Turning, then, to the animal kingdom below the level of insects, here we are bound to confess that the beauty which so often meets us cannot reasonably be ascribed either to natural or to sexual selection. Not to sexual selection for the reasons already given; the animals in question are neither sufficiently intelligent to possess any æsthetic taste, nor, as a matter of fact, do we observe that they exercise any choice in pairing. Not to natural selection, because we cannot here, as in the case of vegetables, point to any benefit as generally arising from bright colours and beautiful forms. On the principles of naturalism, therefore, we are driven to conclude that the beauty here is purely adventitious, or accidental. Nor need we be afraid to make this admission, if only we take a sufficiently wide view of the facts. For, when we do take such a view, we find that beauty here is by no means of invariable, or even of general, occurrence. There is no loveliness about an oyster or a lob-worm; parasites, as a rule, are positively ugly, and they constitute a good half of all animal species. The truth seems to be, when we look attentively at the matter, that in all cases where beauty does occur in these lower forms of animal life, its presence is owing to one of two things--either to the radiate form, or to the bright tints. Now, seeing that the radiate form is of such general occurrence among these lower animals--appearing over and over again, with the utmost insistence, even among groups widely separated from one another by the latest results of scientific classification--seeing this, it becomes impossible to doubt that the radiate form is due to some morphological reasons of wide generality. Whether these reasons be connected with the internal laws of growth, or to the external conditions of environment, I do not pretend to suggest. But I feel safe in saying that it cannot possibly be due to any design to secure beauty for its own sake. The very generality of the radiate form is in itself enough to suggest that it must have some physical, as distinguished from an æsthetic, explanation; for, if the attainment of beauty had here been the object, surely it might have been even more effectually accomplished by adopting a greater variety of typical forms--as, for instance, in the case of flowers.