278 THE FACT OF BEAUTY 



in natural individualities are such that they evoke in us 

 an activity — a disinterested contemplative activity — which, 

 as we have said; is almost the hest of us. This is a note- 

 worthy correspondence. 



§ 9. Beauty of Animal Artifice. 



When we pass from incorporated or incarnate beauty to 

 that of artifice, we experience a delight in which there seems 

 to be a deeper note than any that we have yet sounded. 

 When we study the nests of birds, the webs of spiders, the 

 architecture of the termitary, the combs of bees, the work 

 of tube-building worms, the arenaceous encasements of some 

 Foraminifera, we recognise skill in the use of materials, or 

 selection of fit and congruent materials, or a triumphing over 

 material difficulties, or an expression of individuality at a 

 level almost reaching to art. Then in a new way deep calls 

 to deep, we have a sympathetic joy in the creature's mas- 

 tery of its materials, in its circumvention or solution of 

 technical difficulties. We enjoy a vicarious victory of 

 mind over matter. Let us consider once more the arena- 

 ceous Forminifera, organless, tissueless creatures, with 

 little visible complexity. When a Technitella makes for it- 

 self an encasement of minute Echinoderm plates, when an- 

 other species makes a two-layered warp and woof of sponge 

 spicules, when a Reophax makes a chain-armour of mica 

 platelets cemented at their margin with chitin, when a 

 Marsipella twists its borrowed sponge spicules in a spiral — 

 probably anticipating the prehistoric genius who invented 

 string, we venture to think that in such moments of en- 

 deavour and adventure in dealing with inorganic materials, 

 artistic consciousness finds its first glimmering expression. 

 We have argued that organisms are psycho-physical individ- 



