OCR Text |
Show 472 DARWINISM CHAP. not, therefore, possibly have been developed in him by means of the law of natural selection. We have thus shown, by two distinct lines of argument, that faculties arc developed in civilised man which, both in their mode of oriain their function, and their variations, arc nJtoaether distinct fr-m~ those other characters and faculties which ar~ essential to him, and which have been brought to their actual state of efficiency by the necessities of his existence. And besides the three which have been specially referred to, there are others which evidently belong to the same class. Such is the metaphysical faculty, which enables us to form abstract conceptions of a kind the n~ost remote fron~ all practical application , to discuss the ult~matc cau. e. of thmgs, the nature and qualitie. of matter, motion, and force, of space and time of c<.wsc and effect, of will and conscience. • 'pccnbtions 0;1 these abstract and difficult questions are impossible to savages, who seem to have no ment~l faculty enabling them to grasp the essential ideas or conce~t10ns; yet whenever any race attains to civilisation, and. compnses a body of people who, whether as priests or philosophers, are relieved from the neces. ity of labour or of taking an active part in. war or government, the metaphysical ~acuity appears to ~prmg . ncldenly into existence, although, hke the other_ f~cult1es we h t~vc referred to, it is always confined to a. very hm1ted proport1011 of the population. In the same class we may place the peculiar faculty of wi t and humour, an altogether nn.tural gift whose devclop~1 cnt appears to be p:uallcl with that of the other exceptional facultio . Like them, it is almost unknown among savages, but appears more or less frequently as civilisation advances and the interests of life hccome more numerou. and more complex. Like them, too, it i altogether removed from utility in tho struaalc for life, a,nd appears sporadically in a very small pcrcent~~ c of the population; the majority being, a. i. well know~, totally unable to say a witty thing or make a pnn even to save their livcs.1 l In the latter part of his essay ?n Her~dity (pp. 91-.9? of t}~ e, volm.1~ ? ?~' Essays), Dr. Weismann refers to tbts questwn of the ongm of t,dents m man, and, like my elf, comes to the conclusion that they could not be developecl XV DARWIN! M APPLIED TO MAN 473 J'he Inte1pretation of the Farts. The facts now set forth prove the cxistcn ·c of a number ?f mental facul~ics which either do not cxi 't at all or exist m a very nuhmcntary condition in savages, but appear a~~~· t uddenly and in perfect development in tho hi<rher ClVJhsc~l races. _The. e same facultic. arc fnrthcr charactc1~scd by, thc1r · pora<lJC. character, hcing well developed only in a vciy small pro1~or_t10n _of the _connnnnity; and hy the enormous amou~lt of vanat1on l!t thmr clovclopmont, tho higher manifestat10ns of _them being many times-perhaps a hnnclrcd or a thousa1~d _t1m?s-. trongcr than the lower. E:tch of these characton 't1cs Is totally inconsistent with any action of the law of na.tural selection in th production of the faculties referr~cl to ;_ and the !a?ts, taken in their entirety, compel us ~o Iecoo·msc some ongm for them wholly di tinct from that whiCh has served to account for the animal characteristicswhether bodily or mental- of man. under_ the Jn.:v. of natural. sel~ction: He says : "It may be objected that, in n~an, m aclr~ItlOI~ ~o the Illiitlllcts mhcrent in every individual, pecial indiVH. lual pre(lispo~Itions are. als.o found, of such a natmc that it is impossihle they ca ~1 have an sen ~y llld~vi1lual v~riations of the germ-plasm. On the other li,l!Hl, these pre~ltspositions-wluch we call talents-cannot have arisen through natural seleciwn, because life i. in no way dependent on their presence and there seems to l_Jc no way of ~xplai1~ing their origin except by an a smnp: t~on of .~he summation of the sk tll attamed by exercise in th' course of each smgle ltlc. In th_is ?a. e, therefore, we eem at first sight to be compelled to accept the tran~nns'>IOn of acquired characters." \Vei:nnann then goes on to show ~l1~t thP Jac.ts do not support this view; that the matiiematical, musical, or arti ·tiC faculties. often appc:~r suddenly in a family whose otl1er members ~md. an_c~Rtors were 111 no way dtstinguishe<l; and that even when hereditary ~n familie~, the talent often appears at its maximum at the commencement or In the nu.<ldlc of the series, not increasing to the end, as it should do if it depended lll any way on the t ransm ission of acqnire<l skill. Gau ·s was not the son of. a mathematician, nor Handel of a mu. ician, nor 'l'itian of a painter, and th ere IS no proof of any special talent in the ancestor of these men of genius, who at once tlc~elope<l tl~ most marvellous pre-eminence in their r<'spective talents. An<l after showlllg that such great men only appear at certain , tages of human development, an<l that two or more of the special talents are not unfreqnently com hi ned in one individual he concludes thus- " Upon Uiis snhject I only wi h to a(l~l that, in my op inion, talents do not appe_ar to dep l.Hl npon the improvement of any special mental quality hy contmned practwe, hut they are the expression, and to a certain extent the bre-J~rotln?t, of the human mind, which is 0 liighly developed in an directiOns.' .It will, .r thi1~k, he admitted that this Yicw l1anlly accounts for the ex1steuce oi the highly peculiar human facultie~ in r1ucstion . |