Chap. VI. Beauty how acquired. 1 6 1 



be shown that before man appeared, there was less beauty on the 

 face of the earth than since he came on the stage. Were the beau- 

 tiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the gracefully 

 sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, created that man 

 might ages afterwards admire them in his cabinet? Few objects 

 are° more beautiful than the minute siliceous cases of the diato- 

 macea3: were these created that they might be examined and 

 admired under the higher powers of the microscope ? The beauty 

 in this latter case, and in many others, is apparently wholly due 

 to symmetry of growth. Flowers rank amongst the most beautiful 

 productions of nature ; but they have been rendered conspicuous 

 in contrast with the green leaves, and in consequence at the same 

 time beautiful, so that they may be easily observed by insects. I 

 have come to this conclusion from finding it an invariable rule that 

 when a flower is fertilised by the wind it never has a gaily-coloured 

 corolla. Several plants habitually produce two kinds of flowers; 

 one kind open and coloured so as to attract insects; the other 

 closed, not coloured, destitute of nectar, and never visited by insects. 

 Hence we may conclude that, if insects had not been developed on the 

 face of the earth, our plants would not have been decked with beau- 

 tiful flowers, but would have produced only such poor flowers as we 

 see on our fir, oak, nut and ash trees, on grasses, spinach, docks, and 

 nettles, which are all fertilised through the agency of the wind. A 

 similar line of argument holds good with fruits ; that a ripe straw- 

 berry or cherry is as pleasing to the eye as to the palate, — that the 

 gaily-coloured fruit of the spindle- wood tree and the scarlet berries 

 of the holly are beautiful objects,— will be admitted by every one. 

 But this beauty serves merely as a guide to birds and beasts, in 

 order that the fruit may be devoured and the manured seeds dis- 

 seminated : I infer that this is the case from having as yet found 

 no exception to the rule that seeds are always thus disseminated 

 when embedded within a fruit of any kind (that is within a fleshy 

 or pulpy envelope), if it be coloured of any brilliant tint, or ren- 

 dered conspicuous by being white or black. 



On the other hand, I willingly admit that a great number of 

 male animals, as all our most gorgeous birds, some fishes, reptiles, 

 and mammals, and a host of magnificently coloured butterflies, 

 have been rendered beautiful for beauty's sake ; but this has been 

 effected through sexual selection, that is, by the more beautiful 

 males having been continually preferred by the females, and not for 

 the delight of man. So it is with the music of birds. We may 

 inter from all this that a nearly similar taste for beautiful colours 

 and ior musical sounds runs through a large part of the animal 



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