DARWINISM. 
Ill 
suggested that it is often because we are naturally more impressed 
by what is beautiful or pleasing to the eye, and so more readily 
bear it in mind. The instances in which the possession of 
beauty or of a resemblance to another form of life are known to 
be of advantage to animals and plants are too numerous to need 
mention. Many of both kinds will, I doubt not, occur to you. 
In that, however, of plants we cannot help noting that while 
many parts of a plant are remarkable for their beauty, still the 
idea of beauty as an end seems to be kept in subordination to 
that of utility. Now, what can be more natural or appropriate 
than the application of the “ Development Theory ” as a means 
of explaining these phenomena ? We know that variety in colour 
and adornment are often advantageous to the plant or animal 
possessing them, and have, therefore, only to suppose that these 
•originally arose from a slight variation which, being advantageous, 
was seized upon by natural selection and increased by the law of 
heredity, till at length the desired end was effected. We have 
thus, I think, a far higher and more satisfactory reason for the 
existence of beauty in so many and such varied forms, and also 
a more rational explanation of that singular phenomenon — 
protective resemblance— than any other theory can give us. 
Mr. Darwin’s theory has also thrown an altogether new light 
upon the succession of life upon the globe, for instead of a 
certain form of life always making its appearance exactly at a 
given period, when everything seems to be prepared for it (if I 
may be allowed the comparison) like the transformation scene of 
a pantomime, we find that fitting conditions seem to have 
occurred without the presence of this form, whence, together 
with the fact of the lower forms of life generally preceding the 
higher in a gradually ascending scale, w^e are led to the 
conclusion that in all probability the continued succession of 
life on our globe is governed more by the immediate precession 
of lower forms than by suitability of outward surroundings. A 
