BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 357 



nothing to universal progress. To improve by subordinate invention, 

 to discover details missed, even to apply knowledge never before 

 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 penetration 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 Palaeolithic era, 

 knowing neither metals, writing, arithmetic, 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 appreciation, is not attained without variation from the common 

 type. I am speaking, of course, of the non-Semitic races of modern 

 Europe, among whom the power whether of making or enjoying 

 works of art is confined to an insignificant number of individuals. 

 Appreciation can in some degree be simulated, but in our population 

 there is no widespread physiological appetite for such things. When 

 detached from the centres 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 universal. 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 mani- 

 festation 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 departure from the com- 

 mon type. Teaching and external influences are powerless to evoke 

 these faculties, though their development 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 strains until the present 

 type became so rare as to be negligible. It by no means follows 

 that in any other respect the resulting population would be dis- 

 guishable from the present one. Difficulties of this kind beset the 

 efforts of anthropologists to trace racial origins. It must continually 

 be remembered that most characters are independently transmitted 

 and capable of such recombination. In the light of Mendelian 

 knowledge the discussion whether a race is pure or mixed loses 

 almost all significance. A race is pure if it breeds pure and not 

 otherwise. Historically we may know that a race like our own was, 

 as a matter of fact, of mixed origin. But a character may have been 

 introduced by a single individual, though subsequently it becomes 

 common to the race. This is merely a variant on the familiar 

 paradox that in the course of time if registration is accurate we shall 

 all have the same surname. In the case of music, for instance, the 

 gift, originally perhaps from a Welsh source, might permeate the 

 nation, and the question would then arise whether the nation, so 

 ch tnged, was the English nation or not. 



(To be continued.) 



