CREATION ZY LAW. 285 



of colour ; a vast number of Insects and Reptiles are 

 positively ugly. Now, if the Creator's mind is like 

 ours, whence this ugliness? It is useless to say "that 

 is a mystery we cannot explain," because we have 

 attempted to explain one-half of creation by a method 

 that will not apply to the other half. We know that 

 a man with the highest taste and with unlimited 

 wealth, practically does abolish all ungraceful and dis- 

 agreeable forms and colours from his own domains. 

 If the beauty of creation is to be explained by the 

 Creator's love of beauty, we are bound to ask why 

 he has not banished deformity from the earth, as the 

 wealthy and enlightened man does from his estate and 

 from his dwelling ; and if we can get no satisfactory 

 answer, we shall do well to reject the explanation 

 offered. Ao-ain, in the case of flowers, which are 



O / ' 



always especially referred to, as the surest evidence of 

 beauty being an end of itself in creation, the whole 

 of the facts are never fairly met. At least half the 

 plants in the world have not bright-coloured or beau- 

 tiful flowers ; and Mr. Darwin has lately arrived at 

 the wonderful generalization, that flowers have become 

 beautiful solely to attract insects to assist in their 

 fertilization. He adds, " I have come to this conclu- 

 sion from finding it an invariable rule, that when a 

 flower is fertilized by the wind it never has a gaily- 

 coloured corolla." Here is a most wonderful case of 

 beauty being useful^ when it might be least expected. 

 But much more is proved ; for when beauty is of no 

 use to the plant it is not given. It cannot be imag- 



