470 DARWINISM chap. 



following a trail, all are fairly proficient, and the differences 

 of endowment do not probably exceed the limits of variation 

 in animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct or intel- 

 ligence, we find the same general level of development. Every 

 wren makes a fairly good nest like its fellows ; every fox has 

 an average amount of the sagacity of its race ; while all the 

 higher birds and mammals have the necessary affections and 

 instincts needful for the protection and bringing-up of their 

 offspring. 



But in those specially developed faculties of civilised man 

 which we have been considering, the case is very different. 

 They exist only in a small proportion of individuals, while 

 the difference of capacity between these favoured individuals 

 and the average of mankind is enormous. Taking first the 

 mathematical faculty, probably fewer than one in a hundred 

 really possess it, the great bulk of the population having 

 no natural ability for the study, or feeling the slightest 

 interest in it. 1 And if we attempt to measure the 

 amount of variation in the faculty itself between a first- 

 class mathematician and the ordinary run of people who find 

 any kind of calculation confusing and altogether devoid of 

 interest, it is probable that the former could not be estimated 

 at less than a hundred times the latter, and perhaps a thousand 

 times would more nearly measure the difference between 

 them. 



The artistic faculty appears to agree pretty closely with 

 the mathematical in its frequency. The boys and girls who, 

 going beyond the mere conventional designs of children, draw 

 what they see, not what they know to be the shape of things ; 

 who naturally sketch in perspective, because it is thus they 

 see objects ; who see, and represent in their sketches, the light 

 and shade as well as the mere outlines of objects ; and who 

 can draw recognisable sketches of every one they know, are 

 certainly very few compared with those who are totally incap- 



1 This is the estimate furnished me by two mathematical masters in one of 

 our great public schools of the proportion of boys who have any special 

 taste or capacity for mathematical studies. Many more, of course, can be 

 drilled into a fair knowledge of elementary mathematics, but only this small 

 proportion possess the natural faculty which renders it possible for them ever 

 to rank high as mathematicians, to take any pleasure in it, or to do any 

 original mathematical work. 



