Full text: Nature versus natural selection

133 
next generation. The principle of utility would be the 
measure of that which was best. The sportsman would 
naturally breed from the swiftest greyhounds with the 
best “ staying power,” and from the staunchest pointer 
who best understood his business. But in this breed 
improving selection, we may discern, if I mistake not, 
three gradations:—(i) There would be those who are 
content to select with a view to utility alone, on the 
principle of the adage, “ Handsome is as handsome does.” 
(2) Every useful purpose which an animal fulfils tends to 
alter its form. There is, for example, a form which is 
best adapted for swift motion, as seen in the greyhound 
and the race horse, just as there is a form of vessel most 
adapted for fast sailing. Hence it would be natural to 
aim at the perfection of this form as an outward symbol 
of practical utility. And it is quite conceivable that the 
form which was perfect from the point of view of utility, 
might also come to be regarded as beautiful from an 
aesthetic point of view. Without contending that the 
sense of the beautiful has its origin in utilitarian notions, 
it is obvious that an object may be beautiful or not in 
our eyes according as it is associated with ideas of utility; 
as when we admire the colour on the cheek of beauty, 
because it is the accompaniment of physical health, and 
look with disgust upon the same colour on the nose of 
the inebriate, because it is associated in our mind with 
excess and disease. This would tend to a still more 
definite selection, the principle of utility and the principle 
of taste co-operating to produce one common result. 
(3) But sometimes we find that in the production of use 
ful animals, the useful and the beautiful have both to be 
introduced, even when the ornamental has no necessary 
association with utility, or the breeder will not find pur 
chasers. This is especially true with regard to riding-horses.
	        
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