24 Colouration in Animals and Plants. 



of the sense of sight. We can look back in fancy to the far off ages, 

 when no eye gazed upon the world, and we can imagine that then 

 colour in ornamental devices must have been absent, and a dreary 

 monotony of simple hues must have prevailed. 



With the evolution of sight it might be of importance that even 

 the sightless animals should be coloured ; and in this way we can 

 account for the decoration of coral polyps, and other animals that 

 have no eyes; just as we find no difficulty in understanding the 

 colouration of flowers. 



Colour, in fact, so far as external nature is concerned, is all in 

 all to the lower animals. By its means prey is discovered, or foes 

 escaped. But in the case of man quite a different state of things 

 exists. The lower animals can only be modified and adapted to 

 their surroundings by the direct influence of nature. Man, on the 

 other hand, can utilise the forces of nature to his ends. He does not 

 need to steal close to his prey — he possesses missiles. His arm, in 

 reality, is bounded, not by his finger tips, but by the distance to 

 which he can send his bolts. He is not so directly dependent upon 

 nature ; and, as his mental powers increase, his dependence lessens, 

 and in this way — the aesthetic principle not yet being awakened — 

 we can understand how his colour sense, for want of practice, 

 decayed, to be reawakened in these our times, with a vividness and 

 power as unequalled as is his mastery over nature — the master of 

 his ancestors. 



