Note 22 — ON THE UTILITY TO FLOWERS OF THEIR BEAUTY.

It is worth while to remember that Beauty is no outcome of a long period of evolution; it is no late event in the geologic history of the world. The lowest forms of organic life no less than the highest are clad in beauty. Many beings that are "simple structureless protoplasm"—to use the language of Professor Allman as President of the British Association this year—"fashion for themselves an outer membraneous or calcareous case, often of symmetrical form and elaborate ornamentation, or construct a silicious skeleton of radiating spicula or crystal-clear concentric spheres of exquisite symmetry and beauty."22