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Show 466 DARWINISM CHAP. - - . . ossible theories. Either pre-to them we are hmrted to t.wo p this faculty at all n drd not possess . historic ~n~ sava~e rna d' ents). or they did possess rt, "J:ut (or only 111 rts merest ru rm h ! 't ments for its exercise. had ner. ther t h e mean s nor t e mke r be what means has t h'r s In the former case ·~t ~:::l~~e~s in ~l civ~lised races, many faculty been so rapr y. b k were in thrs respect, almo t of which a few centur~~~ .ac the latter case the difficulty is sav. a.ges the,m sf elvewse ; hwav e1 et o1 1a1 ssum e the existence of a faculty wstihlilc ghr ehaatde rn, evoerr been use d er' the r, by the supposed possessors of it or by their ancestor~ 1 t difficult supposition-that Let us take, then, t ~e;::udiments of the faculty, such savages possessed only the t' up to ten but with an . b'l't t ouut some rmes ' as thm.r a .1.1 Y 0 c . ~ the very simplest processes of utter 111~b1hty to perf~~ -and inquire how this rudimentary arithmetic or of geo~et Y 1 d into that of a Newton, a faculty became rapr~ly ~ae~: ~pe Vve will admit that there i La Place, a. Gauss, or ~ n bet~een these extremes, and that every possrble gradatlO . 't . the development of the there has been perf1cc\;~n~r~~tfv:~ower caused its develop-faculty; but we as(, a ment 1 b d are here dealing solely wi th It must be remem ere :V~ theory to account for the b'l't f the Darwrman . . f 1 the capa 1 1 y ? 11 't accounts for the ongm o t le origin of the mu~d, as we has 1 f - recall the essential features f d we must t ere ore, . body o man, an . ' th preservation of useful vana-of that theory. These ~re: the t no creature can be improved tions in t.h e strugg'lte'e fso fr ohrfeth ,e t1' ma e ber'ng ,. that the law acts by beyond rts necess1 I . 1 f the fittest W c have to d h d by the SllrVIVa 0 ' ' life and eat ' an . the successive stages of improve-ask, therefore, what re~atlO~ lt h d to the life or death of ment of the mathematiCal a~:s ~f :ribe with tribe, or nation its posses.sors; to the str~fg t survival of one race and the with natiOn; or to the ~f ~~a e ot possibly have had any extinction of anot~er. 1 h cann been produced by natural such effects, then rt cannot ave selection. . los of savage man with the It is evident that 111 the strugg f t 'be with tribe thi~ · h 'ld beasts or o n ' elements and Wit wr . fl ' It had nothing to do with faculty can have had no m uence. XV DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 467 the early migrations of man, or with the conquest and extermination of weaker by more powerful peoples. The Greeks did not successfully resist the Persian invaders by any aid from their few mathematicians, but by military training, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. The barbarous conquerors of tho East, Timurlane and Gengkhis Khan, did not owe their success to any superiority of intellect or of mathematical faculty in themselves or their followers. Even if the great conquests of the Romans were, in part, due to their systematic military organisation, and to their skill in making roads and encampments, which mny, perhaps, be imputed to some exercise of the mathematical faculty, that did not prevent them from being conquered in tnrn by barbarians, in whom it was almost entirely absent. And if we take the most civilised peoples of the ancient world-the Hindoos, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Romans, all of whom bad some amount of mathematical talent-we find that it is not these, but the descendants of the barbarians of those days-the Celts, the Teutons, and the Slavs-who have proved themselves the fittest to survive in the great struggle of races, although we cannot trace their steadily growing success during past centuries either to the possession of any exceptional mathematical faculty or to its exercise. They have indeed proved themselves, to-day, to be possessed of a marvellous endowment of the mathematical faculty ; but their success at home and abroad, as colonists or as conquerors, as individuals or as nations, can in no way be traced to this faculty, since they were almost the last who devoted themselves to its exercise. We conclude, then, that the present gigantic development of the mathematical faculty is wholly unexplained by the theory of natural selection, and must be due to some altogether distinct cause. The Origin of the Musical and A1·tistic Faculties. These distinctively human faculties follow very closely the lines of the mathematical faculty in their progressive development, and serve to enforce the same argument. Among the lower savages music, as we understand it, hardly exists, though they all delight in rude musical sounds, as of drums, tom-toms, or gongs ; and they also sing in monotonous chants. Almost exactly as they advance in general intellect, and in the arts |
