THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISMS 35 



power of the struggle for existence cannot be gainsaid; but we 

 cannot get away from the impression that we must also allow for 

 something analogous to the spirit of adventure. At all events, the 

 facts show that while the environment selects organisms, often 

 winnowing very roughly, there are other cases where organisms 

 select their environment, and often adventurously. There is a quality 

 of tentativeness in many organisms, that look out not merely for 

 niches of opportunity into which to slink, but for new kingdoms 

 to conquer. 



THE FACT OF BEAUTY 



No one who studies Animate Nature can get past the fact of Beauty. 

 It is as real in its own way as the force of gravity. It used to be 

 spoken of as though it were a quality of the exotic — of the Orchid 

 and the Bird of Paradise — now we feel it most at our doors. 

 St. Peter's lesson has been learned, and we find naught common 

 on the earth. As one of our own poets has said: Beauty crowds us 



Fig. II. 

 A Pelagic Holothurian (Pelagothuria ludwigi). After Chun. Unlike the typical 

 forms, it is lightly built and adapted for open-sea life. 



all our life. We maintain that all living things are beautiful; save 

 those which do not live a free life, those that are diseased or 

 parasitised, those that are half-made, and those which bear the 

 marks of man's meddling fingers — monstrosities, for instance, 

 which are naturally non- viable, but live a charmed life under 

 human protection. With these exceptions all living creatures are 

 beautiful, especially when we see them in their natural surround- 

 ings. To those who maintain that Animate Nature is spotted with 

 ugliness, we would reply that they are allowing themselves to be 

 preoccupied with the quite exceptional cases to which we have 

 referred, or that they are unable to attain the detachment required 

 in order to appreciate the esthetic points of, say, a snake or any 

 other creature against which there is a strong racial or personal 

 prejudice. To call a jellyfish anything but beautiful is either a 

 confusion of thought or a submission to some unpleasant associa- 

 tion, such as being severely stung when bathing. That there are 

 many quaint, whimsical, grotesque creatures must be granted, to 

 which conventionally minded zoologists who should have known 



