Human Physiology. /?/ 



element of beauty. This is remarkably shown in gems, insects, 

 flowers, and birds shown in sea and sky, shown everywhere. 

 The peacock seems proud of his tail, and ashamed of his ugly 

 feet; the bird of paradise is said to spend a large part of his 

 time in cleaning and arranging his beautiful feathers. Nor 

 must we forget the beauty of those living flowers, the butterflies, 

 nor the strange transformation from a ravenous caterpillar, 

 eating many times its weight in a few hours, to the ethereal, 

 winged creature, whose alimentary system is reduced to a 

 thread, and whose only food is a drop of honey dew; nor the 

 wonderful forms, finish, and colours of the beetles, who shine 

 with diamonds and pearls, emeralds and rubies, whose splen- 

 dours the highest powers of the microscope only make more 

 effective. An insect with round lustrous eyes of twelve thousand 

 lenses, in burnished armour of green, black, and gold, with four 

 gorgeous wings like iridescent glass is a splendid combination 

 of strength, lightness, and beauty. I do not know the object 

 of its creation, nor the process; but I do not believe it is the 

 result of a long series of accidental variations. 



This wonderful beauty of life exists not only in the earth and 

 heavens, but in the depths of the sea, in bright corals, luminous 

 sea pens, and the wondrous living flowers to which beauty can 

 be of no advantage in aid of sexual selection, any more than 

 the lovely forms and delicate painting of shells. The micro- 

 scopic world is as full of the beauty of exquisite forms as that 

 we can see with our natural vision. The very worms of the sea 

 annelida are among the most wonderful and beautiful objects 

 of which we have any knowledge, with their bright green rings, 

 purple crests, and clouds of living cables, while every move- 

 ment emits flashes of splendour, in which prismatic tints are 

 blended with the brightest metallic reflections. One of these 

 complex and gorgeous creatures moves forward with a thousand 

 feet, is covered with beautiful vermillion plumes, protrudes a pro- 

 boscis with three pairs of jaws. The colours of the brightest 



