CREATION BY LAW. 285 
of colour; a vast number of Insects and Reptiles are 
positively ugly. Now, if the Creator’s mind is like 
ours, whence this ugliness? It is useless to say “‘ that 
is a mystery we cannot explain,” because we have 
attempted to explain one-half of creation by a method 
that will not apply to the other half. We know that 
a man with the highest taste and with unlimited 
wealth, practically does abolish all ungraceful and dis- 
agreeable forms and colours from his own domains. 
If the beauty of creation is to be explained by the 
Creator’s love of beauty, we are bound to ask why 
he has not banished deformity from the earth, as the 
‘wealthy and enlightened man does from his estate and 
from his dwelling; and if we can get no satisfactory 
answer, we shall do well to reject the explanation 
offered. Again, in the case of flowers, which are 
always especially referred to, as the surest evidence of 
beauty being an end of itself in creation, the whole 
of the facts are never fairly met. At least half the 
plants in the world have not bright-coloured or beau- 
tiful flowers; and Mr. Darwin has lately arrived at 
the wonderful generalization, that flowers have become 
beautiful solely to attract insects to assist in their 
fertilization. He adds, “I have come to this conclu- 
sion from finding it an invariable rule, that when a 
flower is fertilized by the wind it never has a gaily- 
coloured corolla.” Here is a most wonderful case of 
beauty being useful, when it might be least expected. 
But much more is proved; for when beauty is of no 
use to the plant it is not given. It cannot be imag- 
