i 16 
OF THE ANIMAL STRUCTURE 
There are parts also of animals ornamental, and the 
properties by which they are so, not subservient, that we 
know of, to any other purpose. The irides of most ani¬ 
mals are very beautiful, without conducing at all, by their 
beauty, to the perfection of vision; and nature could in no 
part have employed her pencil to so much advantage, 
because no part presents itself so conspicuously to the 
observer, or communicates so great an effect to the whole 
aspect. 
In plants, especially in the flowers of plants, the princi¬ 
ple of beauty holds a still more considerable place in their 
composition; is still more confessed than in animals. Why, 
for one instance out of a thousand, does the corolla of 
the tulip, when advanced to its size and maturity, change 
its color? The purposes, so far as we can see, of vegeta¬ 
ble nutrition, might have been carried on as well by its 
continuing green. Or, if this could not be, consistently 
with the progress of vegetable life, why break into such a 
variety of colors? This is no proper effect of age, or 
of declension in the ascent of the sap; for that, like 
the autumnal tints, would have produced one color on 
one leaf, with marks of fading and withering. It seems a 
lame account to call it, as it has been called, a disease 
of the plant. Is it not more probable, that this property, 
which is independent, as it should seem, of the wants and 
utilities of the plant, was calculated for beauty, intended 
for display? 
A ground, I know, of objection, has been taken against 
the whole topic of argument, namely, that there is no such 
thing as beauty at all; in other words, that whatever is 
useful and familiar, comes of course to be thought beauti¬ 
ful; and that things appear to be so, only by their alliance 
with these qualities. Our idea of beauty is capable of be¬ 
ing so modified by habit, by fashion, by the experience of 
advantage or pleasure, and by associations arising out of 
that experience, that a question has been made, whether it 
be not altogether generated by these causes, or would have 
any proper existence without them. It seems, however, a 
carrying of the conclusion too far, to deny the existence of 
the principle, viz. a native capacity of perceiving beauty, 
on account of the influence, or of varieties proceeding 
from that influence, to which it is subject, seeing that prin¬ 
ciples the most acknowledged are liable to be affected in 
Lhe same manner. I should rather argue thus: the ques¬ 
tion respects objects of sight. Now every other sense hath 
its distinction of agreeable and disagreeable. Some tastes 
