Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

CREAiTION BY L TV. 285
of colour; a vast number of Insects and Reptiles are
positively ugly. Now, if the Creator's mind is like
ours, whence this ugliness? It is useless to say " that
is a mystery we canmot explain," because we have
attempted to explain one-half of creation by a method
that will not apply to the other half. We know that
a man with the highest taste and with unlimited
wealth, practically does abolish all ungraceful and disagreeable forms and colours from his own domains.
If the beauty of creation is to be explained by the
Creator's love of beauty, we are bound to ask why
he has not banished deformity from the earth, as the
wealthy and enlightened man does from his estate and
from his dwelling; and if we can get no satisfactory
answer, we shall do well to reject the explanation
offered. Again, in the case of flowers, which are
always especially referred to, as the surest evidence of
beauty being an end of itself in creation, the whole
of the facts are never fairly met. At least half the
plants in the world have not bright-coloured or beautiful flowers; and Mr. Darwin has lately arrived at
the wonderful generalization, that flowers have become
beautiful solely to attract insects to assist in their
fertilization. He adds,'" I have come to this conclusion from finding it an invariable rule, that when a
flower is fertilized by the wind it never has a gailycoloured corolla." Here is a most wonderful case of
beauty being usefil, when it might be least expected.
But much more is proved; for when beauty is of no
use to the plant it is not given. It cannot be imag