>H LIFE : OITLINKS OF (iENERAL BIOLOGY 



logical processi-s in the sixctator. Did not Meredith put the idea 

 in a nutshell when he said: "Ugly is only half-way to a thing"? 

 There is almost no ugliness in Animate Nature because the lines 

 and colours, in their arrangements and combinations, are the 

 expression of unified, viable, well-sifted individualities which have 

 sttKxl the test of ages of selection. Has not Benedetto Croce defined 

 beauty as "successful expression"? In the age-long struggle for 

 existence, the inharmonious, the "imjx)ssible", have been always 

 wi-etled out Ixfore tluy tt>ok firm root and multiplied. The monster 

 is a contradiction in terms. Nature pronounces her verdict on 

 ugliness by eliminating it. Beauty is Nature's stamp of approval 

 cm harmonious viable individuality. Unpleasing lines are to the 

 eye what discords are to the ear: they ask of us what is out of 

 oKler and out of tune. Human combinations of colours may be 

 ugly, and almost as painful as noises. They ask the "impossible" 

 from OUT retina. But such unpleasant colour-schemes never occur 

 in wild nature, for that would mean a contradiction in terms. Even 

 when organic colours are due to waste products, as may be the 

 case in withered leaf or butterlly's wing, there is "beauty for ashes". 

 .Nn>re than one naturalist has suggested a further step, that to 

 our primary sensory delight, with its perceptual appreciation of 

 significance, there is often added an associated idea that thrills us 

 with pleasure. This may be best illustrated, perhaps, in reference 

 to what animals make outside of themselves, though it applies also 

 to their um» of materials within themselves. When we study the 

 nests of birds, the wibs of spiders, the combs of bees, the encase- 

 ments of some arenaceous F'oraminifera, and so on, we recognise 

 great effectiveness in the use of materials, or a selection of fit and 

 congruent C(>m|)<)neiits, or a triumphing over technical difficulties, 

 or an expression of individuality sometimes touching the confines 

 of art. Tlien in a new way deep calls to deep, we have a sympathetic 

 joy in the creature's mastery of its materials and circumvention 

 of difticulties. We enjoy a vicarious victory of mind or life over 

 matter. We suggest for consideration the general conclusion that 

 all frer-living. full grown, wholesome organisms have the emotion- 

 exciting cpiality of Ixauty. And is not our humanly sjtnpathetic 

 appreciation of this pnHean beauty of the world inherent and 

 IHTsistent in us as also part of the same world of life, and evolved 

 far enf)Ugh tf) realise it more fully, communicate it to each other 

 more clearly ?• 



THE WONDER OF THE WORLD 



.Xristotle. who was not unaccustomed to resolute thinking, tells 

 us that thrr.ugh«)ut nature there is always something of the 

 vv(.nderful thainnastnn. What precisely is this "wonderful"? It 



