Alfred Tylor

“ In the dim shades of night the faint light of the flowers tells the insects of the land of plenty, and the stimulus thus excited is multiplied into a frenzy by the glow of a lamp, which, doubtless, seems to insect eyes the promise of a feast that shall transcend that of ordinary flowers, as a Lord Mayor's feast transcends a homely crust of bread and cheese.
We take it, then, as proven that the colour sense does exist, at least, in all creatures possessing eyes. But there are myriads of animals revelling in bright tints ”

“ There is no break of continuity between offspring and parent—the river of life is a continuous stream. We judge of our own identity by the continuity which we see and appreciate; but that greater continuity reaching backwards beyond the womb to the origin of life itself is no less a fact which should be constantly kept in view. The individual, in reality, never dies; for the lamp of life never goes out. ”

“ Why are night-blooming flowers white, or pale yellows and pinks, but to render them conspicuous? Why are so many flowers striped in the direction of the nectary, but to point the painted way to the honey-treasures below? The whole scheme of evolution, the whole of the new revelation of the meanings of nature, becomes a dead letter if insects cannot appreciate the hues of flowers. The bee confines himself as much as possible to one species of flower at a time, and this, too, shows that it must be able to distinguish them with ease. ”

“ Animals possess other organs of recognition, of which, as everyone knows, smell is one of the most potent. A dog may have forgotten a face after years of absence, but, once his cold nose has touched your hand, the pleased whine and tail-wagging of recognition, tells of awakened memories. Even with ourselves, dulled as our senses are, the odour of the first spring violet calls up the past; as words and scenes can never do. What country-bred child forgets the strange smell of the city he first visits? and how vividly the scene is recalled in after years by a repetition of that odour! ”

“ Natural selection can show, for instance, how the lion has become almost uniform in colour, while the leopard is spotted, and the tiger striped. The lion living on the plains in open country is thus rendered less conspicuous to his prey, the leopard delighting in forest glades is hardly distinguishable among the changing lights and shadows that flicker through the leaves, and the tiger lurking amid the jungle simulates the banded shades of the cane-brake in his striped mantle. ”

“ If we have had no trouble we say they have 'agreed' with us; if we have been unable to make them see things from our point of view, we say they 'disagree' with us, and avoid being on more than distant terms with them for the future. If we have helped ourselves to too much, we say we have got more than we can 'manage.' And an animal is no sooner dead than a plant will convert it back again. It is obvious, however, that no schism could have been so long successful without having a good deal to say for itself. ”

“ The sombre tints of so many insects, birds and animals are cases in point, as are the golden coat of the spider that lurks in the buttercup, and the green mottlings of the underwings of the orange-tip butterfly. Where absolute hiding is impossible, as on the African desert, we find every bird and insect, without exception, assimilating the colour of the sand. ”

“ Granting then the physical identity of offspring and parent, the doctrine of heredity becomes plain. The child becomes like the parent, because it is placed in almost identical circumstances to those of its parent, and is indeed part of that parent. If memory be possessed by all living matter, and this is what we now believe, we can clearly see how heredity acts. The embryo develops into a man like its parent, because human embryos have gone through this process many times—till they are unconscious of the action, they know how to proceed so thoroughly. ”

“ Butler argues for the absolute identity of the parent and offspring; and, indeed, this is a necessity. Personal identity is a phrase, very convenient, it is true, but still only a provisional mode of naming something we cannot define. In our own bodies we say that our identity remains the same from birth to death, though we know that our bodily particles are ever changing, that our habits, thoughts, aspirations, even our features, change—that we are no more really the same person than the ripple over a pebble in a brook is the same from moment to moment, though its form remains. ”

“ At the outset, and confining ourselves to the animal kingdom for the present, bearing in mind the fierce intensity of the struggle for life, it would seem that any scheme of colour that would enable its possessor to elude its foes or conceal itself from its prey, would be of vital importance. ”

“ But with the dawn of the new scientific faith, light began to shine upon these and kindred questions; nature ceased to appear a mass of useless, unconnected facts, and ornamentation appeared in its true guise as of extreme importance to the beings possessing it. ”

“ With the evolution of sight it might be of importance that even the sightless animals should be coloured; and in this way we can account for the decoration of coral polyps, and other animals that have no eyes; just as we find no difficulty in understanding the colouration of flowers.
Colour, in fact, so far as external nature is concerned, is all in all to the lower animals. By its means prey is discovered, or foes escaped. But in the case of man quite a different state of things exists. The lower animals can only be modified and adapted to their surroundings by the direct influence of nature. ”

“ If, instead of a bird, we took an insect, laying hundreds of eggs, a fish, laying thousands, or a plant, producing still greater quantities of seed, we should find the extermination just as rigorous, and the numbers of individuals destroyed incomparably greater. Darwin has calculated that from a single pair of elephants nearly nineteen millions would be alive in 750 years if each elephant born arrived at maturity, lived a hundred years, and produced six young—and the elephant is the slowest breeder of all animals. ”

“ Now, natural selection may suppress certain spots, or lines, or expand them into wide, uniform masses, or it may suppress some and repeat others. On these simple principles the whole scheme of natural colouration can be explained; and to do this is the object of the following pages.
Into the origin of the colour sense it is not our province to enlarge; but, it will reasonably be asked, How are these colours of use to the creature decorated? The admiration of colour, the charm of landscape, is the newest of human developments. ”

“ If our personal identity thus elude our search in active life, it certainly becomes no more tangible if we trace existence back into pre-natal states. We are, in one sense, the same individual; but, what is equally important, we were part of our mother, as absolutely as her limbs are part of her. ”

“ The struggle for existence, then, is a real and potent fact, and it follows that if, from any cause whatever, a being possesses any power or peculiarity that will give it a better chance of survival over its fellows—be that power ever so slight—it will have a very decided advantage.
Now it can be shown that no two individuals are exactly alike, in other words, that variation is constantly taking place, and that no animal or plant preserves its characters unmodified. ”

“ The shell-bearing mollusca are proverbial for their beauty, but it is essential to bear in mind that the shell does not bear the same relation to the mollusc that the "shell" of a lobster does to that animal. The lobster's shell is part of its living body; it is a true exo-skeleton, whereas the shell of a mollusc is a more extraneous structure—a house built by the creature. We ought, on our view, to find no more relation between the decoration of a shell and the structure of its occupant, than we do in the decoration of a human dwelling-house to the tenant. ”

“ Everyone would wish to explain to himself even in an imperfect manner, how it is possible for a character possessed by some remote ancestor suddenly to reappear in the offspring; how the effects of increased or decreased use of a limb can be transmitted to the child; how the male sexual element can act, not solely on the ovules, but occasionally on the mother form; how a hybrid can be produced by the union of the cellular tissue of two plants independently of the organs of generation ”

“ He finds that "already among the microscopic Protista there are some that love light, and some that love darkness rather than light. Many seem also to have smell and taste, for they select their food with great care.... Here, also, we are met by the weighty fact that sense-function is possible without sense organs, without nerves. In place of these, sensitiveness is resident in that wondrous, structureless, albuminous substance, which, under the name of protoplasm, or organic formative material, is known as the general and essential basis of all the phenomena of life." ”

“ Granting this, it follows that the fundamental law of decoration is a structural one. Assuming, as we do, that memory has played a most important part in evolution, it follows that all living matter has a profound experience in decorating its organs—it is knowledge just as anciently acquired, and as perfectly, as the power of digestion. This colour was produced under the influence of light—so it is even in opaque animals. ”

“ The thorough appreciation of this principle is absolutely essential to the argument of this work; for to inherited memory we attribute not only the formation of habits and instincts, but also the modification of organs, which leads to the formation of new species. In a word, it is to memory we attribute the possibility of evolution, and by it the struggle for existence is enabled to re-act upon the forms of life, and produce the harmony we see in the organic world. ”

“ Bearing in mind, then, the fundamental laws that the offspring is one in continuity with its parents, and that memory arises chiefly from repetition in a definite order (for we cannot readily reverse the process—we cannot sing the National Anthem backwards) , it is easy to see how the oft-performed actions of an individual become its unconscious habits, and these by inheritance become the instincts and unconscious actions of the species. Experience and memory are thus the key-note to the origin of species. ”

“ Sir John Lubbock has demonstrated the existence of a colour sense in bees, wasps, and ants; and the great fact that flowers are lures for insects proves beyond the power of doubt that these creatures have a very strong faculty for perceiving colour.
The pale yellows and white of night-flowering plants render them conspicuous to the flower-haunting moths; and no one who has ever used an entomologist's lantern, or watched a daddy-long-legs (Tipula) dancing madly round a candle, can fail to see that intense excitement is caused by the flame. ”

“ But if we remember that the great law of all living matter is, that the child is not a separate individual, but a part of the living body of the parent, up to a certain date, when it assumes a separate existence, then we can comprehend how living beings inherit ancestral characters, for they are parts of one continuous series in which not a single break has existed or can ever take place. ”

“ The under surface is very frequently so mottled and coloured as to resemble the insect's natural surroundings, and so afford protection. It does not follow that this protective colouring need be dull, and only when we know the habit of the insect can we pronounce upon the value of such colouring. The pretty Orange-tip has its under wings veined with green, and is most conspicuous in a cabinet, but when at rest upon some umbelliferous plant, with its orange tip hidden, these markings so resemble the environment as to render the insect very inconspicuous. ”

“ That the object of brilliant colour is display is shown partly by the fact that in those parts of the wings of butterflies which overlap the brilliant colour is missing, and partly by the generally brighter [47] hues of day-flying butterflies and moths than of the night-flying species. Now, the sombre hues of nocturnal moths are not so much protective (like the sober tints of female butterflies and birds) , because night and darkness is their great defender, as the necessary result of the darkness: bright colours are not produced, because they could not be seen and appreciated. ”

“ He is not so directly dependent upon nature; and, as his mental powers increase, his dependence lessens, and in this way—the æsthetic principle not yet being awakened—we can understand how his colour sense, for want of practice, decayed, to be reawakened in these our times, with a vividness and power as unequalled as is his mastery over nature—the master of his ancestors. ”

“ If, as I believe, the origin of form and decoration is due to a process similar to the visualising of object-thoughts in the human mind, the power of this visualising must commence with the life of the being. It would seem that this power may be best understood by a correct insight into biological development. It has always excited wonder that a child, a separate individual, should inherit and reproduce the characters of its parents, and, indeed, of its ancestors ”

“ It is owing to this pervading natural principle, that we find the extreme points of quadrupeds so universally decorated. The tips of the nose, ears and tail, and the feet also proclaim the fact, and the decoration of the sense organs, even down to the dark spots around each hair of a cat's feelers, are additional proofs. Look, for instance, at a caterpillar with its breathing holes or spiracles along the sides, and see how these points are selected as the seats of specialized colour, eye-spots and stripes in every variety will be seen, all centred around these important air-holes. ”