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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1027 



tory began, in some unknown place, plants, 

 or more likely a plant, of wheat lost the 

 dominant factor to which this brittleness 

 is due, and the recessive, thrashable wheat 

 resulted. Some man noticed this wonder- 

 ful novelty, and it has been disseminated 

 over the earth. The original variation may 

 well have occurred once only, in a single 

 germ-cell. 



So must it have been with man. Trans- 

 lated into terms of factors, how has that 

 progress in control of nature which we call 

 civilization been achieved? By the spo- 

 radic appearance of variations, mostly, per- 

 haps all, consisting in a loss of elements, 

 which inhibit the free working of the mind. 

 The members of civilized communities, 

 when they think about such things at all, 

 imagine the process a gradual one, and that 

 they themselves are active agents in it. 

 Few, however, contribute anything but 

 their labor; and except in so far as they 

 have freedom to adopt and imitate, their 

 physiological composition is that of an 

 earlier order of beings. Annul the work 

 of a few hundreds — I might almost say 

 scores — of men, and on what plane of 

 civilization should we be? We should not 

 have advanced beyond the medieval stage 

 without printing, chemistry, steam, elec- 

 tricity, or surgery worthy the name. These 

 things are the contributions of a few ex- 

 cessively rare minds. Galton reckoned 

 those to whom the term "illustrious" 

 might be applied as one in a million, but in 

 that number he is, of course, reckoning 

 men famous in ways which add nothing to 

 universal progress. To improve by sub- 

 ordinate invention, to discover details 

 missed, even to apply knowledge never be- 

 fore applied, all these things need genius 

 in some degree, and are far beyond the 

 powers of the average man of our race; 

 but the true pioneer, the man whose pene- 

 tration creates a new world, as did that of 



Newton and of Pasteur, is inconceivably 

 rare. But for a few thousands of such men, 

 we should perhaps be in the Paleolithic era, 

 knowing neither metals, writing, arith- 

 metic, weaving, nor pottery. 



In the history of art the same is true, but 

 with this remarkable difference, that not 

 only are gifts of artistic creation very rare, 

 but even the faculty of artistic enjoyment, 

 not to speak of higher powers of appre- 

 ciation, is not attained without variation 

 from the common type. I am speaking, of 

 course, of the non-Semitic races of modem 

 Europe, among whom the power, whether 

 of making or enjoying works of art, is con- 

 fined to an insignificant number of indi- 

 viduals. Appreciation can in some degree 

 be simulated, but in our population there 

 is no widespread physiological appetite for 

 such things. When detached from the 

 centers where they are made by others most 

 of us pass our time in great contentment, 

 making nothing that is beautiful, and quite 

 unconscious of any deprivation. Musical 

 taste is the most notable exception, for in 

 certain races — for example, the Welsh and 

 some of the Germans — it is almost univer- 

 sal. Otherwise artistic faculty is still 

 sporadic in its- occurrence. The case of 

 music well illustrates the application of 

 genetic analysis to human faculty. No one 

 disputes that musical ability is congenital. 

 In its fuller manifestation it demands 

 sense of rhythm, ear, and special nervous 

 and muscular powers. Each of these is 

 separable and doubtless genetically distinct. 

 Each is the consequence of a special de- 

 parture from the common type. Teaching 

 and external influences are powerless to 

 evoke these faculties, though their develop- 

 ment may be assisted. The only conceivable 

 way in which the people of England, for 

 example, could become a musical nation 

 would be by the gradual rise in the pro- 

 portional numbers of a musical strain or 



