HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



63 



ON ANIMAL BEAUTY. 

 By Dr. P. Q. Keegan. 



A CONCENTRATED individual force, an exal- 

 tation of mental, nerve, or animal force, a 

 signal development of forces operating from within 

 upon the animal framework— such, we apprehend, is 

 the principal cause of the beauty of animals. On a 

 piece of shapeless matter forces act either from 

 without or from within. A sculptor hewing a 

 statue is an example of the former ; but in the case 

 of all animal and vegetable organisms the forces 

 which determine their shape operate from within, 

 or dynamically. Now, whether we accept the 

 Darwinian hypothesis or not, we may assume that 

 every organism is developed from its conception or 

 birth in accordance with a certain type or exemplar, 

 to which at its maturity it conforms or resembles 

 more or less accurately. When it does conform 

 thereto with exceeding closeness, i.e. when the 

 forces which govern its development have done their 

 work fully, freely, and absolutely, then the result is 

 invariably beautiful. It has been said that "a 

 full development of any force or form is always 

 beautiful " ; and this doctrine is based on the 

 hypothesis, that all the originally created specific 

 forms or types or ideals are necessarily beautiful. 

 It is only some constitutional disturbance which 

 produces those "sports" or "variations" which 

 show themselves at each new act of reproduction as 

 part of the phenomenon of heredity, and tend by 

 selective breeding to lay the foundations of what 

 have been styled new species. 



There is beauty of form and a beauty of colour ; 

 there is a beauty of movement and a beauty of 

 expression. The two former seem to be related to, 

 or to originate from, the material or animal forces ; 

 the two latter seem especially connected with forces 

 more strictly mental. The beauty of form, however, 

 i.e. the well-ordered relation of the various parts of 

 the animal frame, seems to constitute the very 

 foundation or indispensable substratum, as it were, 

 of all the other elements of beauty. All animals, 

 even probably some of the very lowest of the 

 Protozoa, exhibit in their ideal conformation an 

 approach to symmetry. The bilateral symmetry 

 of the mammalia, the fish, the insect, is equal in 

 beauty with the radiate symmetry of the star-fish, 

 the sea-anemone, etc. No doubt the perceived 

 similarity of one part of the body to another awakens 

 a sense of beauty, but if the separate parts are not 

 beautiful in themselves, their similarity or well- 

 ordered relationship will not much enhance their 

 attractiveness. The beauty of form arises in the 

 first instance in the perfection of the internal 

 skeleton. Nature, in the creation of the limb, etc., 

 must have done her work thoroughly. The bones 

 must have been nourished with an adequate amount 



of inorganic pabulum, and have been provided with 

 the full complement of muscles, ligaments, joints, 

 blood-vessels, etc., arranged harmoniously and in 

 the direction corresponding to the particular function 

 which is alloted to them respectively ; and, finally, 

 the external covering of skin and of celluloso- 

 adipose tissue must have been so disposed as to 

 ensure the most finished curvilinear beauty of the 

 whole. The primordial elements of every living 

 structure consist of cells, or rather cell-contents, 

 which are endowed with the power of altering and 

 appropriating certain matters in the blood, and of 

 imparting to these matters powers or properties 

 similar to those already possessed by the living 

 structure. These cell-contents or bioplasm originally 

 spring from the single cell or ovum fertilised in the 

 womb, and become as it were distributed among the 

 various cells which constitute the foundations of the 

 structure of the bones, muscles, matrix, fatty tissues, 

 etc. This bioplasm is the seat and principle of the 

 vital energy or force that alone lives, and can change, 

 convert, mould, and form the shape and structure of 

 the body and every portion thereof. It gradually 

 becomes resolved into formed material (the cell-wall) 

 which becomes the seat of physical and chemi- 

 cal change by the operation of the blood-corpuscles 

 thereupon. The original bioplasm, however, seems 

 invested also with the power of causing the elements 

 of matter to take up definite relations towards one 

 another, so that definite compounds may result in 

 the formed tissue, be it bone or fat or muscle, or 

 whatever it be. Now, all that we can proclaim in 

 reference to the beauty of animals as related to their 

 elemental structure is, that where this inherited 

 vital force, resident in the cells of the organism, is 

 signal and individual, and where no external im- 

 pediment exists to its full, free, and perfect develop- 

 ment in harmony with its nature, there beauty is the 

 inevitable result. 



In every respect, save that of the ideal type of 

 shape and contour, it may be thought that the lower 

 animals have in the matter now indicated an eminent 

 advantage over man. Man is cramped and swayed 

 by the " conditions of existence," i.e. the conditions 

 of his food, light, air, temperature, etc., and also by 

 the current state of what is termed civilisation, so 

 that infinite varieties of human beauty and of human 

 hideousness are produced. The lower animals, on 

 the other hand, are generally free as the air ; and as 

 their life-history knows little check, their vital energy 

 finds free scope and enjoys full swing, so that among 

 the individuals of each species little difference of 

 personal appearance can be discerned. Their nervous 

 system, moreover, not being so acute or sensitive, 

 they are not so subject to disease or to temporary 

 variations of aspect and appearance as human beings 

 are. 



No doubt favourable external conditions of exist 

 ence (as food, air, climate, etc.) must foster the 



