GOD IN NATURE 191 



anthropological relation. Certain forms, for example, 

 adopted in the skeletons of the lower animals are 

 necessarily beautiful because of their geometrical 

 proportions. Certain styles of colouring are neces 

 sarily beautiful because of harmonies and contrasts 

 which depend on the essential properties of the waves 

 of light. Beauty is thus, in a great measure, inde 

 pendent of the taste of the spectator. It is also inde 

 pendent of mere utility, since, even if we admit that 

 all these combinations of forms, motions, and colours 

 which we call beautiful are also useful, it is easy to 

 perceive that the end could often be attained 

 without beauty. 



It is a curious fact that some of the simplest 

 animals as, for example, sponges and foraminifera 

 are furnished with most beautiful skeletons. Nothing 

 can exceed the beauty of form and proportion in the 

 shells of some foraminifera and polycistina, or in 

 the skeletons of some silicious sponges, while it is 

 obvious that these humble creatures, without brains 

 and external senses, can neither contrive nor appre 

 ciate the beauty with which they are clothed. 



Here I may pause to remark that no feature of 

 the current evolution seems more objectionable than 

 that which refers beauty to low forms of utility, and 

 to selection exercised by animals which can have no 

 intelligent knowledge even of that which attracts 

 them. To an insect a bright spot of any kind would 

 have been as effectual a mark of a honey-bearing 



