“Every cabinet is necessarily selected from a limited field. No doubt it always contains some few persons of very high natural gifts, who would have found their way to the front under any reasonably fair political regime, but it also invariably contains others who would have fallen far behind in the struggle for place and influence.”

(Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1911)

John Lentell

23rd February, 1970

“We are exceedingly ignorant of the reasons why we exist, confident only that individual life is a portion of some vaster system that struggles arduously onwards, towards ends that are dimly seen or wholly unknown to us, by means of the various affinities—the sentiments, the intelligences, the tastes, the appetites—of innumerable personalities who ceaselessly succeed one another on the stage of existence.”

(From Hereditary Genius published in 1869 by by Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1911)

John Lentell

11th January, 1970

“We know, and may guess something more, of why this marvellously gifted (Athenian) race declined. Social morality grew exceedingly lax, marriage became unfashionable and was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile….”

(From Hereditary Genius published in 1869 by by Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1911)

John Lentell

31st December, 1969

“The average standard of the Lowland Scotch and the English north-country man is decidedly a fraction of a grade superior to that of the ordinary English, because the number of the former who attain to eminence is far greater than the proportionate number of their race would have led us to expect.”

(From Hereditary Genius published in 1869 by by Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1911)

John Lentell

23rd December, 1969

“….a Puritan tendency is by no means an essential part of a religious disposition. The Puritan’s character is joyless and morose; he is most happy, or, to speak less paradoxically, most at peace with himself when sad. It is a mental condition correlated with the well-known Puritan features, black straight hair, hollowed cheeks, and sallow complexion.”

(From Hereditary Genius published in 1869 by by Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1911)

John Lentell

28th November, 1969

“England has certainly got rid of a good deal of its refuse through means of emigration……she has (also) been disembarrassed of a vast number of turbulent radicals and the like, men who are decidely able but by no means eminent, and whose zeal, self-confidence and irreverance far out-balance their other qualities.”

(Sir Francis Galton, 1822 – 1991)

John Lentell

7th October, 1969