﻿30 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



Mr. Wallace has not sufficiently considered the co- 

 operation of other well-known natural causes, which 

 must have materially assisted the survival of the 

 fittest where these two " faculties " are concerned. 

 For, even if we disregard the inherited effects of 

 use — which, however, if entertained as possible in any 

 degree at all, must have here constituted an important 

 factor, — there remain on the one hand, the un- 

 questionable influences of individual education and, 

 on the other hand, of the selection principle operating 

 in the mind itself. 



Taking these two points separately, it is surely 

 sufficiently well known that individual education — 

 or special training, whether of mind or body — usually 

 raises congenital powers of any kind to a more 

 or less considerable level above those of the normal 

 type. In other words, whatever doubt there may be 

 touching the i7therited effects of use, there can be no 

 question touching the immense developmental effects 

 thereof in the individual life-time. Now, the conditions 

 of savage life are not such as lead to any deliberate 

 cultivation of the "faculties" either of the mathematical 

 or aesthetic order. Consequently, as might be ex- 

 pected, we find both of them in what Mr. Wallace 

 regards as but a " latent " stage of development. But 

 in just the same way do we find that the marvellous 

 powers of an acrobat when specially trained from child- 

 hood — say to curve his spine backwards until his teeth 

 can bite his heels — are " latent " in all men. Or, more 

 correctly, they are potential in every child. So it is 

 with the prodigious muscular development of a trained 

 athlete, and with any number of other cases where 

 either the body or the mind is concerned. Why then 



