Masterpieces of Science 



from the facts and arguments here brought 

 forward, that very much of the variety both of 

 colour and markings among animals is due to 

 the supreme importance of concealment, and 

 thus the various tints of minerals and vegetables 

 have been directly reproduced in the animal 

 kingdom, and again and again modified as 

 more special protection became necessary. We 

 shall thus have two causes for the development 

 of colour in the animal world and shall be better 

 enabled to understand how, by their combined 

 and separate action, the immense variety we 

 now behold has been produced. Both causes, 

 however, will come under the general law of 

 "Utility," the advocacy of which, in its broad- 

 est sense, we owe almost entirely to Mr. Darwin. 

 A more accurate knowledge of the varied 

 phenomena connected with this subject may 

 not improbably give us some information both 

 as to the senses and the mental faculties of the 

 lower animals. For it is evident that if colours 

 which please us also attract them, and if the 

 various disguises which have been here enumer- 

 ated are equally deceptive to them as to our- 

 selves, then both their powers of vision and their 

 faculties of perception and emotion, must be 

 essentially of the same nature as our own — a 

 fact of high philosophical importance in the 

 study of our own nature and our true relations 

 to the lower animals.* 



* The author continues this study in Chapter ix of 

 " Darwinism": New York, Macmillan Co., 1889. — Ed. 

 100 



