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 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 towards
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).

Sec. 12 Recapitulation.

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 touchstone 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 towards 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 theoretic
faculty entirely 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 disgusting 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 su