Note 48 — Chapter III · DIFFERENTIATIONS AMONG THE OUTER TISSUES OF PLANTS.

This seems as fit a place as any for noting the fact, that the greater part of what we call beauty in the organic world, is in some way dependent on the sexual relation. It is not only so with the colours and odours of flowers. It is so, too, with the brilliant plumage of birds; and it is probable that the colours of the more conspicuous insects are in part similarly determined. The remarkable circumstance is, that these characteristics, which have originated by furthering the production of the best offspring, while they are naturally those which render the organisms possessing them attractive to one another, directly or indirectly, should also be those which are so generally attractive to us—those without which the fields and woods would lose half their charm. It is interesting, too, to observe how the conception of human beauty is in a considerable degree thus originated. And the trite observation that the element of beauty which grows out of the sexual relation is so predominant in æsthetic products—in music, in the drama, in fiction, in poetry—gains a new meaning when we see how deep down in organic nature this connexion extends.