Darwinism (1889) Part 37

[Footnote 230: Lubbock's _Origin of Civilisation_, fourth edition, pp.

434-440; Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, chap. vii.]

[Footnote 231: It has been recently stated that some of these facts are erroneous, and that some Australians can keep accurate reckoning up to 100, or more, when required. But this does not alter the general fact that many low races, including the Australians, have no words for high numbers and never require to use them. If they are now, with a little practice, able to count much higher, this indicates the possession of a faculty which could not have been developed under the law of utility only, since the absence of words for such high numbers shows that they were neither used nor required.]

[Footnote 232: Article Arithmetic in _Eng. Cyc. of Arts and Sciences_.]

[Footnote 233: See "History of Music," in _Eng. Cyc._, Science and Arts Division.]

[Footnote 234: This is the estimate furnished me by two mathematical masters in one of our great public schools of the proportion of boys who have any special taste or capacity for mathematical studies. Many more, of course, can be drilled into a fair knowledge of elementary mathematics, but only this small proportion possess the natural faculty which renders it possible for them ever to rank high as mathematicians, to take any pleasure in it, or to do any original mathematical work.]

[Footnote 235: I am informed, however, by a music master in a large school that only about one per cent have real or decided musical talent, corresponding curiously with the estimate of the mathematicians.]

[Footnote 236: In the latter part of his essay on Heredity (pp. 91-93 of the volume of _Essays_), Dr. Weismann refers to this question of the origin of "talents" in man, and, like myself, comes to the conclusion that they could not be developed under the law of natural selection. He says: "It may be objected that, in man, in addition to the instincts inherent in every individual, special individual predispositions are also found, of such a nature that it is impossible they can have arisen by individual variations of the germ-plasm. On the other hand, these predispositions--which we call talents--cannot have arisen through natural selection, because life is in no way dependent on their presence, and there seems to be no way of explaining their origin except by an a.s.sumption of the summation of the skill attained by exercise in the course of each single life. In this case, therefore, we seem at first sight to be compelled to accept the transmission of acquired characters." Weismann then goes on to show that the facts do not support this view; that the mathematical, musical, or artistic faculties often appear suddenly in a family whose other members and ancestors were in no way distinguished; and that even when hereditary in families, the talent often appears at its maximum at the commencement or in the middle of the series, not increasing to the end, as it should do if it depended in any way on the transmission of acquired skill. Gauss was not the son of a mathematician, nor Handel of a musician, nor t.i.tian of a painter, and there is no proof of any special talent in the ancestors of these men of genius, who at once developed the most marvellous pre-eminence in their respective talents. And after showing that such great men only appear at certain stages of human development, and that two or more of the special talents are not unfrequently combined in one individual, he concludes thus--

"Upon this subject I only wish to add that, in my opinion, talents do not appear to depend upon the improvement of any special mental quality by continued practice, but they are the expression, and to a certain extent the bye-product, of the human mind, which is so highly developed in all directions."

It will, I think, be admitted that this view hardly accounts for the existence of the highly peculiar human faculties in question.]

[Footnote 237: For an earlier discussion of this subject, with some wider applications, see the author's _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_, chap. x.]

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