Capper : Darwinism and Beauty. 



183 



brown colour, bordered with small ocellated orange sp!>ts, and are thus 

 alike. In L. JEgon the wings of the male are of a fine blue, bordered 

 with black, whilst those of the female are brown, with a similar border 

 closely resembling the wings of L. agtstis. Lastly, in L. Arion both 

 sexes are of a blue colour and are very like, though in the female the 

 edges of the wing are somewhat duskier, with the black spots plainer 5 

 and in a bright blue Indian species both sexes are much more alike." 



The only explanation of these facts he considers to be the .acti(m of 

 sexual selection. Natural selection would necessarily affect both sexes 

 alike, and therefore some other agency must have been at work. Darwin 

 shows that even female butterflies are particular with regard to their 

 mates, and argues that therefore the more beautiful males being chosen 

 by the stronger, and consequently more prolific, females, would, on an 

 average, leave a larger number of progeny to inherit their beauty than 

 the less brightly coloured, which would have to pair with older, and 

 consequently weaker females, or not at all. As we have seen in the 

 majority of cases, this beauty seems to have been inherited by the 

 males alone, but in some instances the females have been affected in a 

 secondary manner. 



All who have read what Darwin has to say on this subject will, I 

 think, agree that his conclusions are sound. The same law has been 

 at work amongst birds and many animals, indeed it seems to have 

 acted powerfully upon man himself, with this important distinction — 

 that both sexes have been affected, whereas in the case of animals, as 

 a rule the males alone are modified, for amongst them the females are 

 the only choosers. 



It is scarcely necessary, except for the sake of completeness, to 

 mention Darwin's explanation of the development of the gay and 

 striking colours of most flowers, for it is now so universally known 

 and understood — namely, that they serve to attract insects for purposes 

 of fertilization. When Darwin discusses beauty, it is usually in 

 connection with one of the above-mentioned ideas. 



He is an opponent of the theory, which probably few now hold, that 

 beauty has been created solely for man's enjoyment, and in one place 

 he discusses in a most interesting manner the strange variations in the 

 idea of beauty exhibited by different races of mankind. These subjects, 

 which I intend presently to consider further, lead us up to our second 

 division. 



We have seen that Mr. Darwin's researches greatly increase our 

 knowledge of the manner in which beauty has been developed in 

 animate nature. We have next to consider the vast amount of beauty 



