colony made up of five different and more or
less hostile species. Why cannot a much more intelligent animal modify
his habits far more rapidly and comprehensively without the aid of a
factor which is clearly unnecessary in the case of the more intelligent
of the social insects?

AESTHETIC FACULTIES.

The modern development of music and harmony (p. 19) is undeniable, but
why could it only have been brought about by the help of the inheritance
of the effects of use? Why are we to suppose that "minor traits" such as
the "aesthetic perceptions" cannot have been evolved by natural selection
(p. 20) or by sexual selection? Darwin holds that our musical faculties
were developed by sexual preference long before the acquisition of
speech. He believes that the "rhythms and cadences of oratory are
derived from previously developed musical powers"--a conclusion "exactly
opposite" to that arrived at by Mr. Spencer.[12] The emotional
susceptibility to music, and the delicate perceptions needed for the
higher branches of art, were apparently the work of natural and sexual
selection in the long past. Civilization, with its leisure and wealth
and accumulated knowledge, perfects human faculties by artificial
cultivation, develops and combines means of enjoyment, and discovers
unsuspected sources of interest and pleasure. The sense of harmony,
modern as it seems to be, must have been a latent and indirect
consequence of the development of the sense of hearing and of melody.
Use, at least, could never have called it into existence. Nature favours
and develops enjoyments to a certain extent, for they subserve
self-preservation and sexual and social preference in innumerable ways.
But modern aesthetic advance seems to be almost entirely due to the
culture of latent abilities, the formation of complex associations, the
selection and encouragement of talent, and the wide diffusion and
imitation of the accumulated products of the well-cultivated genius of
favourably varying individuals. The fact that uneducated persons do not
enjoy the higher tastes, and the rapidity with which such tastes are
acquired or professed, ought to be sufficient proof that modern culture
is brought about by far swifter and more potent influences than
use-inheritance. Neither would this hypothetical factor of evolution
materially aid in explaining the many other rapid changes of habit
brought about by education, custom, and the changed conditions of
civilization g