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 hyana; 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.1 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 § 9. How imrightly balanced judgment on the moral functions of the animal peded. 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among those of prey, its characters exist in exalted measure upon those that range and pursue, and are in equal degree withdrawn from those that lie subtly and silently in the covert of the reed and fens.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

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

WORDSWORTH, To the Skylark.

§ 10. The influence of moral expression.

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 perfections indeed are causes of beauty in proportion to their 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 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 preeminently 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 man. 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 Raffaelle's St. Catherine.)
I shall illustrate the subject farther hereafter, by giving the mouth
of one of the demons of Orcagna's Inferno, with 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 $11. As also be 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

§ 12. Recapitulation.

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, we find that our full receiving of its beauty depends, first on the 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.