13b NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



nutrition might have been carried on as Avell by its coiUinu* 

 ing green. Or, if this could not be, consistently with the 

 progress of vegetable life, why break into such a vailety oi 

 colors ? This is no proper effect of age, or of declension in 

 the ascent of the sap ; for that, like the autumnal tints, 

 would have produced one color on one leaf, with marks ol 

 fading and withering. It seems a lame account to call it, 

 as it has been called, a disease of the plant. Is it not more 

 probable that this property, which is independent, as it 

 should seem, of the wants and utilities of the plant, was 

 calculated for beauty, intended for display ? 



A ground, I know, of objection has been taken against 

 the whole topic of argument, namely, that there is no such 

 thing as beauty at all : in other words, that whatever is 

 useful and familiar comes of course to be thought beautiful ; 

 and that things appear to be so, only by their alliance with 

 these qualities. Our idea of beauty is capable of being in 

 so great a degree modified by habit, by fashion, by the expe- 

 rience of advantage or pleasure, and by associations arising 

 out of that experience, that a question has been made wheth- 

 er it be not altogether generated by these causes, or would 

 have any proper existence without them. It seems, how 

 ever, a carrying of the conclusion too far, to deny the exist 

 ence of the principle, namely, a native capacity of perceiving 

 beauty, on account of an influence, or of varieties proceed 

 ing from that influence, to which it is subject, seeing that 

 principles the most acknowledged are liable to be affected in 

 the same manner. I should rather argue thus : The ques- 

 tion respects objects of sight. Now every other sense has 

 its distinction of agreeable and disagreeable. Some tastes 

 offend the palate, others gratify it. In brutes and insects, 

 this distinction is stronger and more regular than in man. 

 Every horse, ox, sheep, swine, when at liberty to choose, 

 and when in a natural state, that is, when not vitiated by 

 habits forced upon it, eats and rejects the same plants. 

 Many insects which feed upon particular plants, will rather 



