no NATURAL SELECTION AND 



The art of writing, the Hindoo system of 

 numerical notation, access to printed text- 

 books, the opportunity of going to Cambridge, 

 are all conditions for the development of latent 

 inherited mathematical capacity. On the other 

 hand, suppose a man born even at the present 

 day with the brains of a Newton (and perhaps 

 with the feeble body of a Newton also), in the 

 backwoods of Western America, he would 

 probably prove a failure, unless he could turn 

 his gifts to the purposes of commercial specu- 

 lation : he would be very unlikely to become 

 an eminent mathematician. 



The same arguments will apply in the case 

 of music. It is most certainly untrue that 

 music has not been useful to tribes in their 

 struQfSfle for existence. The bard has been no 

 inconsiderable factor in stimulating the courage 

 and furthering the cohesion of human societies. 

 " Let who will make the laws of a nation, let 

 me make its ballads," said Fletcher of Saltoun ; 

 and if for " ballads " we put the more general 

 term " sones," the truth is still more obvious. 

 The Marseillaise and Die Wacht am Rhein 

 count for a good deal in the successes of 

 French and German armies. It was not in 



