistry. Our utmost practice here must be empirical. We
do not know the elements of what we have, the human characteristics we
are working upon to get that end. The sentimentalized affinities of
young persons in their spring are just as likely to result in the
improvement of the race in this respect as the whole science of
anthropology in its present state of evolution.

I have suggested that "beauty" is a term applied to a miscellany of
synthetic results compounded of diverse elements in diverse
proportions; and I have suggested that one can no more generalize about
it in relation to inheritance with any hope of effective application
than one can generalize about, say, "lumpy substances" in relation to
chemical combination. By reasoning upon quite parallel lines nearly
every characteristic with which Mr. Galton deals in his interesting and
suggestive but quite inconclusive works, can be demonstrated to consist
in a similar miscellany. He speaks of "eminence," of "success," of
"ability," of "zeal," and "energy," for example, and except for the
last two items I would submit that these qualities, though of enormous
personal value, are of no practical value in inheritance whatever; that
to wed "ability" to "ability" may breed something less than mediocrity,
and that "ability" is just as likely or just as unlikely to be