62 



THE REALM OF ORGANISMS CONTRASTED 



of the hookud process of bone, so that we have an interest- 

 ing, almost startling coincidence, of an adaptation which 

 makes the eggs into a double bunch and an adaptation which 

 fixes them to the male's head. 



This is but a striking instance of what obtains through- 

 out Animate A^ature — Adaptation upon Adaptation. And, 

 as we shall afterwards see, the working out of a more or 

 less adequate Natural Selection account of how these adap- 

 tations have come to be does not lessen the wonder of 

 the variability that supplies the raw material, or the he- 

 reditary relation which conserves each gain. The magical- 

 ness has gone ; the rationality shines out more brightly than 

 ever. 



§ 8. The Pervasiveness of Beauty. 



Another undeniable impression is that there is beauty 

 everywhere. Apart from disease, which is almost unknown 

 in wild Nature, apart from unfinished organisms which 

 Nature hides away — often so carefully, apart from various 

 domesticated animals and cultivated plants which bear too 

 flagrantly the marks of man's artistically clumsy, though 

 scientifically clever, fingers, all organisms are artistic bar- 

 monies, j)^6^sing to the unprejudiced eye, evoking the 

 aesthetic emotion, especially when seen in their natural set- 

 ting. And not only the organisms themselves, but the works 

 of their hands are beautiful — the nest, and the web, and 

 the honeycomb, and the coral reef, and the bower-bird's 

 bower. Nature has given her verdict in favour of beauty — 

 the reward of survival. 



