482 Creation hy Law. [Oct., 



variation, and survival of the fittest which are for ever in action, 

 these varied developments of "beauty and harmonious adjustments 

 to conditions, are not only conceivable but demonstrable results. 



The Duke's argument is solely founded on the supposed analogy 

 of the Creator's mind to ours as regards the love of Beauty for its 

 own sake ; but if this analogy is to be trusted, then there ought Jo 

 be no natural objects which are disagreeable or ungraceful in our 

 eyes. And yet it is undoubtedly the fact that there are many 

 such. Just as surely as the Horse and Deer are beautiful and 

 graceful, the Elephant, Ehinoceros, and Camel are the reverse. 

 The majority of Monkeys and Apes are not beautiful ; the majority 

 of Birds have no beauty of colour ; a vast number of Insects and 

 Eeptiles 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 disagreeable 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 if we can get no satis- 

 factory 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 beautiful 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 conclusion 

 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 imagined to do any 

 harm. It is simply not necessary, and is therefore withheld! 

 We ought surely to have been told how this fact is consistent with 

 beauty being "an end in itself," and with the statement of its 

 being given to natural objects " for its own sake." 



Let us now consider another of the Duke's objections which he 

 thus sets forth : — 



" Mr. Darwin does not pretend to have discovered any law or 

 rule according to which new Forms have been born from old Forms. 

 He does not hold that outward conditions, however changed, are 



* ' Origin of Species,' 4th ed., p. 239. 



