in natural selection as a means of advancement in

beauty.

But let us look at the question for a moment from a simply philosophic and common-sense point of view. That animals, from snails and earth-worms to butterflies and birds, have what may be called their preferences for soil and food and general surroundings is not to be denied; and that they have a perception of differences and likenesses in things is certain from their associating with those of their own kind and their fleeing from their foes, and by their every movement, in fact, in a world of varied forms and appearances. But the same things may be said of the lowest of creatures which have life and locomotion; and even things that are lifeless-the chemical elements for instance-show what may be also metaphorically called their preferences and aversions in their union, or disinclination to unite, with a given compound. In fact, we cannot conceive of a world at all without the underlying assumption of a distinction of elements, of difference that is to say, to begin with, nor of animals without association of them into classes and kinds, which already implies within them some perception of likeness and unlikeness, and preference for their kind, and for certain food and surroundings. (But, when all that is given, we have still to settle the question whether any insect, bird, or beast has any appreciation of beauty as such and any interest in it for its own sake, which is characteristic of all aesthetic pleasure. And the question is not settled by taking the "high priori" road with Darwin and saying that, if the female among birds and beasts is not moved by beauty, the fuss made by the male in attitude and sound at the pairing season is purposeless, and the brighter colours of the

THE LOWER ANIMALS.

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males without a reason; for, to say nothing of the arguments advanced by Wallace, we know too little as yet of the reasons of things to dogmatize thus on song and colour and the spreading of wings and tails. Birds, as we know, sing out of the pairing season, and even when alone and blind; and bees and butterflies are found most numerous, not among the prettiest flowers, but where there is the largest supply for their wants-among thistles in flower, and blooming lime trees, and heather and clover, and the like. And as to the experiments of Sir John Lubbock which show the preferences of ants and bees for certain colours, we need hardly say that they come far short of demonstrating a taste for beauty. And it has to be specially noted, as we have already observed, that Darwin, notwithstanding his lengthy and sometimes positive arguments for a taste for beauty in insects and other animals, yet allows, when speaking of birds and the exhibition of their plumage, that "it is difficult to obtain direct evidence of their capacity to appreciate beauty." 1 And if it is difficult with birds, it is still more difficult with beasts and insects.

Granting, however, a probable appreciation of beauty for beauty's sake in insect, bird, and beast, it is an appreciation, it must be allowed, which is at best very limited in its range. If birds admire the colours and forms of feathers, it is an admiration apparently of only those of the same species, and only when they are pairing. The colours of kingfisher and humming-bird may be equally brilliant, but there is no reason for believing that the one has any appreciation of the loveliness of the other, or that either of them sees any

1 Descent of Man, c. 14, p. 413, second edition.

splendour in the grass or glory in a flower. In their case the taste for beauty, if it exists at all, is more of a momentary perception through sexual desire than a deliberate judgment or disinterested choice of beauty for its own sake, and that makes their taste for beauty, if it exists, a very doubtful quantity ;) and yet, judging from the beauty of some of them, and thinking of it as the result of sexual selection, they should have the very perfection of taste in colour-which again we may feel at liberty to deny.

But, whatever may be the case with beast and bird, when we come to man we pass at once apparently from the region of probability and conjecture to that of certainty on the general question. From the earliest dawn of childhood and of history we have sure indications of a taste for beauty. The merest babe is drawn to brilliant colours; and prehistoric man comes before us not as a mere animal with a mate in a lair and content if he had only food, and shelter from foes and wind and weather, but more or less like a gentleman with some degree of artistic feeling, and with the power of expressing it in representations of mammoth, and deer, and other animals, and with a fondness for ornament for the person, and on weapon, and on vessels for domestic use, and so forth. "Armed with their point of flint, the quaternary artists engraved in turn the bone and the antlers of the rein-deer, ivory from the mammoth, and stones of different kinds. Sometimes they endeavoured to reproduce the plants or animals around them; at other times they followed their own fancy, and made designs of ornamentation, in which we meet with almost all the principles re-invented many centuries afterwards. The multiplicity and the variety of this kind of engraving show much imagination and

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a real faculty of invention.” 1 And the same tendencies have been continued in their representatives of modern times, and perhaps in an intensified degree and with some advancement in their fondness for dress and gaudy colours. "Savages," says Sir John Lubbock, when speaking of existing tribes, "are passionately fond of ornaments. In some of the very lowest races, indeed, the women are almost undecorated, but that is only because the men keep all the ornaments themselves. As a general rule, we may say that southerners ornament themselves, northeners their clothes. In fact all savage races who leave much of their skin uncovered delight in painting themselves in the most brilliant colours they can obtain. Black, white, red, and yellow are the favourite, or rather, perhaps, the commonest colours." And "round their bodies, round their necks, round their arms and legs, their fingers, and even their toes, they wear ornaments of all kinds. . . . . Nor are they particular as to the material: copper, brass, or iron, leather, or ivory, stones, shells, glass, bits of wood, seeds, or teeth-nothing comes amiss." 2

What degree of appreciation of the beauties of things around him in nature prehistoric man may have had, we of course can have no direct means of knowing. His attempts at engraving mammoth and stag show an eye and memory for animal form and species, but his interest in them is likely, we should say, to have been more sensuous and selfish than aesthetic. The drawing of an animal is in itself no sure sign of a taste for its beauty; it may mark only an interest in it as a chief supply for food, or, perhaps, as has been sug

1 Quatrefage's Human Species, book 8, c. 27.

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1

gested, it may have had something to do with religious worship. "The fishes, reindeer, and mammoths carved on their bone implements," says Principal Dawson, "were not merely works of art, undertaken to amuse idle hours. As interpreted by American analogies, they were the sacred totems of primeval hunters and warriors, and some of the rows and dots and scratches, which have been called 'tallies,' may be the records of offerings made to these guardian spirits, or of successes achieved under their influence." (But, allowing for the influence of selfish interests and religious ideas, it is still probable that our prehistoric ancestors were early attracted by the colours of flowers and the plumage of the more distinctly brilliant birds, and their song would be noted as signs of the seasons and of coming broods. In the myths of dawn and sunset, and of the changing seasons, we have indications of their interest in the different aspects and colours of the sky, and in the return of the seasons; and the necessities of shelter and of a living would naturally lead them, nolens volens, to roam through green retreats, by rivers' banks, and along the shores of open seas. And the same things may be said of their modern representatives in the lowest tribes and nations as well as in the highest. Those who are dependent on the chase for their means of subsistence have naturally an intimate acquaintance with the colours, and forms, and habits of birds and beasts, and with the signs of the weather in the appearance of sky and cloud; and they may choose for their encampments those spots which by their lie and vegetable growths are picturesque and lovely, for there fish, or birds, or beasts are usually to be found, and men must try to live, be their tastes aestheti1 Fossil Man and other Modern Representatives, p. 266.