So, too, in the Silurian period, the corals and other marine structures were, no doubt, endowed with every grace which could please the eye of man, if he had been there. Beauty is the invariable companion of Nature. It is difficult, therefore, to account for it as a result of evolution; and, as for the theory that it was made for man's delectation only, a single diatom or a single fossil from a Silurian bed is enough to put the whole vain egotism to flight.
What are the results fairly deducible from these observations? They seem to be the following:—
- 1. That conspicuousness is a step towards fertilization in one mode, and might, therefore, well be used by an artist loving at once beauty and fertility.
- 2. That there is no such preponderating advantage in beauty as should convert the ugly anemophilous flowers into the brilliant entomophilous flowers.
- 3. That in an infinite number of cases beauty exists, but without any relation to the mode of fertilization.
- 4. That it is maintained in many cases where the uglier and less beautiful plant is more useful, as in the case of the violet.
- 5. That even where conspicuousness is useful, it furnishes no complete account of the whole beauty of the flower.
Let us apply these facts to the two rival theories. If, on the one hand, nothing has become beautiful but through the utility of beauty, beauty will be found where it is useful and nowhere else. But we have found beauty without finding utility; so that theory, on our present knowledge, is inadmissible.
If, on the other hand, there be an artificer in Nature who loves at once utility and beauty, he may use the one sometimes as a mean to the other, or he may use beauty without utility; and the presence of beauty without utility is intelligible.
And here I conclude. I see in Nature both utility and beauty; but I am not convinced that the one is solely dependent on the other. I find a grace and a glory (even in the flowers of plants) which, on the utilitarian theory, is not accounted for, is a residual phenomenon; and that in such enormous proportions that the phenomenon explained bears no perceptible proportion to the phenomenon left unexplained. Whether this be so or not, it appears to me, for the reasons I have already given, that we may still entertain the same notions about the beauty of the world as before. Our souls may still rejoice in beauty as of old. To some of us this glorious frame has not appeared a dead mechanic mass, but a living whole, instinct with spiritual life; and in the beauty which we see around us in Nature's face, we have felt the smile of a spiritual Being, as we feel the smile of our friend adding light and lustre to his countenance. I still indulge this fancy, or, if you will, this superstition. Still, as of old, I feel (to use the familiar language of our great poet of Nature)—
"A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,