408 Darwin, and after Darwin. 
Turning, then, to the animal kingdom below the 
level of insects, here we are bound to confess that 
the beauty which so often meets us cannot reasonably 
be ascribed either to natural or to sexual selection. 
Not to sexual selection for the reasons already given ; 
the animals in question are neither sufficiently in- 
telligent to possess any esthetic taste, nor, as a matter 
of fact, do we observe that they exercise any choice 
in pairing. Not to natural selection, because we cannot 
here, as in the case of vegetables, point to any benefit 
as generally arising from bright colours and beautiful 
forms. On the principles of naturalism, therefore, we 
are driven to conclude that the beauty here is purely 
adventitious, or accidental. Nor need we be afraid to 
make this admission, if only we take a sufficiently wide 
view of the facts. For, when we do take such a view, 
we find that beauty here is by no means of invariable, 
or even of general, occurrence. There is no loveliness 
about an oyster or a lob-worm; parasites, as a rule, 
are positively ugly, and they constitute a good half of 
all animal species. The truth seems to be, when we 
look attentively at the matter, that in all cases where 
beauty does occur in these lower forms of animal life, 
its presence is owing to one of two things—either 
to the radiate form, or to the bright tints. Now, 
seeing that the radiate form is of such general 
occurrence among these lower animals—appearing 
over and over again, with the utmost insistence, even 
among groups widely separated from one another by 
even as regards those that do, it is not remarkable that their chlorophyll 
should, as it were, accidentally assume brilliant tints while breaking 
down into lower grades of chemical constitution. The case, in fact, is 
exactly parallel to those in the animal kingdom which are considered in 
the ensuing paragraphs. 
