The Sense of the Beautiful in Brutes [pp. 126-142]

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THE SENSE OF THE
[January,
short, so spiritual, insinuated itself into tlhe heart of a doctrine
essentially naturalistic? How has it established itself there so
far as to be the indispensable complement of transmutation in
general, and possibly the principal agent of mental or psychological transmutation? It is important as well as interesting to
discover this.
In the systiem of evolution, organic beings, animals especially,
are, for self-preservation, condemned to a conflict with nature,
in which the stronger are victorious and live, and the weaker
are vanquished and die. This terrible conflict, this vital competition, takes two different forms: when the object in view is
simply the obtaining of nourishment, and resistance to the elements, the contest is called a struggle for life; when the end
sought by the animal is the propagation of the species, the contest is called a struggle for reproduction. The struggle for life
brings the animal face to face with hunger, cold, disease. The
most vigorous, the best furnished, the best covered, triumph
over these hostile influences, whilst the weak, the feeble, yield.
Hence result a species of fatal election, of brute but inevitable
choice, in favor of the best endowed. This is natural selection
in its first degree. These vigorous couples, left to themselves,
unite, and, robust as tlhey are, they give birth to robust offspring;
they propagate a stock of resisting anti powerful animals in their
likeness; they increase the number of the elect. This is the
second degree of natural selection. We now have the third degree: as these animals have new difficulties to surmount, certain of their organs useful for the struggle are strengthened, developed, and in their growth become individual differences.
These advantageous diflerences transmit themselves by succession; in transmitting themselves they are accumulated, are exaggerated, and with the aid of centuries constitute finally new
species.
That which characterizes natural selection is that it is unconscious. The choice it supposes is a blind choice; the animal
brings to it only the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation;
it does not explain the acquisition of certain corporeal advantages, of certain mental faculties, which are not necessary to the
struggle for life. It does not take account of very striking although secondary characteristics, which distinguish animals of
different sexes, and which give to the male the visible display of