110 Luck, or Cunning ? 
and so to keep up the normal structure of the species. The 
working out of the process is here somewhat difficult to 
follow ”’ (there is no difficulty as soon as it is perceived that 
Mr. Darwin’s natural selection invariably means, or ought 
to mean, the survival of the luckiest, and that seasons and 
what they bring with them, though fairly constant on an 
average, yet individually vary so greatly that what is 
luck in one season is disaster in another ) ; “ but it appears 
to me that as fast as the number of bodily and mental 
faculties increases, and as fast as the maintenance of life 
comes to depend less on the amount of any one, and more on 
the combined action of all, so fast does the production of 
specialities of character by natural selection alone become 
difficult. Particularly does this seem to be so with a 
species so multitudinous in powers as mankind ; and above 
all does it seem to be so with such of the human powers as 
have but minor shares in aiding the struggle for life— 
the esthetic faculties, for example. 
“‘ Dwelling for a moment on this last illustration of the 
class of difficulties described, let us ask how we are to 
interpret the development of the musical faculty; ... 
how came there that endowment of musical faculty which 
characterises modern Europeans at large, as compared with 
their remote ancestors ? The monotonous chants of low 
savages cannot be said to show any melodic inspiration ; 
and it is not evident that an individual savage who had a 
little more musical perception than the rest would derive 
any such advantage in the maintenance of life as would 
secure the spread of his superiority by inheritance of the 
variation,” &c. 
It should be observed that the passage given in the last 
paragraph but one appeared in 1864, only five years after 
the first edition of the “ Origin of Species,” but, crushing as 
it is, Mr. Darwin never answered it. He treated it as non- 
existent—and this, doubtless from a business standpoint, 
was the best thing he could do. How far such a course was 
