148 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



minants should liave developed, but this could never overstep 

 a certain limit, because it would then be prejudicial even in civilized 

 life. That we must be very careful not to regard large hands and 

 feet as the direct result of hard physical toil was brought home to me 

 by an observation of Strasburger's. He was particularly struck by the 

 fact that the peasants of the high Tatra (Carpathians) were distin- 

 guished by the smallness of their hands and feet. 



But while civilization has excited numerous downward variations 

 in the germ, it has, on the other hand, been the cause of numerous 

 hereditary improvements —variations in an upward direction. This 

 opens up new ground, for hitherto we have been confronted with the 

 alternative of either accepting the inheritance of acquired characters, 

 and on this basis referring the talents and mental endowments of 

 civilized Man to exercise continued throughout many generations, or of 

 admitting an increase of mental powers only in as far as they possess 

 ' selection value,' that is, as they may be decisive in the struggle for 

 existence. To these mental ([ualities belong cleverness and ingenuity 

 in all directions, courage, endurance, power of combination, inventive 

 power, with its roots in imagination and fertility of ideas, as well as 

 desire for achievement, and industry. Throughout the long history of 

 human civilization these mental qualities must have increased through 

 the struggle for existence, but how have the specific talents such as 

 those exhibited in music, painting, and mathematics come into 

 existence? And how have the moral virtues of civilized Man been 

 evolved, and particularly unselfishness'? For it can hardly be 

 maintained of any of these endowments that they possess selection- 

 value for the individual. 



It is not my intention to discuss these questions in detail ; they 

 are too many-sided and of too much importance to be treated of 

 merely in passing; moreover, I gave expression years ago to my 

 views on this subject by dealing with one example — the musical 

 sense in Man. I do not believe that the musical sense had its 

 beginnings in Man, or that it has materially increased since the days 

 of primitive Man, but in conjunction with the higher psychical life 

 of civilized peoples its expressions and applications have risen to 

 a higher level. It is, so to speak, an instrument which has been 

 transmitted to us from our animal ancestors, and on which we have 

 learnt to play better the more our mind has developed; it is an 

 unintended ' accessory effect ' of the extremely fine and highly 

 developed organs of hearing with their nerve-centres which our 

 animal ancestors acquired in the struggle for existence, and which 

 played a much more important role in the preservation of life in 



