2i6 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



learner from nature, though in some of them, as for 

 example in the art of aerial navigation, he has striven 

 in vain to imitate the powers possessed by other ani 

 mals. But it may well be doubted whether man is in 

 this respect so much an imitator as has been supposed, 

 and whether the resemblance of his plans to those 

 previously realised in nature docs not depend on that 

 general fitness of things which suggests to rational 

 minds similar means to secure similar ends. But in say 

 ing this we in effect say that man is not only a part of 

 nature, but that his mind is in harmony with the plans 

 of nature, or, in other words, with the methods of 

 the creative mind. Man is also curiously in harmony 

 with external nature in the combination in his works 

 of the ideas of plan and adaptation, of ornament and 

 use. In architecture, for example, devising certain 

 styles or orders, and these for the most part based on 

 imitations of natural things, he adapts these to his 

 ends, just as in nature types of structure are adapted 

 to a great variety of uses ; and he strives to combine, 

 as in nature, perfect adaptation to use with conformity 

 to type or style. So in his attempts at ornament he 

 copies natural forms, and uses these forms to decorate 

 or conceal parts intended to serve essential purposes 

 in the structure. This is at least the case in the 

 purer styles of construction. It is in the more debased 

 styles that arches, columns, triglyphs, or buttresses 

 are placed where they can serve no useful purpose, 

 and become mere excrescences. But in this case the 



