And here I conclude. I see in Nature both utility and beauty; but I am not convinced that the one is solely dependent on the other. I find a grace and a glory (even in the flowers of plants) which, on the utilitarian theory, is not accounted for, is a residual phenomenon; and that in such enormous proportions that the phenomenon explained bears no perceptible proportion to the phenomenon left unexplained. Whether this be so or not, it appears to me, for the reasons I have already given, that we may still entertain the same notions about the beauty of the world as before. Our souls may still rejoice in beauty as of old. To some of us this glorious frame has not appeared a dead mechanic mass, but a living whole, instinct with spiritual life; and in the beauty which we see around us in Nature's face, we have felt the smile of a spiritual Being, as we feel the smile of our friend adding light and lustre to his countenance. I still indulge this fancy, or, if you will, this superstition. Still, as of old, I feel (to use the familiar language of our great poet of Nature)-- "A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth: of all the mighty world, Of eye, and ear." EDW. FRY. [Footnote 1: Wisdom, xiii. 3-5.] [Footnote 2: P. 200.] [Footnote 3: "Origin of Species" (4th Ed.), p. 239.] [Footnote 4: Wallace, "Tropical Nature," p. 232.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid._ p. 232.] [Footnote 6: _Ibid._ p. 237.] [Footnote 7: "Flowers and their Unbidden Guests," by Kerner, translated by Ogle. Prefatory Letter.] [Footnote 8: Henslow, "On Self-Fertilization." Trans. Linn. Society, 2nd series, "Botany," i. p. 325. _Query_: Is not this the case with the _Tacsonia_ of our greenhouses?] [Footnote 9: Henslow, _ubi sup._ 329.] [Footnote 10: Kerner, p. 11. These statements appear to me, though made by a very accomplished observer, to require verification. My own observations on the _Colchicum_ (which have been only very imperfect) would have led me to incline to a different conclusion.] [Footnote 11: Kerner, p. 12.] [Footnote 12: Lubbock's "Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects," p. 56.] [Footnote 13: Lindley, "Veg. King." 436.] [Footnote 14: "Ueber die Bestaubungsvorrichtungen bei den Fumariaceen," in Pringsheim's "Jahrbuch," vol. vii. part iv. p. 423. 1870.] [Footnote 15: Link, "Report on Progress of Botany during 1841," translated by Lankester (Ray Society, 1845), p. 65.]