tainly essential to him during his early stages of
development, exist in all savages with some approach to equality. In the
speed of running, in bodily strength, in skill with weapons, in
acuteness of vision, or in power of 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 intelligence, 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.[234] 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 incapable of
anything of the kind. From some inquiries I have made in schools, and
from my own observation, I believe that those who are endowed with this
natural artistic talent do not exceed, even if they come up to, one per
cent of the whole population.

The variations in the amount of art