CHAPTER VI. DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY.
8. UTILITARIAN DOCTRINE, HOW FAR TRUE: BEAUTY, HOW ACQUIRED. (continued)
On the other hand, I willingly admit that a great number of male animals,
as all our most gorgeous birds, some fishes, reptiles, and mammals, and a
host of magnificently coloured butterflies, have been rendered beautiful
for beauty's sake. But this has been effected through sexual selection,
that is, by the more beautiful males having been continually preferred by
the females, and not for the delight of man. So it is with the music of
birds. We may infer from all this that a nearly similar taste for
beautiful colours and for musical sounds runs through a large part of the
animal kingdom. When the female is as beautifully coloured as the male,
which is not rarely the case with birds and butterflies, the cause
apparently lies in the colours acquired through sexual selection having
been transmitted to both sexes, instead of to the males alone. How the
sense of beauty in its simplest form--that is, the reception of a peculiar
kind of pleasure from certain colours, forms and sounds--was first
developed in the mind of man and of the lower animals, is a very obscure
subject. The same sort of difficulty is presented if we enquire how it is
that certain flavours and odours give pleasure, and others displeasure.
Habit in all these cases appears to have come to a certain extent into
play; but there must be some fundamental cause in the constitution of the
nervous system in each species.
Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in a species
exclusively for the good of another species; though throughout nature one
species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by the structures of
others. But natural selection can and does often produce structures for
the direct injury of other animals, as we see in the fang of the adder, and
in the ovipositor of the ichneumon, by which its eggs are deposited in the
living bodies of other insects. If it could be proved that any part of the
structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of
another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have
been produced through natural selection. Although many statements may be
found in works on natural history to this effect, I cannot find even one
which seems to me of any weight. It is admitted that the rattlesnake has a
poison-fang for its own defence and for the destruction of its prey; but
some authors suppose that at the same time it is furnished with a rattle
for its own injury, namely, to warn its prey. I would almost as soon
believe that the cat curls the end of its tail when preparing to spring, in
order to warn the doomed mouse. It is a much more probable view that the
rattlesnake uses its rattle, the cobra expands its frill and the puff-adder
swells while hissing so loudly and harshly, in order to alarm the many
birds and beasts which are known to attack even the most venomous species.
Snakes act on the same principle which makes the hen ruffle her feathers
and expand her wings when a dog approaches her chickens. But I have not
space here to enlarge on the many ways by which animals endeavour to
frighten away their enemies.
|