§ 8. The second

the animal's body, apparently by its own will alone, with the life running along its rays. It is by a beautiful ordinance of the Creator that all these mechanisms are concealed from sight, though open to investigation, and that in all which is outwardly manifested we seem to see his presence rather than his workmanship, and the mysterious breath of life rather than the adaptation of matter.

If therefore, as I think appears from all evidence, it is the sense of felicity which we first desire in organic form, those forms will be the most beautiful (always, observe, leaving typical beauty out of the question) which exhibit most of power, and seem capable of most quick and joyous sensation. Hence we find gradations of beauty, from the impenetrable hide and slow movement of the elephant and the rhinoceros, from the foul occupation of the vulture, from the earthy struggling of the worm, to the brilliancy of the moth, the buoyancy of the bird, the swiftness of the fawn and the horse, the fair and kingly sensibility of man.

Thus far then, the theoretic faculty is concerned with the happiness perfection of of animals, and its exercise depends on the cultivation of the affections

the Theoretic

faculty as con- only. Let us next observe how it is concerned with the moral functions

cerned with life,

ment.

is justice of of animals, and therefore how it is dependent on the cultivation of every moral judg- moral sense. There is not any organic creature, but, in its history and habits, will exemplify or illustrate to us some moral excellence or deficiency, or some point of God's providential government, which it is necessary for us to know. Thus the functions and the fates of animals. are distributed to them, with a variety which exhibits to us the dignity and results of almost every passion and kind of conduct: some filthy and slothful, pining and unhappy; some rapacious, restless, and cruel ; some ever earnest and laborious, and, I think, unhappy in their endless labour; creatures, like the bee, that heap up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them, and others employed, like angels, in endless offices of love and praise. Of which when, in right condition of mind, we esteem those most beautiful, whose functions are the most noble, whether as some, in mere energy, or as others, in moral honour; so that we look with hate on the foulness of the sloth, and the subtlety of the adder, and the rage of the hyæna: with the honour due to their earthly wisdom we invest the earnest ant and unwearied bee; but we look with

full perception of sacred function to the tribes of burning plumage and choral voice. And so what lesson we might receive for our earthly conduct from the creeping and laborious things, was taught us by that earthly King who made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones (yet thereafter was less rich toward God). But from the lips of a heavenly King, who had not where to lay his head, we were taught what lesson we have to learn from those higher creatures who sow not, nor reap, nor gather into barns, for their Heavenly Father feedeth them.

There are many hindrances in the way of our looking with this rightly § 9. How impeded. balanced judgment on the moral functions of the animal tribes, owing to the independent and often opposing characters of typical beauty, as it seems, arbitrarily distributed among them; so that the most fierce and cruel creatures are often clothed in the liveliest colours, and strengthened by the noblest forms; with this only exception, that so far as I know, there is no high beauty in any slothful animal; but even among those of prey, its characters exist in exalted measure upon those that range and pursue, and are in equal degree withdrawn from those that lie subtly and silently in the covert of the reed and fens. But we should sometimes check the repugnance or sympathy with which the ideas of their destructiveness or innocence accustom us to regard the animal tribes, as well as those meaner likes and dislikes which arise, I think, from the greater or less resemblance of animal powers to our own; and pursue the pleasures of typical beauty down to the scales of the alligator, the coils of the serpent, and the joints of the beetle; and again, on the other hand, sometimes regardless of the impressions of typical beauty, accept from each creature, great or small, the more important lessons taught by its position in creation as sufferer or chastiser, as lowly or having dominion, as of foul habit or lofty aspiration; and from the several perfections which all illustrate or possess, courage, perseverance, industry, or intelligence, or, higher yet, love and patience, and fidelity, and rejoicing, and never wearied praise. That these moral § 10. The inperfections indeed are causes of beauty in proportion to their expression, expression. is best proved by comparing those features of animals in which they are more or less apparent; as for instance, the eyes, of which we shall find

"True to the kindred points of heaven and home."

(WORDSWORTH.-To the Skylark.)

fluence of moral

those ugliest which have in them no expression nor life whatever, but a corpse-like stare, or an indefinite meaningless glaring, as, (in some lights,) those of owls and cats, and mostly of insects and of all creatures in which the eye seems rather an external, optical instrument than a bodily member through which emotion and virtue of soul may be expressed, (as pre-eminently in the chamæleon) because the seeming want of sensibility and vitality in a creature is the most painful of all wants. And, next to these in ugliness, come the eyes that gain vitality indeed, but only in the expression of intense malignity, as in the serpent and alligator; and next, to whose malignity is added the virtue of subtlety and keenness, as of the lynx and hawk; and then, by diminishing the malignity and increasing the expressions of comprehensiveness and determination, we arrive at those of the lion and eagle; and at last, by destroying malignity altogether, at the fair eye of the herbivorous tribes, wherein the superiority of beauty consists always in the greater or less sweetness and gentleness; primarily, as in the gazelle, camel, and ox, and in the greater or less intellect; secondarily, as in the horse and dog; and finally, in gentleness and intellect both in And again, taking the mouth, another source of expression, we find it ugliest where it has none, as mostly in fish; or perhaps where, without gaining much in expression of any kind, it becomes a formidable destructive instrument, as again in the alligator; and then, by some increase of expression, we arrive at birds' beaks, wherein there is much obtained by the different ways of setting on the mandibles (compare the bills of the duck and the eagle); and thence we reach the finely developed lips of the carnivora, (which nevertheless lose their beauty in the actions of snarling and biting), and from these we pass to the nobler because gentler and more sensible, of the horse, camel, and fawn, and so again up to man; only the principle is less traceable in the mouths of the lower animals, because they are only in slight measure capable of expression, and chiefly used as instruments, and that of low function; whereas in man the mouth is given most definitely as a means of expression, beyond and above its lower functions. (See the remarks of Sir Charles Bell on this subject in his Essay on Expression, and compare the mouth of the negro head, given by him (page 28, third edition) with that of Raphael's St. Catherine). I shall illustrate the subject farther hereafter by giving the mouth of one of the demons of Orcagna's inferno, with

man.

projecting incisors, and that of a fish and a swine, in opposition to pure graminivorous and human forms; but at present it is sufficient for my purpose to insist on the single great principle, that, wherever expression is possible, and uninterfered with by characters of typical beauty, which confuse the subject exceedingly as regards the mouth, for the typical beauty of the carnivorous lips is on a grand scale, while it exists in very low degree in the beaks of birds; wherever, I say, these considerations do not interfere, the beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral or intellectual virtue expressed by it; and wherever beauty exists at all, there is some kind of virtue to which it is owing ; as the majesty of the lion's eye is owing not to its ferocity but to its seriousness and seeming intellect, and of the lion's mouth to its strength and sensibility, and not its gnashing of teeth, nor wrinkling in its wrath; and farther be it noted, that of the intellectual or moral virtues, the moral are those which are attended with most beauty; so that the gentle eye of the gazelle is fairer to look upon than the more keen glance of men, if it be unkind.

in Plants.

Of the parallel effects of expression upon plants there is little to be § 11. As also noted, as the mere naming of the subject cannot but bring countless illustrations to the mind of every reader: only this, that, as we saw they were less susceptible of our sympathetic love, owing to the absence in them of capability of enjoyment, so they are less open to the affections based upon the expression of moral virtue, owing to their want of volition; so that even on those of them which are deadly and unkind we look not without pleasure, the more because this their evil operation cannot be by them outwardly expressed, but only by us empirically known; so that of the outward seemings and expressions of plants, there are few but are in some way good and therefore beautiful, as of humility, and modesty, and love of places and things, in the reaching out of their arms, and clasping of their tendrils; and energy of resistance, and patience of suffering, and beneficence one toward another in shade and protection; and to us also in scents and fruits (for of their healing virtues, however important to us, there is no more outward sense nor seeming than of their properties mortal or dangerous).

Whence, in fine, looking to the whole kingdom of organic nature, § 12. Recapituwe find that our full receiving of its beauty depends, first on the lation.

sensibility, and then on the accuracy and faithfulness of the heart in its moral judgments; so that it is necessary that we should not only love all creatures well, but esteem them in that order which is according to God's laws and not according to our own human passions and predilections; not looking for swiftness, and strength, and cunning, rather than for patience and kindness, still less delighting in their animosity and cruelty one toward another; neither, if it may be avoided, interfering with the working of Nature in any way, nor, when we interfere to obtain service, judging from the morbid conditions of the animal or vegetable so induced; for we see every day the power of general taste destroyed in those who are interested in particular animals, by their delight in the results of their own teaching, and by the vain straining of curiosity for new forms such as nature never intended; as the false types for instance, which we see earnestly sought for by the fanciers of rabbits and pigeons, and constantly in horses, substituting for the true and balanced beauty of the free creature some morbid development of a single power, as of swiftness in the racer, at the expense, in certain measure, of the animal's healthy constitution and fineness of form; and so the delight of horticulturists in the spoiling of plants; so that in all cases we are to beware of such opinions as seem in any way referable to human pride, or even to the grateful or pernicious influence of things upon ourselves; and to cast the mind free, and out of ourselves, humbly, and yet always in that noble position of pause above the other visible Creatures, nearer God than they, which we authoritatively hold, thence looking down upon them, and testing the clearness of our moral vision by the extent, and fulness, and constancy of our pleasure in the light of God's love as it embraces them, and the harmony of his holy laws, that for ever bring mercy out of rapine, and religion out of wrath.