ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 341 



do very distinctly display their admiration for the beautiful forms, 

 colors, and songs of their own highly decorated or musical mates. 

 The facts on which Mr. Darwin bases his theory of sexual selection 

 thus become of the first importance for the aesthetic philosopher, be- 

 cause they are really the only solid evidence for the existence of a love 

 for beauty in the infra-human world. Granting the truth of his views 

 (on which I for one have no shadow of doubt now remaining), we have 

 good proof of a taste for symmetry and curved form in the magnificent 

 tail of the lyre-bird, in the wedding plumage of the whydah-bird, in 

 the twisted horns of the kudu antelope ; of a taste for color and luster 

 in the gorgeous train of the peacock, in the metallic necklets of the 

 humming-bird, in the exquisite wings of tropical butterflies, in the 

 bronze and gilded armor of the rose-chafers ; lastly, of a taste for mu- 

 sical sound in the stridulation of the cicada and the house-cricket, in 

 the deep notes of the bell-bird and the howler monkey, in the out- 

 poured song of the linnet, the sky-lark, and the nightingale. 



This close restriction of the aesthetic feeling to those objects which 

 most nearly concern the individual, and through him the species, is 

 only what we should naturally expect among the lower animals. We 

 could hardly fancy them interesting themselves in anything so remote 

 from their own personal wants as the rainbow or the sunset, the blue 

 hills and the belted sea. They and their ancestors before them could 

 not have gained any advantage by turning aside their attention from 

 the practical pursuit of food or mates, to the otiose contemplation of 

 that which profiteth nothing. Our own disinterested love for things 

 so distant from our substantial needs has arisen gradually through a 

 long process of ever-widening sympathies and ever-multiplying associ- 

 ations. But two things the insect, the bird, or the mammal could no- 

 tice, and gain an advantage for itself or its race by noticing. It could 

 pick out by its eye the forms and colors of edible foodstuffs among 

 the unedible and relatively useless mass of foliage upon earth the red 

 berry or blossom from the green leaves, the fat white grub from the 

 brown soil, the lurking caterpillar from the stalk whose lines and hues 

 it so exactly imitates. It could distinguish by its ear the chirp of the 

 savory grasshopper from the click of the hard or bitter beetle, the 

 pretty note of the harmless sparrow from the deep cry of the danger- 

 ous hawk or the greedy jay. Thus eye and ear alike became educated 

 among the superior articulates and vertebrates, in anticipation, as it 

 were, of their higher aesthetic functions. 



In the choice of mates, however, the powers so gained were exer- 

 cised in a way which we can not consider as falling short of the true 

 aesthetic level. Even the lowest animals (among those in which the 

 sexes are different) seem instinctively to distinguish their fellows from 

 all other species. In the higher classes, where the eye and ear have 

 been so educated as to discriminate minutely between various forms, 

 colors, shades, and notes, the instinct must almost certainly oj)erate 



