470 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
following a trail, all are fairly proficient, and the differences 
of endowment do not probably exceed the limits of variation 
in animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct or intel¬ 
ligence, we find the same general level of development. Every 
wren makes a fairly good nest like its fellows; every fox has 
an average amount of the sagacity of its race; while all the 
higher birds and mammals have the necessary affections and 
instincts needful for the protection and bringing-up of their 
offspring. 
But in those specially developed faculties of civilised man 
which we have been considering, the case is very different. 
They exist only in a small proportion of individuals, while 
the difference of capacity between these favoured individuals 
and the average of mankind is enormous. Taking first the 
mathematical faculty, probably fewer than one in a hundred 
really possess it, the great bulk of the population having 
no natural ability for the study, or feeling the slightest 
interest in it . 1 And if Ave attempt to measure the 
amount of variation in the faculty itself betAveen a first- 
class mathematician and the ordinany run of people who find 
any kind of calculation confusing and altogether devoid of 
interest, it is probable that the former could not be estimated 
at less than a hundred times the latter, and perhaps a thousand 
times would more nearly measure the difference betAveen 
them. 
The artistic faculty appears to agree pretty closely Avith 
the mathematical in its frecpiency. The boys and girls Avho, 
going beyond the mere conventional designs of children, draw 
AA r hat they see, not Avhat they know to be the shape of things ; 
Avho naturally sketch in perspective, because it is thus they 
see objects ; Avho see, and represent in their sketches, the light 
and shade as Avell as the mere outlines of objects ; and who 
can draAv recognisable sketches of every one they know, are 
certainly very feAV compared Avith those Avho are totally incap- 
1 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. 
