MISGUIDING REASON 169 



shapes and qualities with which plants and animals 

 are endowed ; and we all feel gratified when it is 

 shown, for instance, that an animal's particular 

 colour may assist it in evading danger or in 

 attracting a mate. But it must be confessed that 

 these explanations very often assume that birds 

 and beasts are easily deceived by superficial 

 resemblances, and that females are pleased by 

 eccentricities of appearance which, when they 

 first developed, would simply be deformities. In 

 the vast majority of cases peculiarities of shape 

 and colour are quite inexplicable on utilitarian 

 grounds, and appear to be merely the fruits of an 

 impulse for change. If harmful, they would 

 generally be weeded out in the struggle for 

 existence, which seems, however, to have spared 

 some of them, as, for instance, the monstrous 

 beak of the horn-bill. But, if harmless, they 

 would remain to testify to the irresponsible 

 activity of the impulse to vary. 



An analysis of human character discloses 

 similar anomalies. There are instincts that are 

 useful in the struggle for life : there are instincts 

 that are useless from this point of view : there 

 are others that are harmful, such as the lust for 

 cruelty, the passion for intoxicants. If we turn 

 from ourselves to the course of the world around 

 us, we find much that is beautiful, much that is 

 repellent : there are smiling pastures, there are 

 desolate wildernesses : in some years the earth 

 brings forth her increase, in others millions of its 

 inhabitants are starved by famine. Life, the most 

 precious of treasures, is poured out wastefully 

 often with bitter dregs of misery. The mere fact 

 that animals eat one another shocks our sense of 

 morality and kindliness. If there be a purpose in 

 the course of Nature, we may hardly conclude that 

 it is in accord with our notions of justice or mercy. 



