THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



animals ; though it is also found in many flowers (papil- 

 ionaceous and labial flowers, orchids, and others that 

 are fertilized by insects). Here we have to seek the 

 cause of the bilateralism in different features, in the re- 

 lations with the insects, in the mode of their fastening to 

 and distribution on the stalk (for the green foliage leaves), 

 and so on. 



The complex individuals of the first order, the stocks 

 (cormi), are more dependent in their growth on the spatial 

 conditions of their environment than the sprouts or per- 

 sons; hence their typical form is generally more or less 

 irregular, and rarely bilateral. 



The interest which we take in natural and artistic 

 forms, and which has for thousands of years prompted 

 men to reproduce the former in the latter, depends for 

 the most part, if not altogether, on their beauty — that is 

 to say, on the feeling of pleasure we experience in look- 

 ing at them. The causes of this pleasure and joy in 

 the beautiful and the naturalness of its development are 

 explained in aesthetics. When we combine this science 

 with the results of modern cerebral physiology, we may 

 distinguish two classes of beauty — direct and indirect. 

 In direct or sensible beauty the internal sense-organs, or 

 the aesthetic neurona or sense-cells of the brain, are im- 

 mediately affected with pleasure. But in indirect or 

 associational beauty these impressions are combined 

 with an excitement of the phronetic neurona — the 

 rational brain — cells which effect presentation and 

 thought. 



Direct or sensible beauty (the subject of sensual 

 aesthetics) is the direct perception of agreeable stimuli 

 by the sense-organs. We may distinguish the following 

 stages of its perfection: i. Simple beauty (the subject 

 of primordial aesthetics) ; the pleasure is evoked by the 

 direct sense-impression of a simple form or color. Thus, 

 for instance, a wooden sphere makes an agreeable im- 



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