90 EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN EYE 



flies. The doubts which existed for a considerable time, 

 as a result of fallacious experiments, as to whether the colors 

 of flowers really had any influence in attracting butterflies, 

 have now been set at rest through a series of more careful 

 investigations. We now know that the colors of flowers 

 are there on account of butterflies, as Sprengel first showed, 

 and that the blossoms of phanerogams are selected in relation 

 to them, as Darwin pointed out. Certainly it is not possible 

 to bring forward any convincing proof of the origin of 

 decorative colors through sexual selection, but there are 

 many weighty arguments in favor of it, and therefore a 

 body of presumptive evidence so strong that it almost 

 amounts to certainty." 



At the conclusion of his book, Grant Allen 44 summarizes 

 the whole evolution of color-sense in the following glowing 

 passage: "Insects produce flowers. Flowers produce the 

 color-sense in insects. The color-sense produces a taste 

 for color. The taste for color produces butterflies and 

 brilliant beetles. Birds and mammals produce fruits. 

 Fruits produce a taste for color in birds and mammals. 

 The taste for color produces the external hues of humming- 

 birds, parrots and monkeys. Man's frugivorous ancestry 

 produces in him a similar taste, and that taste produces 

 the various final results of human chromatic art. 



"What a splendid and a noble prospect for humanity in 

 its future evolution may we not find in this thought, that 

 bom the coarse animal pleasure of beholding food, man- 

 kind has already developed through delicate gradations 

 our modern disinterested love for the glories of sunset and 

 the melting shades of ocean, for the gorgeous pageantry of 

 summer flowers, and the dying beauty of autumn leaves, 

 for the exquisite harmony which reposes on the canvas of 

 Titian, and the golden haze which glimmers over the dreamy 



