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 are developed in civilised man which, both in 
their mode of origin, their function, and their variations, are al¬ 
together distinct from those other characters and faculties which 
are 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 most remote from all 
practical applications, to discuss the ultimate causes of things, 
the nature and qualities of matter, motion, and force, of space 
and time, of cause and effect, of will and conscience. Specu¬ 
lations on these abstract and difficult questions are impossible 
to savages, who seem to have no mental faculty enabling them 
to grasp the essential ideas or conceptions; yet whenever any 
race attains to civilisation, and comprises a body of people who, 
whether as priests or philosophers, are relieved from the 
necessity of labour or of taking an active part in war or 
government, the metaphysical faculty appears to spring sud¬ 
denly into existence, although, like the other faculties we have 
referred to, it is always confined to a very limited proportion 
of the population. 
In the same class we may place the peculiar faculty of wit 
and humour, an altogether natural gift whose development 
appears to be parallel with that of the other exceptional 
faculties. Like them, it is almost unknown among savages, 
but appears more or less frequently as civilisation advances and 
the interests of life become more numerous and more complex. 
Like them, too, it is altogether removed from utility in the 
struggle for life, and appears sporadically in a very small per¬ 
centage of the population; the majority being, as is Avell 
known, totally unable to say a witty thing or make a pun 
even to save their lives . 1 
1 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 he developed 
