GENERAL ADAPTATIONS 



.» .1 T 



our higher intellectual achievements, tiial \Uv total absence 

 of perception of colour would have checked, or pi rliaps wholly 

 prevented, all those recent discoveries in spcctrosc^opy which 

 now form so powerful a means of acquiring an extended knowl- 

 edge of the almost illimitable universe. 



I venture to think, therefore, that we Jiave good reason to 

 believe that our colour-perceptions have not been developed in 

 us solely by their survival-value in the struggle for existenee ; 

 which is all ^ve could have acquired if the views of such think- 

 ers as Grant Allen and Professor Ilaeckel represent the wln.b* 

 truth on this subject. They seem, on the other hand, to have 

 been given us with our higher aesthetic and moral attributes, 

 as a part of the needful equipment of a being whose spiritual 

 nature is being developed, not merely to satisfy material needs, 

 but to fit him for a higher and more enduring life of continued 

 progress. 



Colours of Fruits: a Suggestion as to Nuts 



As flow^ers have been developed through insects, so have 

 edible fruits been developed and coloured so that birds may 

 assist in the dispersal of their seeds ; while inedible fruits have 

 acquired endlessly varied hooks or sticky exudations in ord<'r 

 that they may attach themselves to the fur of quadrupeds or the 

 feathers of birds, and thus obtain extensive dissemination. All 

 this was clearly seen and briefly stated by Darwin, and has 

 been somewdiat fully developed by myself in the work already 

 quoted: but there is one point on which I wish to mai:i* an 

 additional suggestion. 



In my Tropical Nature I referred to Grant Allen's view 

 (in his Physiological Esthetics) that nuts were '' not intended 

 to be eaten"; and in my Darwinism (p. 305) I adopted this 

 as being almost self-evident, because, though very largely edible, 

 they are always protectively coloured, being green when unrijKi 

 and brow^n when they fall u])ou the ground among the decay- 

 ino" folia2:e. ^foreover, thoir outer-coverings arc often prickly, 

 as in the sweet-chestnut, or bitter as in the walnut, while their 



