Romantic Love and Personal Beauty / Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities

by Henry T. Finck

According to Darwin’s own admission (Descent of Man, p. 211), he advanced the theory of Sexual Selection because, in his opinion, Natural Selection did not account for the various ornaments and attractions of the males in question. Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, believes that Sexual Selection does not, while Natural Selection does account for these ornaments; so, in place of Darwin’s view that the beauty of certain male animals leads the females to prefer them to their less ornamented rivals, he substitutes the theory that it is the superior vitality, persistence, and vivacity of the favoured males that fascinate the females, and that masculine beauty is simply a natural result of superior vigour and superabundant health.

Darwin doubtless errs in claiming an æsthetic sense for animals so low in the scale of life as butterflies and other insects, and in attributing to it such extraordinary effects in the development of personal beauty. What Mr. Wallace has done in Tropical Nature is to show simply that it is quite unnecessary to invoke the aid of so questionable an agency as Sexual Selection in order to account for the ornaments of animals; and that the fundamental principle of Darwinism, Natural Selection, accounts for everything.

He maintains that colour is a normal product of organisation, and that not so much its presence as its absence needs accounting for. White and black are comparatively rare and exceptional in nature, while the various tints of red, blue, green, etc., are continually appearing spontaneously and irregularly in the integuments of animals. These irregular colours, if injurious to the species, will be at once eliminated by Natural Selection; but if useful for purposes of identification or protection, they will be preserved and intensified.

Now colour, Mr. Wallace continues, is proportionate to integumentary development, and is most conspicuous in the wings of butterflies and the feathers of birds, for the reason that, just as “the spots and rings on a soap-bubble increase with increasing tenuity,” similarly the delicately-organised surface of feathers and scales is highly favourable to the production of varied colour-effects.

Colour being thus proportionate to integumentary development, we find next that integumentary development is, in turn, proportionate to vigour and vitality; the strongest animals having the largest feathers, scales, horns, etc. Hence the most vigorous and healthy animals are also the most beautiful, the most brilliantly coloured. And this correlation between healthful vigour and beauty is still more strikingly shown in this, that “The colours of an animal usually fade during disease or weakness, while robust health and vigour adds to their intensity.... In all quadrupeds a ‘dull coat’ is indicative of ill-health or low condition; while a glossy coat and sparkling eye are the invariable accompaniments of health and energy. The same rule applies to the feathers of birds, whose colours are only seen in their purity during perfect health; and a similar phenomenon occurs even among insects, for the bright hues of caterpillars begin to fade as soon as they become inactive preparatory to their undergoing transformation. Even in the vegetable kingdom we see the same thing: for the tints of foliage are deepest, and the colours of flowers and fruits richest, on those plants which are in the most healthy and vigorous condition.”

Add to all these considerations that “this intensity of coloration becomes most developed during the breeding season, when the vitality is at a maximum,” and we shall be prepared for Mr. Wallace’s summing up of his case:—

“If now we accept the evidence of Mr. Darwin’s most trustworthy correspondents, that the choice of the female, so far as she exerts any, falls upon ‘the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male’; and if we further believe, what is certainly the case, that these are as a rule the most highly-coloured and adorned with the finest developments of plumage, we have a real and not a hypothetical cause at work. For these most healthy, vigorous, and beautiful males will have the choice of the finest and most healthy females; and will be able best to protect and rear those families. Natural Selection, and what may be termed Male Selection, will tend to give them the advantage in the struggle for existence; and thus the fullest and the finest colours will be transmitted, and tend to advance in each succeeding generation.”

By this strong chain of reasoning (to which my brief >résumé of course cannot do justice) Mr. Wallace shows that Darwin needlessly introduced the principle of Sexual Selection into animal courtship; and at the same time furnishes a new confirmation of Darwin’s compliment that he has “an innate genius for solving difficulties.”

What makes Mr. Wallace’s argument the more cogent is the fact that Darwin himself, in speaking of the lowest classes of animals, explains their beauty on the same principles as those which Mr. Wallace applies to the higher animals. Thus he says: “We can, in our ignorance of most of the lowest animals, only say that their bright tints result either from the chemical nature or the minute structure of their tissues, independently of any benefit thus derived.” “It is almost certain that these animals have too imperfect senses, and much too low mental powers, to appreciate each other’s beauty or other attractions, or to feel rivalry.” “Nor is it at all obvious how the offspring from the more beautiful pairs of hermaphrodites would have any advantage over the offspring of the less beautiful, so as to increase in number, unless indeed vigour and beauty generally coincided.” And once more, “The sedentary annelids become duller-coloured, according to M. Quatrefages, after the period of reproduction; and this I presume may be attributed to their less vigorous condition at that time.”

So far we have only considered the origin of animal colours in general. Mr. Wallace, however, has not only made clear the general connection between beautiful and vivid colours and health, but, by utilising his own researches and those of Mr. Bates and other naturalists, he has been able to show to what a great extent we can explain even the particular colours of the various classes of animals. He distinguishes four classes of animal colours—Protective, Warning, Sexual, and Typical.