DISSECTING A DAISY. 



329 



DISSECTING A DAISY. 



By Professor GKANT ALLEN. 



I AM lying on my back in the sunshine, close 

 to the edge of a southward-sloping cliff, on 

 the green and smiling coast of Dorsetshire. 

 There is a pleasant scent of thyme upon the 

 breeze, and a drowsy buzzing strikes my ear 

 from the great awkward humble-bee who is bus- 

 tling about in his burly fashion from blossom to 

 blossom just before my eyes. A few yards away 

 a couple of country lassies, some four or five 

 years old, are picking bunches of centaury and 

 buttercup, which they immediately pull to pieces 

 with evident enjoyment of their destructive 

 power. Being by trade a philosopher, I proceed 

 to philosophize upon their conduct, and pluck 

 the nearest flower I can reach, in imitation of my 

 bucolic fellow-creatures. It happens to be a 

 daisy. I look at it closely, and think to myself, 

 " What a lovely little blossom it is, after all ! " As 

 a psychologist I am bound to account for my own 

 pleasure in looking at it, and for the delight with 

 which my five-year-old friends pull it to pieces. 

 Let me dissect my daisy, then, not literally and 

 materially, as they do, but in a psychological and 

 jesthetic sense. Let me set to work and find out 

 exactly what it is in the daisy which makes me 

 like it, and what it is in myself that makes a 

 daisy please me. 



In two previous articles I endeavored to show 

 the readers of this Magazine what was the source 

 of our pleasure in looking at a carved cocoanut 

 cup and a polished granite obelisk. 1 In the pres- 

 ent paper I shall try to explain the higher aesthet- 

 ic enjoyment derived from the contemplation of 

 a simple blossom. It might at first sight appear 

 that the love of little meadow-flowers was a more 

 elementary feeling than the appreciation of a 

 work of art like the bowl or the obelisk. But I 

 think if we look carefully at the matter we shall 

 see reason to believe that even in children and 

 much more in adults the pleasure derived from 

 the contemplation of a daisy is far higher, more 

 complex, and more developed, than the primitive 

 sense of beauty in a human utensil or a massive 

 monolithic monument. We shall see as we go 

 on that mankind has really advanced from the 

 admiration for colored and sculptured human 

 products to the admiration for color and sculpt- 



1 See the CornhiU Magazine for October and Novem- 

 ber, 187T. 



ure in plants and flowers and shells and min- 

 erals ; and that the appreciation of art, rude or 

 refined, has been a stepping-stone to the appre- 

 ciation of Nature, forming a necessary factor in 

 the evolution of each new mode of aesthetic 

 pleasure. 



One element in the love for flowers is un- 

 doubtedly of immense antiquity in the whole race 

 of vertebrate animals, and goes back much fur- 

 ther than the origin of human arts. I mean the 

 stimulation of bright color — the most conspicu- 

 ous constituent in the pleasure felt by children 

 and by savages, and by no means an inconsider- 

 able element in the enjoyment of our most refined 

 horticulturists. There are good grounds for be- 

 lieving that this gratification is shared by a large 

 part of the animal creation, and has descended 

 to us men from our early half-human frugivorous 

 ancestors. The bright hues of fruits and flowers 

 seem to have been acquired by them as attractive 

 allurements for the animal eye, and as aids to 

 cross-fertilization or the dispersion of seeds. At 

 any rate, we find many animals acutely sensitive 

 to the stimulation of brilliant colors ; and we 

 know that human infants will notice red or yel- 

 low patches long before their attention is at- 

 tracted by more sombre hues. Accordingly, we 

 may consider that the primordial element of 

 beauty in flowers is to be found in their bright 

 coloring, which affords immediate pleasurable 

 stimulation to the eye by its brilliance and pun- 

 gency. 



But primeval man did not probably care very 

 greatly for flowers, even when gorgeously adorned 

 in all the richest tints of the rainbow. The en- 

 joyment of color seems to have been a gradual 

 growth, and to have depended largely on the 

 taste for personal decoration. The modern sav- 

 age does not particularly trouble himself about 

 any bright-hued objects that cannot be employed 

 for his individual adornment. He picks up and 

 prizes bits of coral, or brilliant pebbles, or glis- 

 tening shells, because these can be manufactured 

 into necklets or waistbands. He robs birds of 

 their gorgeous plumage, and animals of their gay 

 *furs, to make himself a cloak or a girdle. He 

 stains his body blue and yellow, or paints his 

 weapons and domestic implements with such rude 

 pigments as he can extract from plant or clay or 



