The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

The fitness and beauty of the world

The fitness and beauty of the world.

"One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide, how rich! What invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man! In its fruitful soils; in its navigable sea; in its mountains of metal and stone; in its forests of all woods; in its animals; in its chemical ingredients; in the powers and path of light, heat, attraction and life, it is well-worth the pith and heart of great men to subdue and enjoy it."

R. W. Emerson.

"There is no element of our sensuous nature which yields us greater or more varied pleasure than the perception of colour. Whether we look at the larger physical wholes, the azure heaven above us, the purple sea beneath us, and the green meadows by our side;—or at the smaller organic bodies, the briliant flowers, the crimson foliage of autumn, the gaudily painted butterflies, the beetles clad in burnished gold, the peacock adorned with all the hues of the rainbow, and the humming-birds decked out in ruby, sapphire, and amethyst;—or again at the transient effects of light in the spectrum, the soap-bubble, the iridescent surface of the opal, the tints of eventide mirrored in the glassy lake;—in each and every case we feel a thrill of pure and unselfish enjoyment, which no other mere sensuous stimulation is capable of arousing in our breasts. The pleasure of colour is one which raises itself above the common level of monopolist gratification, and attains to the higher plane of æsthetic delight"

" The Colour Sense."

"The Creator has covered the earth and filled the waters with beauty. Almost every animal and shell, every tree and flower and sea-weed, the mountains, the rivers, the oceans, every phase of day and night, summer and winter—is essentially beautiful. Our sense of Beauty seems to be, not so much a beneficent adapta- tion to our dwelling-place (like our sense of taste for our food), but rather a filial sympathy with our Great Father's pleasure in His lovely creation; a pleasure which He must have enjoyed millions of years before our race existed, when all the exquisite forms of animal and vegetable life filled the ancient lands and seas of the earliest geologic epochs. Nothing but a preference for beauty, for grace of form, and varied and harmonious colouring, inherent in the Author of the Cosmos, can explain how it comes to pass that Nature is on the whole so refulgent with loveliness."

Frances Power Cobbe.

"The world is crowded with beauty. Every air-bell that dances on the water, every crystal that sparkles in a snow-flake, each leaf, flower and fruit, each fish and bird, is a thing of beauty. Not an insect in the air, not a mollusk on the rock, not a creature in pond or ditch, not an animal that browses on the green slopes of the breezy down is destitute of interest, or does not exhibit in its structure the traces of goodness, and the requisite provision for a happy existence. So universal in the world is adaptation, beauty, and benevolence. But, if we look to these for perfection we do not find it. Many improvements are left to the ingenuity of man. The earth is ploughed and enriched by him. Our dwellings, no longer mere mud-cabins, are rendered tasteful by his genius, and fitted to human well-being by his wisdom—made perfectly dry, self-ventilating, cheerfully lighted, and comfortably warmed by his experimental knowledge. Our kitchen and flower gardens and vineries tell of unfolding by culture. Grain and barn-fowl, cattle and horses, all show wondrous evolution by skilful in and out breeding. Man is the assisting factor in the development from a lower to a higher condition. The human mind is superior to all other things that we observe. Our world culminates in man; hence, man is able to make useful improvements, and to view all things which are not human as inferior to himself."

" Theist."