Applied Eugenics | Page 5

a separate individual. As would be expected, these
identical twins are always of the same sex, and extremely like each
other, so that sometimes their own mother can not tell them apart. This
likeness extends to all sorts of traits:--they have lost their milk teeth on
the same day in one case, they even fell ill on the same day with the
same disease, even though they were in different cities.
Now Galton reasoned that if environment really changes the inborn
character, then these identical twins, who start life as halves of the
same whole, ought to become more unlike if they were brought up
apart; and as they grew older and moved into different spheres of
activity, they ought to become measurably dissimilar. On the other
hand, ordinary twins, who start dissimilar, ought to become more alike
when brought up in the same family, on the same diet, among the same
friends, with the same education. If the course of years shows that
identical twins remain as like as ever and ordinary twins as unlike as
ever, regardless of changes in conditions, then environment will have
failed to demonstrate that it has any great power to modify one's inborn
nature in these traits.
With this view, Galton collected the history of eighty pairs of identical
twins, thirty-five cases being accompanied by very full details, which
showed that the twins were really as nearly identical, in childhood, as
one could expect to find. On this point, Galton's inquiries were careful,
and the replies satisfactory. They are not, however, as he remarks,
much varied in character. "When the twins are children, they are
usually distinguished by ribbons tied around the wrist or neck;
nevertheless the one is sometimes fed, physicked, and whipped by
mistake for the other, and the description of these little domestic
catastrophes was usually given by the mother, in a phraseology, that is
sometimes touching by reason of its seriousness. I have one case in
which a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in their
bath, and the presumed A is not really B, and vice versa. In another
case, an artist was engaged on the portraits of twins who were between
three and four years of age; he had to lay aside his work for three weeks,
and, on resuming it, could not tell to which child the respective likeness

he had in hand belonged. The mistakes become less numerous on the
part of the mother during the boyhood and girlhood of the twins, but
are almost as frequent as before on the part of strangers. I have many
instances of tutors being unable to distinguish their twin pupils. Two
girls used regularly to impose on their music teacher when one of them
wanted a whole holiday; they had their lessons at separate hours, and
the one girl sacrificed herself to receive two lessons on the same day,
while the other one enjoyed herself from morning to evening. Here is a
brief and comprehensive account: 'Exactly alike in all, their
schoolmasters could never tell them apart; at dancing parties they
constantly changed partners without discovery; their close resemblance
is scarcely diminished by age."
[Illustration: FOUR BABY GIRLS AT ONCE
FIG. 1.--These quadruplet daughters were born to Mr. and Mrs. F. M.
Keys, Hollis, Okla., on July 4, 1915, and were seven months old when
the photograph was taken. Up to that time they had never had any other
nourishment than their mother's milk. Their weights at birth were as
follows (reading from left to right): Roberta, 4 pounds; Mona, 4-1/2
pounds; Mary, 4-1/4 pounds; Leota, 3-3/4 pounds. When photographed,
Roberta weighed 16 pounds and each of the others weighed 16-1/4.
Their aunt vouches for the fact that the care of the four is less trouble
than a single baby often makes. The mother has had no previous plural
births, although she has borne four children prior to these. Her own
mother had but two children, a son and a daughter, and there is no
record of twins on the mother's side. The father of the quadruplets is
one of twelve children, among whom is one pair of twins. It is known
that twinning is largely due to inheritance, and it would seem that the
appearance of these quadruplets is due to the hereditary influence of the
father rather than the mother. If this is the case, then the four girls must
all have come from one egg-cell, which split up at an early stage. Note
the uniform shape of the mouth, and the ears, set unusually low on the
head.]
"The following is a typical schoolboy anecdote:
"'Two twins were fond of playing tricks, and complaints were

frequently made; but the boys would never own which was the guilty
one, and the complainants were never certain which