^iii?$i J4J3333A3w"A7lW*AAX4>*4>-;- ~^il$HiiHr iius; 1 Y,. ? LlbRARV 00353 EAUTY; ILLUSTRATED CHIEFLY BY AN ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION BY ALEXANDER WALKER, AUTHOR OF "INTERMARRIAGE," " WOMAN," " PHYSIO6NOMT FOUNDED ON PHYSIOLOGY," " THE NERVOUS SYSTEM," ETC. EDITED BY AN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN NEW YORK: J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 57 CHATHAM STREET. PHILADELPHIA: IIASWELL, HARRINGTON, 4> ANATOMICAL AND the third may be named nervous or thinking, or (as mind results from them) mental. The human body, then, consists of organs of three kinds. By the first kind, locomotive or me- chanical action is effected ; by the second, nutritive or vital action is maintained ; and by the third, thinking or mental action is permitted. Anatomy is, therefore, divided into three parts, namely, that which considers the mechanical or locomotive organs ; that which considers the nu- tritive or vital organs ; and that which considers the thinking or mental organs. Under the mechanical or locomotive organs are classed, first, the bones or organs of support ; sec- ond, the ligaments or organs of articulation ; and third, the muscles or organs of motion. Under the nutritive or vital organs are classed, first, the absorbent vessels or organs of absorption; second, the bloodvessels, which derive their con- tents from the absorbed lymph, or organs of cir- culation ; and third, the secreting vessels, which separate various matters from the blood, or organs of secretion.* * To some it may appear, that the organs and functions of di- gestion, respiration, and generation, are not involved by this ar- rangement ; but such a notion can originate only in superficial ob- servation. Digestion is a compound function easily reducible to some of the simple ones which have been enumerated. It consists of the mo- tion of the stomach and contiguous parts, of the secretion of a li- quid from its internal surface, and of that heat, which is the com- mon result of all action, whether mechanical, vital, or mental, and PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 145 Under the thinking or mental organs are classed, first, the organs of sense, where impressions take place ; second, the cerebrum or organ of thought, properly so called, where these excite ideas, emo- tions, and passions ; and third, the cerehel or organ which is better explained by such motion, than by chymical theo- ries. Similarly compound are respiration and generation. Thus, there is no organ nor function which is not involved by the simple and natural arrangement here sketched. Compound, however, as the organs of digestion, respiration, and generation, are, yet, as they form so important a part of the sys- tem, it may be asked, with which of these classes they are most allied. The answer is obvious. All of them consist of tubular vessels of various diameter ; and all of them transmit and trans- mute liquids. Possessing such strong characteristics of the nutri- tive or vital system, they are evidently most allied to it. In short, digestion prepares the nutritive or vital matter, which is taken up by absorption the first of the simple nutritive func- tions ; respiration renovates it in the very middle of its course between the two portions of the simple function of circulation ; and generation, dependant on secretion the last of these func- tions, communicates this nutritive matter, or propagates vitality to a new series of beings. In such arrangement, the digestive or- gans, therefore, precede, and the generative follow, the simple nutritive organs ; while the respiratory occupy a middle place be- tween the venous and the arterial circulation. Nothing can be more improper, as the preceding observations show, than considering any one of these as a distinct class. More fully, therefore, to enumerate the nutritive or vital organs, we may say, that, under them, are classed, first, the organs of di- gestion, the external and internal absorbent surfaces, and the ves- sels which absorb from these surfaces, or the organs of absorption ; second, the heart, lungs, and bloodvessels, which derive their con- tents (the blood) from the absorbed lymph, or the organs of cir- culation ; and third, the secreting cavities, glands, &c., which sep- arate various matters from the blood, or the organs of secretion, and of which generation is the sequel. 13 146 ANATOMICAL AND of volition, where acts of the will result from the last.* We may now more particularly notice the func- tions of these organs, which are the subject of physiology. In the locomotive functions, the hones at once give support, and form levers for motion ; the lig- aments form articulations, and afford the points of support ; and the muscles are the moving powers. To the first, are owing all the symmetry and ele- gance of .human form ; to the second, its beautiful flexibility; and to the third, all the brilliance and grace of motion which fancy can inspire, or skill can execute. In the nutritive functions, the food, having passed into the mouth, is, after mastication, aided by mix- ture with the saliva, thrown back, by the tongue and contiguous parts, into the cavity behind, called fauces and pharynx ; this contracting, presses it into the oesophagus or gullet ; this also contracting, propels it into the stomach, which, after its due di- gestion aided by the gastric juice, similarly con- tracting, transmits whatever portion of it, now called chyme, is sufficiently comminuted to pass through its lower opening, the pylorus, into the in- testines ; these, at the commencement of which it receives the bile and pancreatic juice, similarly pressing it on all sides, urge forward its most solid part to the anus ; while its liquid portion partly es- capes from the pressure into the mouths of the ab * Appendix E. PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 147 sorbents. The absorbents arising by minute open- ings from all the internal surfaces, and continuing a similar contractile motion, transmit it, now called chyle, by all their gradually-enlarging branches, and through their general trunk, the thoracic duct, where it is blended with the lymph brought from other parts, into the great veins contiguous to the heart, where it is 'mixed with the venous or return- ing and dark-colored blood, and whence it flows into the anterior side of that organ. .The anterior side of the heart, forcibly repeating this contraction, propels it,' commixed with the venous blood, into the lungs, which perform the office of respiration, and in some measure of sanguification ; there, giv- ing off carbonaceous matter, and assuming a ver- milion hue and new vivifying properties, it flows back as arterial blood, into the posterior side of the heart. The posterior side of the heart, still simi- larly contracting, discharges it into the arteries ; these, maintaining a like contraction, carry it over all the system ; and a great portion of it, impreg- nated with carbon, and of a dark color, returns through the veins, in order to undergo the same course. Much, however, of. its gelatinous and fibrous parts is retained in the cells of the paren- chyma, or cellular, vascular, and nervous substance forming the basis of the whole fabric, and consti- tutes nutrition, properly so called ; while other portions of it become entangled in the peculiarly- formed labyrinths of the glands, and form secretion and excretion the products of the former con- tributing to the exercise of other functions, and 148 ANATOMICAL AND those of the latter being rejected. As digestion precedes the first, so generation follows the last of these functions, and not only continues the same species of action, but propagates it widely to new existences in the manner just described. In the thinking functions, the organs of sense receive external impressions, which excite in them sensations ; the cerebrum, having these transmitted to it, performs the more complicated functions of mental operation, whence result ideas, emotions, and passions; and the cerebel, being similarly influ- enced, performs the function of volition, or causes the acts of the will. It is not unusual to consider the body as being divided into the head, the trunk, and the extremi- ties ; but, in consequence of the hitherto universal neglect of the natural arrangement of the organs and functions into locomotive, nutritive, and think- ing, the beauty and interest which may be attached to this division, have equally escaped the notice of anatomists. It is a curious fact, and strongly confirmative of the preceding arrangements, that one of these parts, the extremities, consists almost entirely of locomotive organs, namely, of bones, ligaments, and muscles ; that another, the trunk, consists of all the greater nutritive organs, namely, absorbents, blood-vessels, and glands ; and that the third, the head, contains all the thinking organs, namely, the organs of sense, cerebrum, and cerebel.* * In perfect consistency with the assertion, thatj though the PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 149 It is a fact not less curious, nor less confirmative of the preceding arrangemepts, that, .of these parts, those which consist chiefly of locomotive or me- chanical organs organs which, as to mere struc- ture, and considered apart from the influence of the nervous system over them, are common to us with the lowest class of beings, namely, minerals* are placed in the lowest situation, namely, the extremities ; that which consists chiefly of nutri- tive or vital organs organs common to us with a higher class of beings, namely, vegetables! is placed in a higher situation, namely, the trunk; and that which consists chiefly of thinking or men- tal organs organs peculiar to the highest class of beings, namely, animals| is placed in the highest situation, namely, the head. It is not less remarkable, that this analogy is supported even in its minutest details ; for, to choose the nutritive organs contained in the trunk as an illustration, it is a fact, that those of absorp- tion and secretion, which are most common to us organs of digestion, respiration, and generation, were really com- pound, still they were chiefly nutritive or vital, and properly be- longed to that class, it is not less remarkable-, that, in this divfsion of the body, they are found to occupy that part, the .trunk, in which the chief simple nutritive organs are contained. . This also shows- the impropriety of reckoning any of these a separate system from the vital. .* The bones resemble these, in containing the greatest quantity of earthy mineral matter. t It is the possession :of vessels which constitutes the vitality of vegetables. ^ Jn animals, alone, is nervous matter discoverable. 13* 150 ANATOMICAL AND with plants, a lower class of beings, have a lower situation in the cavity of the abdomen; while those of circulation, which are very imperfect in plants,* and more peculiar to animals, a higher class of beings, hold a higher situation in the cavity of the thorax. It is, moreover, worthy of remark, and still illus- trative of the preceding arrangements, that, in each of these three situations, the bones differ both in position and in form. In the extremities, they are situated internally to the soft parts, and are gener- ally of cylindrical form ; in the trunk, they begin to assume a more external situation and a flatter form, because they protect nutritive and more im- portant parts, which they do not, however, alto- gether cover ; and, in the head, they obtain the most external situation and the flattest form, espe- cially in its highest part, because they protect thinking and most important organs, which, in some parts, they completely invest. The loss of such general views is the conse- quence of arbitrary methods.f * Plants have no real circulation, nor passage of their nutritive liquids through the same point. t This arrangement of anatomy and physiology was first pub- lished by me in 1806 ; and, notwithstanding its being the arrange- ment of nature, it has not been adopted by any one that I know of, until very lately, when it was in some measure used by Dr. Roget, without acknowledgment. The originality, as well as the truth and value, of this arrange- ment, will be illustrated by referring to any other published pre- vious to 1806, or even to 1808, when I republished it in "Prelim- inary Lectures," Edinburgh. PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 151 We may now apply these anatomical and physi- ological views to the art of distinguishing and judging of beauty in woman. It is evidently the locomotive or mechanical system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is precise, striking, and brilliant. It is evidently the nutritive or vital system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is soft and voluptuous. It is not less evidently the thinking or mental system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is characterized by intellectuality and grace. Thus can anatomical principles alone at once illustrate and establish the accuracy of the three species of beauty which I have analytically de- scribed. 152 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN- CHAPTER VIII. OF THE AGES OF WOMAN IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. THE variations of the organization of woman do not distinctly mark the seasons of life. Many connected phenomena glide on imperceptibly; and we can distinguish the strong characters of differ- ent and distinct ages, only at periods remote from each other. Although, therefore, woman is per- petually changing, it requires some care to dis- criminate the principal epochs of her life. The first age of woman extends from birth to the period of puberty. In beginning the career of life, woman is not yet truly woman ; the characters of her sex are not yet decided ; she is an equivocal being, who does not differ from the male of the same age even by the delicacy of the organs ; and we observe be- tween them a perfect identity of wants, functions, and movements. Their existence is, then, purely individual ; we perceive none of the relations which afterward establish between them a mutual dependance ; each lives only for self. This -conformity and independence of the sexes are the more remarkable, the earlier the age and the less advanced the development. IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 153 Confining our view to woman alone, it is not only in dimensions that, at this age, her person differs from that in which the growth is termi- nated: it presents another model. The various parts have not, in relation to each other, the same proportions. The head is much more voluminous ; and this is not a result of the extent of the face, for that is small and contracted, because the apparatus of smell and of mastication are not yet developed. Nor is the head only more voluminous ; it is also more active, and forms a centre toward which is directed all the effort of life. The spine of the back has not either the minuter prominences or the general inflexions which favor the action of the extensor muscles, a circumstance which is opposed to standing perpendicularly during the first months. The infant consequently can only crawl like a quadruped. Little distinction can then be drawn, and that with difficulty, from the comparative width of the haunches, and magnitude of the pelvis. That part is scarcely more developed in the female than in the male ; its general form is the same ; and its different diameters have similar relations to each other. The length of the trunk is great in proportion to the limbs, which are slightly and imperfectly developed. Owing to the great length of the chest, and the imperfection of the inferior members, the middle of the body then corresponds to the region of the 154 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN umbilicus. An infant having other proportions, would appear to be deprived of the characters of its age. In the locomotive system, the muscles have not yet acted with sufficient power and frequency to modify the direction of the bones, and to bestow a peculiar character upon their combination in the skeleton. The fleshy and other soft parts do not yet appear to differ from those of the male, either as to form or as to relative volume. The vital functions of digestion, of circulation and respiration, of nutrition, secretion, and excre- tion, are performed in the same manner. The want of nourishment is unceasingly renewed, and the movements of the pulse, and of inspiration and expiration, are rapidly performed, owing to the extreme irritability of all the organs. The mental functions present the same resem- blance ; the ideas, the appetites, the passions, have the greatest analogy ; and similar moral disposi- tions prevail. Little girls, it has been observed, have in some measure the petulance of little boys, and these have in some measure the mobility and the inconstancy of little girls. Owing to the pelvis not being yet developed, little girls walk nearly like children of the other sex. These points of resemblance do not continue during a long period : the female begins to acquire a distinct physiognomy, and traits which are pecu- liar to her, long before we can discern any of the symptoms of puberty ; and although the especial IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 155 marks which distinguish her sex do not yet show themselves, the general forms which characterize it may be perceived. These differences, however, are only slight modifications, more easily felt than determined. The cartilaginous extremities of the hones ap- pear to enlarge ; and the mucous substance, which ultimately gives -the soft reliefs which distinguish woman, is not yet secreted. She is now perhaps more easily distinguished by the nature of her in- clinations and the general character of her mind : while man now seeks to make use of his strength, woman endeavors to acquire agreeable arts. The movements, the gait, of the little girl begin to change. These shades are so much the more sensible as the development is more advanced. Still, woman, in advancing toward puberty, appears to remove less than man from her primitive constitution ; she alwayspreservessomething of the character proper to children ; and the texture of her organs never loses all its original softness. At the near approach to puberty, woman becomes daily more perfect. We observe a predominance of the action of the lungs and the arteries ; the pelvis enlarges ; the haunches are rounded ; and the figure acquires elegance. There is in particular a remarkable increase of the capacity of the pelvis, of which the circum- ference at last presents the circular form > it being no longer, as in the little girl and in man, the an- 156 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN teroposterior diameter which is the greatest, but the transverse one. It has been observed that the same occurs in the females of the greater quad- rupeds. The pelvis, however, does not acquire, till the moment of perfect puberty, its proper form and dimensions. The changes which the same cause produces at the surface, are a general development of the cel- lular tissue, the delicacy of all the outlines, the fineness and the animation of the skin, and the new state of the bosom. The fire of the eyes, and the altogether new ex- pression of the physiognomy, show that there now also exists the sensation of a new want, which various circumstances may for a time enfeeble or silence, but can never entirely stifle ; and with it come those tastes, that direction of the mind, and those habits, which are the effect of an internal power now called into activity. The gait and bearing of woman are now no longer the same ; and the voice changes as well as the physiognomy. In all that has yet occurred, it will be observed that nutrition and growth take place with great rapidity in woman. Her internal structure, her external form, her faculties, are all developed promptly. It would appear that the parts which compose her body, being less, less compact, and less strong, than those of man, require less time to attain their complete development. Woman consequently arrives earlier at the age of puberty, and her body is commonly, at twenty IN RELATION TO BEATJTY. 157 years of age, as completely formed as that of a man at thirty. Thus beauty and grace, as has been observed, seem to demand of nature less labor and time than the attributes of force and grandeur. In many women, however, nutrition languishes even until the sexual organs enter into action, and determine a revolution under the influence of which growth is accomplished. Still it is certain that, for several years, the locomotive system predominates in young women, even in figures promising the ultimate development of the vital system in the highest degree. The second age of woman extends from puberty to the cessation of the menses, or, we may say, from the period of full growth, the general time of bearing children, to the time of ceasing to bear generally perhaps from twenty to forty. It is at the beginning of this period that woman has acquired all her attributes, her most seducing graces. She is not now distinguished merely by the organs which are the direct instruments of reproduction : many other differences of structure, having a relation to her part in life, present them- selves to our view. At this maturer age, the whole figure is, in the female, smaller and slenderer than in the male. The ancients accordingly gave seven heads and a half to the Venus, and eight heads and some mod- ules to the Apollo. The relations between the dimensions of the different parts differ also in the two sexes. In woman, the head, shoulders, and chest, are 14, 158 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN small and compact, while the haunches, the hips, the thighs, and the parts connected with the abdo- men, are ample and large. Hence, her hody tapers upward, as her limbs taper downward. And this is the most remarkable circumstance in her gen- eral form. Owing to smaller stature, and to greater size of the abdominal region, the middle point, which is at the pubis in the male, is situated higher in the female. This is the next remarkable circumstance in a general view. The inferior members still continue shorter. In general, woman is not only less in stature, and different in her general proportions, but her haunches are more apart, her hips more elevated, her abdomen larger, her members more rounded, her soft parts less compact, her forms more soft- ened, her traits finer. During youth, especially, and among civilized nations, woman is farther distinguished by the softness, the smoothness, the delicacy, and the polish, of all the forms, by the gradual and easy transitions between all the parts, by the number and the harmony of the undulating lines which these present in every view, by the beautiful out- line of the reliefs, and by the fineness and the ani- mation of the skin. The soft parts which enter into the composition of woman, and the cellular tissue which serves to unite them, are also more delicate and more sup- ple than those of man. All these circumstances indicate very clearly IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 159 the passive state to which nature has destined woman, and which will he fully illustrated in a fu- ture volume. If, in a living hody, any part liable to be dis- tended had too much firmness, or even elasticity, it might press against some essential organ ; and the liquids being impeded in their course, would in that case be speedily altered, if the neighboring parts offered not flexible vessels for their recep- tion. Now, in the body of woman, certain parts are exposed to suffer great distentions and compres- sions. It is therefore necessary that her organs should be of such structure as to yield readily to these impressions, and to supply each other when their respective functions are impeded. From this it follows, that woman never enjoys existence better, than when a moderate plumpness bestows on her organs, without too much weak- ening them, all the suppleness of which they are capable. This leads to the consideration of the natural mobility of the organs of woman. Their mobility is a necessary consequence, in the first place, of their littleness. The movements of all animals, appear to be executed with more rapidity, the less their bulk. It has been observed, that the arteries of the ox beat only thirty-five times, while those of the sheep beat sixty, and that the pulse of women is smaller and more rapid than that of men. A second physical quality, which concurs tp 160 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN render more mobile the various parts of woman, is their softness. A certain feebleness is the necessary conse- quence of these two circumstances. But it is thence that spring woman's suppleness and light- ness of movement, and her capacity for grace of attitude. It has been conjectured, that even the elements of the parts which constitute woman, have a par- ticular organization, on which depends the ele- gance of the forms, the vivacity of the sensations, and the lightness of the movements, which charac- terize her. The result of these circumstances is that, while man possesses force and majesty, woman is distin- guished by beauty and grace. The characteristics of woman are less imposing and more amiable ; they inspire less admiration than love. As has been observed, a single trait of rudeness, a severe air, or even the character of majesty, would injure the effect of womanly beauty. Lucian admirably represents to us the god of love frightened at the masculine air of Minerva. While man, by force and activity, surmounts the obstacles which embarrass him, woman, by yield- ing, withdraws from their action, and adds to beau- ty, a gentle and winning grace which places all the vaunted power of man at her disposal. It is evidently the influence of the organs distin- guishing the two sexes, which is the primary cause of their peculiar beauty. As the liquid which, in man, is secreted in cer- IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 161 tain vessels for the purpose of reproduction, com- municates a general excitement and activity to the character, so when, in woman, the periodical ex- cretion appears, the breasts expand, the eyes sparkle, the countenance becomes more expres- sive, but at the same time more timid and reserved, and a character of flexibility and grace distin- guishes every motion. Conformably with this view, the appearance and the manners of eunuchs approach to those of wo- men, by the softness and feebleness of their organ- ization, as well as by their timidity, and by their acute voice. The very opposite is naturally the result of the extirpation of the ovaries in women. Pott, giving an account of the case of a female, in whom both the ovaries were extirpated, says, the person " has become thinner, and more apparently muscular ; her breasts, which were large, are gone ; n.or has she ever menstruated since the operation, which is now some years." Haighton found that, by dividing the Fallopian tubes, which connect the ovaries with the womb, sexual feelings were de- stroyed, and the ovaries gradually wasted. The women, also, in whom the uterus and the ovaries remain inert during life, approximate in forms and habits to men. It is stated, in the Philo- sophical Transactions for 1805, that an adult fe- male, in whom the ovaries were defective, presented a corresponding defect in the state of the consti- tution. To the same general principle, it has been ob- 14* 362 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN served, we must refer the partial growth of a beard on females in the decline of life, and the circum- stance that female-birds, when they have ceased to lay eggs, occasionally assume the plumage, and, to a certain extent, the other characters of the male. Under the influence of this cause, the first exer- cise of her new faculty determines remarkable modifications in woman. Her neck swells and augments in size " Non illam nutrix orienti luce revisens Hesterno collum poterit circumdare filo ; her voice assumes another expression ; her moral habits totally change : and many women owe to love and marriage more splendid beauty. The women thus happily constituted are not those of hot climates, but those of cooler regions and calmer temperament, whose placid features and more elastic forms announce a gentler and more passive love. Impassioned women, on the contrary, do not so long preserve their freshness : the expansive force, * The cause of this has never been explained ; and it could not well be explained, without a perception of the views in my prece- ding physiological arrangement. The brain, at this period, be- comes more subservient to purposes connected with generation ; the communication between the trunk and the head is more fre- quent, intense, and sustained ; and the neck, which contains the communicating organs, necessarily increases in size. This unex- plained circumstance led to the mistake of the craniologists re- specting the cerebel. Here, therefore, as in other cases pointed out in my work on Physiognomy, Gall and Spurzheim ascribe to deeper-seated organs what belongs to more superficial ones. IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 163 from which the organs derived their form and col- oring, abates ; and a less agreeable flaccidity suc- ceeds to the elasticity with which they were en- dowed, if the plumpness which adult age commonly brings does not sustain them. During pregnancy and suckling, the firstmention- ed class of women retain a remarkable freshness and plumpness. The lastmentioned class of women most fre- quently become meager, and lose their freshness during the continuance of these states. If, however, during these states, suitable precau- tions and preservative cares be not employed, it is the first class who most suffer from traces of ma- ternity. Conception, pregnancy, delivery, and suckling, being renewed more or less frequently during the second age, hasten debility in feeble and ill-consti- tuted women ; especially if misery or an improper mode of life increase the influence of these causes. In the third age of woman, extending generally from forty to sixty, the physical . form does not suddenly deteriorate ; and, as has often been ob- served, " when premature infirmities or misfor- tunes, the exercise of an unfavorable profession, or a wrong employment of life, have not hastened old age, women during the third age preserve many of the charms of the preceding one." At this period, in well-constituted women, the fat, being absorbed with less activity, is accumula- ted in the cellular tissue under the skin and else- where ; and this effaces any wrinkles which might 164 OF THE AGES OF WOMAN have begun to furrow the skin, rounds the outlines anew, and again restores an air of youth and fresh- ness. Hence, this period is called " the age of return." This plumpness, though juvenile lightness and freshness be wanting, sustains the forms, and sometimes confers a majestic air, which, in women otherwise favorably organized, still interests for a number of years. The shape certainly is no longer so elegant ; the articulations have less elasticity ; the muscles are more feeble ; the movements are less light ; and in plump women we observe those broken motions, and in meager ones that stiffness, which mark the walk or the dance at that age. At this period occurs a remarkable alteration in the organs of voice. Women, therefore, to whom singing is a profession, ought to limit its exercise. When women pass happily from the third to the fourth age, their constitution, as every one must have observed, changes entirely ; it becomes stronger: and nature abandons to individual life all the rest of existence. Beauty, however, is no more ; form and shape have disappeared ; the plumpness which supported the reliefs has abandoned them ; the sinkings and wrinkles are multiplied ; the skin has lost its polish ; color and freshness have fled for ever. These injuries of time, it has been observed, commonly begin by the abdomen, which loses its polish and its firmness ; the hemispheres of the bosom no longer sustain themselves ; the clavicles IN RELATION TO BEAUTY. 165 project ; the neck becomes meager ; all the reliefs are effaced ; all the forms are altered from round- ness and softness to angularity and hardness. That which, amid these ruins, still survives for a long time, is the entireness of the hair, the placidi- ty or the fineness of the look, the air of sentiment, the amiable expression of the countenance, and, in women of elegant mind and great accomplishments, caressing manners and charming graces, which al- most make us forget youth and beauty. Finally, and especially in muscular or nervous women, the temperament changes, and the consti- tution of woman approaches to that of man ; the organs become rigid ; and, in some unhappy cases, a beard protrudes. Old age and decrepitude finally succeed. 166 OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUIT IN WOMAN. CHAPTER IX. OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. THE crossing of races is often, spoken of as a means of perfecting the form of man, and of de- veloping beauty; and we are told that it is in this manner that the Persians have become a beautiful people, and that many tribes of Tartar origin have been improved, especially the Turks, who now pre- sent to us scarcely anything of the Mongol. In these general and vague statements, however, the mere crossing of different races is always deem- ed sufficient ; whereas, every improvement depends on the circumstance that the organization of the races subjected to this operation is duly suited to each other. It is in that way only, that we can ex- plain the following facts stated by Moreau : In one of the great towns of the north of France, the women, half a century ago, were rather ugly than pretty ; but a detachment of the guards being quartered there, and remaining during several years, the population changed in appearance, and, favored by this circumstance, the town is now in- debted to strangers for the beauty of the most in- teresting portion of its inhabitants. The monks of Citeaux exercised an influence no OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 167 less remarkable upon the beauty of the inhabitants of the country around their monastery ; and it may be stated, as the result of actual observation, that the young female-peasants of their neighborhood were much more beautiful than those of other cantons. And, adds this writer, " there can be no doubt that the same effect occurred in the different places whither religious houses attracted foreign inmates, whom love and pleasure speedily united with the indigenous inhabitants !" The other circumstances which contribute to female beauty, are, a mild climate, a fertile soil, a generous but temperate diet, a regular mode of life, favorable education, the guidance and sup- pression of passions, easy manners, good moral, social, and political institutions, and occupations which do not injure the beautiful proportions of the body. Beauty, accordingly, is more especially to be found in certain countries. Thus, as has often been observed, the sanguine temperament is that of the nations of the north ; the phlegmatic is that of cold and moist countries; and the bilious is that of the greater part of the inhabitants of southern regions. Each of these has its degree and modifi- cation of beauty. The native country of beauty is not to be found either in regions where cold freezes up the living juices, or in those where the animal structure is withered by heat. A climate removed from the excessive influence of both these causes constitutes an essential condition in the production of beauty; 168 OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. and this, with, its effect, we find between the 35th and 65th degree of northern latitude, in Persia, the countries bordering upon Caucasus, and principally Tchercassia, Georgia and Mongrelia, Turkey in Europe and Asia, Greece, Italy, some part of Spain, a very small part of France, England, Holland, some parts of Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and a part of Norway and even of Russia. Even under the same degree of latitude, it is ob- served that the position of the place, its elevation, its vicinity to the sea, the direction of the winds, the nature of the soil, and all the peculiarities of locality which constitute the climate proper to each place, occasion great differences in beauty. In relation to the causes of beauty, some obser- vations which seem to be important, arise out of the remarks of de Pauw on the Greeks. De Pauw endeavored to show, that, though the men of ancient Greece were handsome, the women of that country were never beautiful. He thence accounted for the excessive admiration which there prevailed of courtesans from Ionia, &c. This, however, was so contrary to the notions formed of the beauty of that people from what was known of their taste, that it was considered as a paradox. Travellers, accordingly, sought for such beauty in the women of modern Greece. They were disappointed in not finding it. What rendered this the more remarkable was, that in various places they found the ancient and beautiful cast of countenance among the men, and not among the women of that country thus OP THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 169 corroborating in all respects the doctrine of de Pauw. On considering that doctrine, however, and com- paring it with more extended observations, it would seem to be only a particular application of a more general law unknown to de Pauw that, in most countries, one of the sexes excels the other in beauty. Thus, in some parts of the highlands of Scotland, we find the men as remarkable for beauty as the women for ugliness ; while, in some eastern coun- ties of England, we find precisely the reverse. The strong features, the dark curled hair, and the muscular form, of the highlander, are as unsuitable to the female sex, as the soft features, the flaxen hair, and the short and tapering limbs, of the woman of the eastern coast, are unsuitable to the male. If the soil, climate, and productions, of these countries be considered, we discover the causes of the differences alluded to. The hardships of mountain life are favorable to the stronger de- velopment of the locomotive system, which ought more or less to characterize the male ; and the luxuriance .of the plains is favorable to those de- velopments of the nutritive system, which ought to characterize the female. This is illustrated even in inferior animals. Oxen become large-bodied and fat in low and rich soils, but are remarkable for shortness of legs ; while, in higher and drier situations, the bulk of the body is less, and the limbs are stronger and more muscular. 15 170 OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. The quantity and quality of the aliments are an- other cause, not less powerful in regard to beauty. Abundance, or rather a proper mediocrity, as to nutritious food, contributes to perfection in this respect. Beauty is also, in some measure, a result of civilization. Women, accordingly, of consummate beauty, are found only in civilized nations. Professions can rarely be said to favor beauty ; but they do not impede its development when their exercise does not compel to laborious employ- ments an organization suited only to sedentary occupations. OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN, 171 CHAPTER X. OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. THE ideas of the beautiful vary in different in- dividuals, and in different nations. Hence, many men of talent have thought them altogether relative and arbitrary. " Ask," says Voltaire, " a Negro of Guinea [what is beauty] : the beautiful is for him a black oily skin, deep-seated eyes, and a broad flat nose." " Perfect beauty," says Payne Knight, " taking perfect in its most strict, and beauty in its most comprehensive signification, ought to be equally pleasing to all ; but of this, instances are scarcely to be found : for, as to taking them, or, indeed, any examples for illustration, from the other sex of our own species, it is extremely fallacious ; as there can be little doubt that all male animals think the females of their own species the most beautiful productions of nature. At least we know this to be the case among the different varieties of men, whose respective ideas of the beauty of their females are as widely different as those of man, and any other animal, can be. The sable Africans view with pity and contempt the marked deformity of the Europe- ans ; whose mouths are compressed, their noses 172 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. pinched, their cheeks shrunk, their hair rendered lank and flimsy, their bodies lengthened and emaci- ated, and their skins unnaturally bleached by shade and seclusion, and the baneful influence of a cold humid climate. . . . Who shall decide which party is right, or which is wrong ; or whether the black or white model be, according to the laws of nature, the most perfect specimen of a perfect woman 1 . . The sexual desires of brutes are probably more strictly natural inclinations, and less changed or modified by the influence of acquired ideas, or social habits, than those of any race of mankind ; but their desires seem, in general, to be excited by smell, rather than by sight or contact. If, however, a boar can think a sow the sweetest and most lovely of living creatures, we can have no difficulty in believing that he also thinks her the most beautiful." " Among the various reasons," says Reynolds, " why we prefer one part of nature's works to an- other, the most general, I believe, is habit and cus- tom ; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white ; it is custom alone determines our preference of the color of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they, for the same reason, prefer their own color to ours. I suppose nobody will doubt, if one of their painters were to paint the goddess of beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair ; and it seems to me, he would act very unnaturally if he did not ; for by what criterion will any one dispute the propriety of his idea 1 We indeed say, OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 173 that the form and color of the European are pre- ferable to those of the Ethiopian ; but I know of no other reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it." The coquetry of several tribes, it has been ob- served, leads them to mutilate and disfigure them- selves, to flatten their forehead, to enlarge their mouth and ears, to blacken their skin, and cover it with the marks of suffering. We make ugliness in that way, says Montaigne. But, to confine our observations to individual na- tions, and these civilized ones ; we every day see irregular or even common figures preferred to those which the enlightened judge deems beautiful. How, then, it is asked, amid these different tastes, these opposite opinions, are we to admit ideas of absolute beauty 1 These are the strongest objections against all ideas of absolute and essential beauty in woman. To establish, in opposition to these objections, a standard of womanly beauty, equal talent has been employed ; but the reasoning, though suffi- cient for such objections, has been rather of a vague description. As, however, the subject is of great importance, I shall endeavor to abridge and concen- trate the arguments of which it consists, before I point oul the surer method which is founded on the Elements of Beauty already established. To refute these objections, it has been thought sufficient to examine the chief conditions which are necessary, in order to appreciate properly the im- pression of those combinations, which woman pre- 15* 174 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. sents, and to expose the principal circumstances which are opposed to the accuracy of opinions, and judgments respecting them. The conditions necessary to enable us to pro- nounce respecting the real attributes of beauty, are, first, a temperate climate, under which nature brings to perfection all her productions, and gives to their forms and functions, generally, and to those of man in particular, all the development of which they are capable, without excess in the action of some, and defect in that of others ; secondly, in man in par- ticular, a brain capable of vigorous thought, sound judgment, and exquisite taste ; and thirdly, a very advanced civilization, without which these faculties cannot be duly exercised or attain any perfection. It is evident enough that none of these condi- tions are to be met with in the whimsical judgments and tastes of many nations. The consequence of the absence of these con- ditions, in relation to the uncivilized and ignorant inhabitants of hot climates, is marked in their deeming characteristics of beauty, the thick lips of Negresses, the long and pendent mammae of the women in several nations both of Africa and America, or the gross forms of those of Egypt. The consequence of the absence of these con- ditions, in relation to the uncivilized and ignorant inhabitants of cold climates, is equally marked in their deeming characteristics of beauty the short figures of the women of icy regions, in which, de- prived of the vivifying action of heat and light, living' beings appear only in a state of deformity OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN. WOMAN. 175 and alteration j and in their similarly deeming beautiful the obliquely-placed eyes of the Chinese and Japanese, and the crushed nose of the Cal- mucs, &c., &c. Those who take these views, which are true, though somewhat vague and inconclusive, should, I think, have seen and added, that the deviations from beauty in the forms of the women of hot cli- mates are commonly in excess, owing to the great development of organs of sense or of sex ; while the deviations from beauty, in the forms of the women of cold climates, are commonly in defect, owing ta the imperfect development of organs of sense, and of the general figure. This view renders it more clear that both these kinds of deviation are deformities, incompatible with the consistent and harmonious development of the whole. And without this view, the preceding arguments are indeed too vague to be easily tenable. In relation more especially to the second of the preceding conditions, the possession of a brain ca- pable of vigorous thought, sound judgment, and exquisite taste, Hume observes that the same ex- cellence of faculties which contributes to the im- provement of reason, the same clearness of con- ception, the same exactness of distinction, the same vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the oper- ations of true taste. Here, again, those who take these true, but vague and inconclusive views, should, I think, have seen and added that this excellence of the thinking fac- ulties is incompatible with the obviously constricted 176 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAOTY IN WOMAN. brain, which is a defect common both to the Negro and the Mongol a defect which is incompatible with beauty either of form or function, and which I have shown, in my work on physiognomy, to be intimately connected with climate. This renders the argument sufficiently strong. Those who employ these arguments as to a stand- ard of beauty in woman, proceed to show the modes in which defects of this kind unfit persons to judge of beauty ; and though their farther argu- ments are similarly vague, they nevertheless tend to support the truth. If, say they, among the forms and the features which we compare, some are associated by us with certain qualities or sentiments which please us, they equally lead us to a predilection or prejudice, in consequence of which the most common or the least beautiful figure is preferred to the most per- fect. In this case, the imagination has perverted the judgment. Winckelmann truly observes, that young people are most exposed to such errors: placed under the influence of sentiment and of illusion, they often regard, as very beautiful, women who have nothing capable of charming, but an animated physiognomy, in which breathe desire, voluptuousness, and lan- guor. The results of this as to life may easily be foreseen. Of the excess to which such prejudice may go, a good instance is adduced in Descartes, who pre- ferred women who squinted to the most perfect beauties, because squinting was one of the most OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 177 remarkable features of the woman who was the first object of his affections. Winckelmann observes that even artists them- selves have not always an exquisite sentiment of beauty : their first impressions have often an in- fluence which they cannot overcome, nor even weaken, especially when, at a distance from the admirable productions of the ancients, they cannot rectify their first judgments. Circumstances of profession, it is truly observed, may also lead to associations of ideas capable of deceiving us in our opinions respecting beauty. Men are apt to refer everything to their exclusive knowledge and the mode of judging which it em- ploys. The " what does that prove" of the math- ematician, when judging the finest products of ima- gination, has passed into a proverb. And every one knows of that other cultivator of the same science, who declared that he never could discover anything sublime in Milton's Paradise Lost, but that he could never read the queries at the end of one of the books in Newton's Optics, without his hair standing on end and his blood running cold. The necessity of the third condition, namely, ad- vanced civilization, to a right judgment respecting a standard of beauty in woman, is evident, when we consider that it requires a taste formed by the habit of bringing things together and of comparing them. One accustomed to see, says Hume, " and ex- amine, and weigh the several performances, ad- mired in different ages and nations, can alone rate 178 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. the merits of a work exhibited to his view, and assign its proper rank among the productions of genius." From all this, it is certainly evident not merely that that which pleases us is not always beautiful ; that numerous causes may form so many sources of diversity and of error on this subject ; and that we cannot thence conclude that the ideas of beauty are relative and arbitrary but that certain condi- tions are indispensable to form the judgment re- specting beauty ; and that the principal of these conditions are, a temperate climate and fertile soil, a well-developed brain, sound judgment, and delicate taste, and a highly-advanced civili- zation. This is perfectly conformable with the practical fact that it was under a most delightful climate, among a people of unrivalled judgment, genius, and taste, and amid a civilization which the world has never since witnessed, that the laws of Nature as to beauty were discovered, and applied to the production of those immortal forms which the un- favorable accidents occurring to the existence of all beings, have never permitted Nature herself to combine in any one individual. Though I have endeavored to amend these argu- ments respecting a standard of beauty in woman, I prefer those which may be founded on the doctrine I have laid down respecting the Elements of Beau- ty. It will be found that the greatest number of these elements are combined in the woman whom we commonly deem the most beautiful. OP THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 179 To illustrate this, it will be sufficient to examine their most striking and distinctive characteristic, namely, their fair complexion, which is intimately connected with all their other characteristics, and which gives increased splendor and effect to their form and features. It is remarkable that even Alison, though the ad- vocate of all beauty being dependant on associa- tion, grants that the pure white of the countenance is expressive to us, according to its different de- grees, of purity, fineness, gayety ; that the dark complexion, on the other hand, is expressive to us of melancholy, gloom, or sadness ; and that so far is this from being a fanciful relation, that it is gen- erally admitted by those who have the best oppor- tunities of ascertaining it, the professors of medical science. He also observes that black eyes are commonly united with the dark, and blue eyes with the fair complexion ; and that, in the color of the eyes, blue, according to its different degrees, is expressive of softness, gentleness, cheerfulness, or severity ; and black, of thought, or gravity, or of sadness. Even this, however, is less conclusive than the pathological or physiological facts stated by Ches- elden, as to the boy restored by him to sight, namely, that the first view of a black object gave him great pain, and that that of a negro-woman struck him with horror. Independently of this, white, as every one is aware, is the color which reflects the greatest num- ber of luminous rays ; and, for that reason, it be- 180 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. stows the brilliance and splendor upon beautiful forms with which all are charmed. Winckelmann, indeed, observes that the head of Scipio the elder, in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, execu- ted in basalt of a deep green, is very beautiful. But, in that case, it is the form, not the color, of the head, that is beautiful. While greenness of com- plexion would not be beautiful in a man, it would certainly be hideously ugly in a woman. Moreover, while, in a dead black or any dark color of face, it cannot be pretended that, consid- ering its color only, we should have more than blackness or darkness for admiration, it is evident that, in a fair complexion, we have, in addition to its general brilliance or splendor, the infinite varie- ty of its teints, their exquisite blendings, and the beautiful expression of every transient emotion. I have now only to expose the sophistry which Payne Knight has employed upon this subject. "I am aware," he says, "indeed, that it would be no easy task to persuade a lover that the forms upon which he dotes with such rapture, are not really beautiful, independent of the medium of affec- tion, passion, and appetite, through which he views them. But before he pronounces either the infidel or the skeptic guilty of blasphemy against nature, let him take a mould from the lovely features or lovely bosom of this masterpiece of creation, and cast a plum-pudding in it (an object by no means disgusting to most men's appetite), and I think he will no longer be in raptures with the form, what- ever he may be with the substance." OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 181 Now, it happens that a grosser incongruity can scarcely be supposed than that which exists be- tween lovely features or a lovely bosom and a plum-pudding, or between the sentiment of love and the propensity to gluttony ; and therefore to place the substance of the pudding, in which inter- nal composition is alone of importance, and shape of none, under the form of features or a bosom, in, which internal structure is unknown or unthought of, and shape or other external properties are alone considered, is a gross and offensive substitution, intended, not to enlighten j-udgment respecting form, but to pervert it, and to degrade the higher object by comparison with the lower one. The shape, moreover, is a true sign in the one case, and a false one in the other. Of nearly similar character is the following : "If a man, perfectly possessed both of feeling and sight conversant with, and sensible to the charms of women were even to be in contact with what he conceived to be the most beautiful and lovely of the sex, and at the moment when he was going to embrace her, he was to discover that the parts which he touched only were feminine or human ; and that, in the rest of her form, she was an animal of a different species, or a person of his own sex, the total and instantaneous change of his sentiments from one extreme to another, would abundantly convince him that his sexual desires depended as little upon that abstract sense of touch, as upon that of sight." That, in detecting an imposture of this kind, 16 182 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. admiration would give place to disgust, only proves that the external qualities which were admired were the natural and appropriate signs of the in- ternal qualities expected to be found under them, and that they now cease to interest only because they have become, not naturally less the signs of these qualities, but because they have by a mere trick been rendered insignificant, because truth and nature have been violated, and because the mind feels only disgust at the imposture. I cannot help saying that if Knight was in earnest "when he framed such arguments, his mind was sometimes dull as well as perverse. " The redness of any morbid inflammation," he says, "may display a gradation of teint, which, in a pink or a rose, we should think as beautiful as 'the purple light of love and bloom of young de- sire ;' and the cadaverous paleness of death or disease, a degree of whiteness, which, in a piece of marble or alabaster, we should deem to be as pure, as that of the most delicate skin of the fairest damsel of the frigid zone : consequently, the mere visible beauty is in both the same ; and the dif- ference consists entirely in mental sympathies, excited by certain internal stimuli, and guided by habit." There is here the same confusion of heteroge- neous and inconsistent objects, as in the preceding cases. To judge of beauty in simple objects, each quality may be separately considered ; and in this view, if the inflammation presented the same teint as the pink or the rose, then, as a mere OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. 183 teint, abstracted from every other quality of the re- spective objects, it would be precisely as beautiful in the one as in the other; but as the color of a rose on the human body would indicate that flow of blood to the skin which can result only from excessive action, it ceases to be considered intrin- sically, and is regarded only as a sign of disease. The same observations are applicable to the other case here adduced. " The African black," he says, "when he first beholds an European complexion, thinks both its red and white morbid and unnatural, and of course disgusting. His sunburnt beauties express their modesty and sensibility by variations in the sable teints of their countenances, which are equally at- tractive to him, as the most delicate blush of red to us." In treating of the Elements of Beauty, I have endeavored to show, that the more those simpler elements of beauty, which characterize inanimate bodies, are retained in more compound ones, the more beautiful these become ; but that the latter retain these elements in very different degrees, de- pendant upon internal or external circumstances, and that such elementary beauty is often sacrificed to the higher ones of life or mind. Now, in the case of the African, 1 he is born whitish, like the European, but he speedily loses such beauty for that of adaptation, by his color, to the hot climate in which he exists. The latter beauty is the higher and more important one, and forms for the African a profitable exchange ; but the European is still 184 OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN. more fortunate, because, in the region he inhabits, the simple and elementary beauty is compatible with that of adaptation to climate. The climate of Africa, the cerebral structure of its inhabitants, and the degree of their civilization, are as unfavor- able to the existence of beauty as to the power of judging respecting it. What he adds as to varia- tion in sable countenances is a mere exaggeration. " Were it possible for a person to judge of the beauty of color in his own species, upon the same principles and with the same impartiality as he judges of it in other objects, both animal, vegetable, and mineral, there can be no doubt that mixed teints would be preferred ; and a pimpled face have the same superiority over a smooth one, as a zebra has over an ass, a variegated tulip over a plain one, or a column of jasper or porphyry over one of a common red or white marble." Here the same mistake is committed. Element- ary beauty is preferred to that of adaptation to cli- mate, fitness for physiognomical expression, &c. Knight's other arguments all involve similar errors, and admit of similar answers. THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 185 CHAPTER XL THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY GENERALLY VIEWED. THESE have been already briefly mentioned. They are repeated and illustrated here. The view which is given of them will throw light on the celebrated temperaments of the ancients. It will appear that all the disputes which have oc- curred respecting these, have arisen from their being founded, not on precise data, but on empirical observation, at a time when the great truths of anatomy and physiology were unknown ; that, to the rectification of the doctrine of temperaments, the arrangement of these sciences, laid down in a preceding chapter, is indispensable ; that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, and consist in an excessive or a defective action of loco- motive, nutritive, or thinking organs ; that others, which have been confounded with these, are, on the contrary, compound; and that, from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood. To make this clear, it is necessary to lay before the reader a succinct view of the doctrine of tem- peraments. 16* 186 THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. The ancients classed individuals in one or other of four temperaments, founded on the hypothesis of four humors, of which the blood was supposed to be composed the red part, phlegm, yellow and black bile. These were regarded as the ele- ments of the body, and their respective predomi- nance passed for the cause of the differences which it presented. Hence were derived the names of the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic temperament. Although the hypothesis on which this doctrine was founded is universally discarded, the phenomena which observation had taught the ancients, and which they had hypothetically connected with these elements, were so true, that that classification has been more or less employed in all the hypotheses which have since been invented to explain their cause ; and their nomenclature has continued in use to the present day. A temperament may be defined a peculiar state of the system, depending on the relative propor- tion of its different masses, and the relative energy of its different functions, by which it acquires a tendency to certain actions. The predominance of any particular organ or system of organs, its excess of force, extends its sphere of activity to all the other functions, and modifies them in a peculiar manner. Thus, con- forming in the illustration to the preceding ar- rangement, in one person, the muscles are more frequently employed than the brain ; in another, the stomach or the organs of reproduction are THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 187 more employed than the muscles ; and in a third, the brain and nerves are more employed than either. This predominance or excess establishes the tem- perament. The relative feebleness of any organ or system of organs, similarly forms modifications not less important. Thus in one person, the organs of the abdomen are less employed ; in another, those of the chest ; in a third, the brain. Disease, it is observed, " commonly enters into the organization by these feeble points : death even attacks them first ; extends afterward from one to another ; and makes progress more or less rapid, according to the importance of the organ primi- tively affected." Temperaments, however, vary infinitely. It may be said that every individual has a peculiar one, to which he owes his mode of existence and his de- gree of health, ability, and happiness. The temperament, moreover, of each individual is not always characterized by well-marked symp- toms ; and even where it has been strongly marked by nature, education, age, the influence of climate, the exercise of professions and trades, and various habits, produce in it infinite changes. Temperaments also combine together, so that all men are, in some degree, at once sanguine and bil- ious, or otherwise compound. Thus all interme- diate shades of temperament are produced ; and it is often difficult, or, under particular circumstances, impossible, to determine under which temperament individuals may be classed. 188 THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. The simple temperaments are therefore abstrac- tions, which it is difficult to realize ; and the influ- ence of any temperament is sometimes undiscov- erable except in some extraordinary circumstances of disorder or disease, during which it may be ob- served. Cullen admits the four temperaments of Hippo- crates, and remarks concerning them, that it is probable they were first founded upon observation, and afterward adapted to the theory of the ancients, since we find they " have a real existence." Dr. Prichard remarks, that " this division of temperaments is by no means a fanciful distinction." To the four temperaments of Hippocrates, Gre- gory adds a fifth, the nervous temperament. Thus are formed five temperaments generally admitted, namely, 1st, the phlegmatic or relaxed ; 2d, the sanguine arterial j 3d, the sanguine venous or bilious ; 4th, the nervous ; and, 5th, the muscu- lar or athletic. Some writers join, to these the partial tempera- ments which determine the ascendency of the func- tions exercised by particular organs ; whence .prin- cipally come the temperaments which they call the cerebral, epigastric, abdominal, hepatic, genital, &c. As already said, it will in the. sequel appear that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, that others are compound, and that from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood.* * Appendix F. BEAUTY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 189 CHAPTER XII. FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY BEAUTY OF THE LOCOMO- TIVE SYSTEM. THE average stature of woman, as already said, is two or three inches less than that of man. The bones of woman remain always smaller than those of man ; the cylindrical ones being more slender, and the flat ones thinner, while the former are also rounder. The muscles render the surfaces of the bones less uneven ; the projections of the latter are less ; and all their cavities and impres- sions have less depth. The bones of woman have likewise less hardness than those of man. Such being the solid and fundamental parts of this system in woman, the most remarkable cir- cumstances in their combination should next be noticed. In woman, the magnitude of the pelvis or lower part of the trunk, has the greatest influence on the apparent proportion of parts, and on the general figure. The most remarkable differences between the two sexes, in relation to this system, are conse- quently those presented by the inferior and supe- rior part of the trunk in each. The breast and the 190 FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY. haunches are in an inverse proportion in the two sexes. Man has the breast larger arid wider than that of woman : woman has the haunches less cir- cumscribed than those of man. The upper part of the body is also less promi- nent, and the lower part more prominent, in woman than in man ; and therefore, when they stand up- right, or lie on the back, the breast is most promi- nent in the male, and the pubes in the female. The indication this affords of the fitness of woman for impregnation, gestation, and parturition, is obvious. From the same cause, the back of woman is more hollow. Still farther to increase the capacity of the lower part of the body, woman has the loins more ex- tended than man. This portion of her body is in every way enlarged at the expense of neighboring parts. Hence, the chest is shorter above ; and the thighs and legs are shorter below. The thigh-bones of woman are also more sepa- rated superiorly ; the knees are more approximated ; the feet are smaller ; and the base of support is less extended. The reader desirous of thoroughly understand- ing these matters, should compare the beautiful plates of the male and female skeletons by Albinus and Soemmerring. Beauty of the locomotive system in woman, de- pends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distin- guish her from man. In the woman possessing THIS SPECIES of beauty, THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 191 therefore, the face is generally somewhat bony and oblong ; the neck, less connected with the nutri- tive system, is rather long and tapering; the shoulders, without being angular, are sufficiently broad and definite for muscular attachments; the bosom, a vital organ, is of but moderate di- mensions; the waist, enclosing smaller nutritive organs, is remarkable for fine proportion, and re- sembles, in some respects, an inverted cone ; the haunches, for the same reason, are but moderately expanded; the thighs are proportional; the arms, as well as the limbs, being formed chiefly of locomotive organs, are rather long and moderately tapering; the hands and feet are moderately small; the complexion, owing to the inferiority of the nutritive system, is often rather dark ; and the hair is frequently dark and strong. The whole figure is precise, striking, and often brilliant. From its proportions, it sometimes seems almost aerial ; and we would imagine, that, if our hands were placed under the lateral parts of the tapering waist of a woman thus characterized, the slightest pressure would suffice to throw her into the air. To this class belong generally the more firm, vigorous, and even actively-impassioned Avomen : though it may doubtless boast many of greatly modified character. First Variety or Modification of this Species of "Beauty. It may here be observed, that the varieties or modifications of each species of beauty naturally 192 FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY. correspond with the greater or less development of some one of the various organs on which the species is founded. Thus, the modifications of beauty of the locomotive system correspond with the greater or less development of the bones, the ligaments, or the muscles ; those of the nutritive system correspond with the greater or less develop- ment of the absorbents, the bloodvessels, or the glands ; and those of the thinking system corres- pond with the greater or less development of the organs of sense, the brain, or the cerebel. A little reflection will show, that some of these modifica- tions will be more, and others less beautiful. To understand the present variety, the bony structure on which it especially depends, must now be more minutely described. Commencing with the trunk of the body the chest in woman is shorter but more expanded ; the breast-bone is shorter but wider ; the two upper ribs are flatter ; the collar-bones are more straight or less curved, and do not present that prominent relief which appears on the chest of man ; the shoulders are carried farther back, and project less from the trunk. The haunches, as already stated, are propor- tionally wider in w r oman than in man, and the in- terior cavity of the pelvis, which is between them, being adapted to gestation, is more capacious. This greater capacity of the pelvis arises from the lateral parts having in \voman more convexity out- ward ; from the bones called ossa pubis, which form the anterior part, touching at a smaller number of THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 193 points, and running obliquely or forming a greater angle, to enlarge the space which is between them and the inferior extremity of the posterior part of the pelvis ; from the arch of the pubis being larger ; from the greater concavity and breadth of the os sacrum or posterior bone of the pelvis, its posterior part forming a greater prominence outward ; and from the whole pelvis being thus wider and less deep, its circumference approaching more to the circular form. The cavities, it may be added, in which the heads of the thigh-bones are received, are of course farther apart : they are also oblique, and less deep. The arms of woman are shorter than in man. As these members are well marked in beauty of the locomotive system, they may the more fully be considered here. The arms, and especially their extremities, are susceptible of a degree of beauty of which we see few examples. Their bases, the bones, ligaments, and muscles, belong to the locomotive system ; and their fundamental beauty consequently depends upon its proportions ; but to the nutritive system are owing the circum- stances that, in woman, the arm is fatter and more rounded, has softer forms and more flowing and purer outlines. The hand in woman is smaller, more plump, more soft, and more white. It is peculiarly beautiful when full ; when it is gently dimpled over the first joints ; when the fingers are long, round, tapering toward the ends ; when the other joints are marked by slight reliefs and shadows j and when the fingers are delicate and 17 194" FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY. flexible. Beauty of the hand becomes the more precious, because it is the principal organ of a sense which may be considered as the most valu- able of all. In regard to the lower extremities, it has been observed, that the lateral convexity of the pelvis causes the bones of the thighs attached to them to be farther separated from each other ; and this separation of the bones of the thighs causes an increase of the size of the haunches. It is over the posterior part of the space thus produced, that Ave observe the reliefs which the inferior members present superiorly, and which unite them with the trunk, by forms so beautifully rounded. The thighs are also proportionally larger, on account of this separation : they are more rounded, as well as much more voluminous : they are also more curved before than in man. At their inferior part, they approximate ; and the knees project a littls inward. It has been truly observed, that this core- formation manifests, relatively to gestation and parturition, advantages of which the exterior ex- pression is not found in the women who are com- monly regarded as well made, and who, however, are not so, if the best conformation or beauty re- sult from a direct and well-marked relation between the form of the organs and their functions. It rs owing to the thighs of woman being thus carried more inward when she walks, that the change of the point of gravity which marks each step, is in her much more remarkable. All the other parts f the inferior members are in general distinguished THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 195 by forms more softly rounded 5 the leg is remark- able for its delicacy ; the long line of the anterior bone is entirely hid under its envelope ; its inferior part is shaped with more elegance ; the foot is smaller ; and the base of support is less extended. The feet, like the hands, are susceptible of a kind of i)eatrty of which nature is sparing. From all this it appears that the only bones which nature tends to enlarge in woman are those of the pelvis ; that all the rest are small ; and that they proportionally dimmish in. size, as we pass from that central part to the extremities. The FIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the banes, those of the pelvis excepted, is proportion- ally small. This character will be especially apparent where the long bones approach the surface ; as in the arm immediately above the wrist, and, in the leg, im- mediately above the ankle. Its effect will be pro- portionally delicate and feminine. Various subordinate modifications of this kind of beauty are found in various countries, and under the influence of various circumstances. The women of Rome, we are told, present beauty of the shoulders in the highest degree, when they arrive at that period of life in which plumpness succeeds to juvenile elasticity. It has been suggested, that the Greek or Ionian women, whose arms were of so perfect a form, owed that beauty in some measure to the custom of leaving them nude, or covered only by loose 196 FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY. drapery : as in that case, no pressure constricted the roundness of the fleshy parts, and prevented their development ; no ligature, binding the upper part of the arm, altered the color of the skin ; and the arm, being always uncovered, received at the toilet the same attention as other parts. Hence, it is supposed antique statuary has left us such admirable models of the beauty of this part. It is certainly not improbable that we may at- tribute the absence of this beauty, in some measure, to a custom which, in many cases, medicine may approve, but which is unfavorable to the arm, that of wearing long sleeves ; but want of exercise is its great cause. The form of the hand often announces the occu- pation of the person to whom it belongs, and some- times even her particular capabilities. There cer- tainly are hands that we may call intellectual ; and there are others that we may call foolish or stupid. Of the hand, Lavater says, that, whether in move- ment or in repose, its expression cannot be mis- taken : its most tranquil position indicates our natural dispositions 5 its flexions, our actions and our passions. The ancients, it has been observed, attached much importance to the form of the feet : the phi- losophers did not neglect it in the general view of the physiognomy; and the historians as well as the poets made mention of their beauty, in speaking of Polyxene, Aspasia, and others ; as they did of their deformities in speaking of the emperor Do- mitian. THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 197 Perfection or deformity of the feet is no doubt in general hereditary ; but good management will preserve the former of these, and repair the latter. We commonly deform these parts by means of our shoes : the second toe, observes a writer on this subject, which naturally projects most, as we see from the antique, is arrested in its development, and the foot, which ought, in the" outline of its extremity, to approach to the elegant form of the ellipsis, is rounded without beauty, and is" disfig- ured by our ridiculous compressions.* Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. The joints generally are small in woman, and especially so in the extremities. The elbow joint is softly rounded ; and the various joints of the fingers are marked chiefly by little reliefs and faint shadows. The articulation of the knee is feebly indicated ; the ankles are disposed in such a man- ner as to offer only agreeable outlines ; and there are dimples over the first joints of the toes, with exceedingly gentle indications of the other joints. The SECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this spe- cies of beauty, is that in which the development of the ligaments and the articulations they form, is proportionally small. This conformation will be especially apparent in the arm, at the wrist and, in the leg, at the ankle. Its effect will be proportionally handsome. Appendix G. 17* 198 FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTY. Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. The muscles of women are more slender and fee- ble than those of man ; their bundles are rounder ; their fibres are finer, more humid, soft, and deli- cate, and less compact ; their central parts op bel- lies are less prominent ; their reliefs do not appear in any strength at the surface of the body ; but being, on the contrary, surrounded on all sides by a loose cellular tissue, they only render that sur- face beautifully rounded. Although, however, the muscular system of wo- man is weaker, and the muscles proportionally smaller, yet, as already said, in some parts the muscular system is more developed than in man. This, owing to the magnitude of the pelvis, is most remarkable about the thighs. The muscles of these parts having larger origins from the pelvis, and being less compressed by reciprocal contact, have more liberty to extend themselves. It is from this, that results much of the delicacy of the female form, as well as the ease, suppleness, and capabil- ity of grace in its movements. It is otherwise in all parts remote from the pel- vis. Women, accordingly, can less be said to have calves, than legs which, like their arms and fingers, gently taper. The THIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the muscles is proportionally large around the pelvis, and delicate elsewhere. THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 199 This conformation being concealed by the dra- pery, may nevertheless be conjectured from the imperfect view of the hip, or of the calf of the leg", or more accurately by means of the external indi- cations of forms which are given in a subsequent chapter. Its effect will be proportionally elegant. Woman's power of muscular motion being thus limited to the vicinity of the pelvis, that of her ex- tremities is generally feeble. Other causes contribute to this. Thus, with re- gard to the upper extremities, it has been observed, that the collar-bone, not separating so much the arm from the axis of the body, the extent of its movements is limited ; and this circumstance ex- plains why women, who wish to overcome great resistances with the superior members, experience difficulty in doing so why, for example, when they wish to throw a stone, they are obliged to turn the body on the foot opposite to the arm with which they throw. Thus also the largeness of the pelvis, and the approximation of the knees, influence the gait of woman, and render it vacillating and unsteady. Conscious of this, women, in countries where the nutritive system in general and the pelvis in par- ticular are large, affect a greater degree of this vacillation and unsteadiness. An example of this is seen in the lateral and rotary motion which is given to the pelvis in walking, by certain classes of the women of London. For the same reason, united to a smaller foot, and some other circumstances, women, it is ob 200 FIRST SPECIES OF BEAUTT. served, who execute gentle and light movements with so much skill, do not attempt with advantage great evolutions, run with difficulty and without grace, and fly in order to be caught, as Rousseau has said. In woman, however, the muscular fibre is thus soft, yielding, feeble, and incapable of great evo- lutions, because it is necessary that it should easily adapt itself to remarkable changes. From all this, from women having more address in the use of their fingers, from their aptitude for little and light domestic works, the care of chil- dren, and sedentary occupations, it is evident that they cannot devote themselves to toilsome labors without struggling against their organization, and suffering proportionally. The voice being connected with the motive or- gans, it may here be noticed that the larynx or flute part of the throat in woman is more contracted and less prominent than in man ; that the glottis does not enlarge in the same proportion ; that the tongue-bone is much smaller ; and that the tongue, its muscles, and the organs of speech in general, being, like all the other parts, more mobile, young girls articulate and pronounce much more quickly. Their voice is also so much more acute, that if man and woman sing in unison, there is always between them the relation of an octave, which forms the most natural and most agreeable conso-- nance. THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. 201 It is evidently the UNION of all that is good in these varieties which renders beauty in the loco- motive system perfect. This is perfectly represented in the Diana of Grecian sculpture, in which, with admirable taste, it is neither the nutritive nor the thinking, but the locomotive system, which is developed. I have already said, that the temperaments of the ancients are only partial views of some of the vari- eties I am now describing. The athletic tempera- ment falls under the last of these varieties ; and it is the only one that falls under this species. Hap- pily, it does not occur in woman. This temperament results from a great develop- ment of the bones and muscles, and it is that of mere physical strength. It is marked by all the outward signs of strength : the head is small, the neck thick behind, the shoulders broad, the chest expanded, the haunches firm, the intervals of the muscles deeply marked, the tendons apparent through the skin, and all the joints not covered by muscles, seemingly small. In this temperament, muscular strength prevails over the functions of the other organs, and espe- cially usurps the energies necessary to the produc- tion of thought ; the perceptions are deficient in quickness, delicacy, accuracy, and strength ; and all the mental functions are with difficulty excited; but the body is capable of great exertion, and it surmounts great physical resistance when roused. The Farnese Hercules, says a French physiolo 202 BEAUTY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM. gist, exhibits a model of the physical attributes of this constitution ; and that which fabulous antiquity relates of the exploits of this demi-god, gives us the idea of the moral dispositions that accompany it. In the history of his twelve labors, without reflection, and as by instinct, we see him courage- ous, because he is strong, seeking obstacles to con- quer them, certain of overwhelming whatever re- sists him, but joining to such strength so little sub- tlety, that he is cheated by all the kings he serves, and by all the women he love.s. BEAUTY OF THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 203 CHAPTER XIII. SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY BEAUTY OF THE NUTRI- TIVE SYSTEM. WITH the vital system of woman, the capacity of the pelvis, and the consequent breadth of the haunches, are still more connected than with the locomotive system ; for, with these r all those func- tions which are most essentially feminine im- pregnation, gestation, and parturition are inti- mately connected. Camper, in a memoir on physical beauty, read to the Academy of Design, at Amsterdam,* showed, that, in tracing the forms of the male and female within two elliptical areas of equal size, the female pelvis extended beyond the ellipsis, while the shoul- ders were within ; and the male shoulders reached beyond their ellipsis, while the pelvis was within. The pelvis of the African woman is said by some to be greater than that of the European. The abdominal and lumbar portion of the trunk, as already said, is longer in woman. In persons above the common stature, there is almost half a * Mcmoire sur le Beau Physique. 204 SECOND SPECIES OF BEATTTY. face more in the part of the body which is between the mammae and the bifurcation of the trunk. The abdomen, placed below the chest, has more projection and roundness in woman than in man : but it has little fulness in a figure capable of serv- ing as a model ; and the slightest alteration in its outlines or its polish is injurious. The waist, which is most distinctly marked in the back and loins, owes all its advantages to its elegance, softness, and flexibility. The neck should, by the gentlest curvature, form an almost insensible transition between the body and the head. It should also present fulness suffi- cient to conceal the projection of the flute part of the throat in front, and of the two large muscles which descend from behind the ears toward the pit above the breast-bone.* Over all these parts, the predominance of the cellular tissue, and the soft and moderate plump- ness which is connected with it, are a remarkable characteristic of the vital system in woman. While this facilitates the adaptation of the locomotive system to every change, it at the same time oblit- erates the projection of the muscles, and invests the whole figure with rounded and beautiful forms It has been well observed that the principal ef * A curious but true remark is made by Moreau, namely, that if these conditions are met with without being united to a certain expression, and to the most complete combination of the elements of beauty of countenance, they frequently give an air of insensi- bility and of mental weakness, which greatly enfeebles the im- pression that a first view had caused. THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 205 feet of such forms upon the observer must be re- ferred to the faculties which they reveal ; for, as remarked by Roussel, if we examine the greater part of the attributes which constitute beauty, if reason analyze that which instinct judges at a glance, we shall find that these attributes have a reference to real advantages for the species. A light shape, supple movements, whence spring bril- liance and grace, are qualities which please, because they announce the good condition of the individual who possesses them, and the greater degree of aptitude for the functions which that individual ought to fulfil. Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus dis- tinguish her from man. In the woman possessing THIS SPECIES of beauty, therefore, the face is generally rounded, to give greater room to the cavities connected with nutri- tion ; the eyes are generally of the softest azure, which is similarly associated ; the neck is often rather short, in order intimately to connect the head with the nutritive organs in the trunk ; the shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the expanded chest, containing these organs, than to any bony or mus- cular size of the shoulders themselves; the bo- som, a vital organ, in its luxuriance seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms ; the waist, though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by that plumpness of all the contig- 18 206 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAtmr. nous parts, which the powerful nutritive system af- fords ; the haunches are greatly expanded for the vital purposes of gestation and parturition ; the thighs are large in proportion ; hut the locomo- tive organs, the limbs and arms, tapering and be- coming delicate, terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small ; the complexion, dependant upon nutrition, has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements , and there is a luxuriant profu- sion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair. The whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme. To this class belong all the more feminine, soft, and exquisitely-graceful women. The kind of beauty thus characterized is seen chiefly in the Saxon races of our eastern coast 5 and it is certainly more frequent in women of short stature. The vital system is peculiarly the system of wo- man ; and so truly is this the case, that any great employment, either of the locomotive or mental organs, deranges the peculiar functions of woman, and destroys the characteristics of her sex. Women who greatly occupy the locomotive or- gans, acquire a coarse and masculine appearance ; and so well is this incompatibility of power, in the use of locomotive organs with the exercise of vital ones, known to the best female dancers, that, du- ring the time of their engagements, they generally live apart from their husbands. As to intellectual ladies, they either seldom be- THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 207 come mothers, or they become intellectual when they cease to be mothers. These few facts are worth a thousand hypotheses and dreams, however amiable they may be. The vital system is relatively largest in little women, especially after they have been mothers. The shorter stature of woman ensures, indeed, in almost all, a relative excess of the vital system af- ter, if not before, they become mothers ; for, what- ever the stature, the mammae, abdomen, &c., neces- sarily expand. In those of short stature, these parts, of course, become nearly as large as in the tall ; and this circumstance causes them to touch on the limits of each other in little women. As, in pregnancy and suckling, the abdomen and mammse necessarily expand, and as they would afterward collapse and become wrinkled, were not a certain degree of plumpness acquired, that acqui- sition is essential to beauty in mothers. Meager- ness in them, accordingly, becomes deformity. A French writer indeed says : " Most of our fashionables are extremely slender ; they have con- stituted this an essential to beauty ; leanness is in France necessary to the air elegant" It must be remembered, however, that the vital system that which we have just said is peculiarly the system of woman is, in its most beautiful parts, peculiarly defective in France ; and that, owing in a great measure to that circumstance, the women of France are among the ugliest in Europe. But of that in its proper place. 208 SECO> 7 D SPECIES OF BEAUTY. First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. It may here be observed, that the varieties of beauty of the locomotive system, and also those of beauty of the mental system, are easily explicable, because these systems are, in some respects, more limited and simple. The varieties of beauty of the vital system are, on the contrary, more difficult of explanation, because that system is, in some re- spects, more diffused and complicated. Even the preparatory vital organs and functions differ somewhat in the two sexes. Woman has frequently a smaller number of molar teeth than man 5 those called wisdom teeth not always appearing. Mastication is also less ener- getic in woman. The stomach, in woman, is much smaller ; the appetite for food is less ; hunger does not appear to press her so imperiously ; and her consumption of food is much less considerable.* Hence, in- dubitable cases of long abstinence from food, have generally occurred in females. In the choice and the preference of certain ali- ments, woman also differs much from man. In general, women prefer light and agreeable food, which flatters the palate by its perfume and its savor. Their appetites are also much more varied. Women, whom vicious habits have not depraved, * Statistical results in relation to the supply of hospitals and prisons, carry the expense of a man much beyond that of a woman. THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 209 use also beverages less abundantly than men. Fermented, vinous, and spirituous beverages are indeed used only by the monsters engendered in the corruptions of towns amid the insane dissi- pation of the rich, or the wretched and pitiable suffering of the poor ; and both are then brought to one humiliating level, marked by the red and pimpled, or the pallid face, the swimming eye, the haggard features, the pestilential breath. The scarf- skin in these cases divides all that may be worthy from all that is utterly worthless : the worthy part may be external to the cuticle, in substantial, though polluted clothing ; the worthless is the yet living portion, which, whether called body or soul, is no longer worth picking off a dunghill.* Digestion in woman is made, however, with great rapidity ; and the whole canal interested in that process, possesses great irritability. The absorbent vessels in woman are much more developed, and seem to enjoy a more active vi- tality. The circumstances of pregnancy and suck- ling, appear also to augment the energy of these vessels. The FIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the digestive and ab- sorbent system is small but active ; for the great purpose of life in woman is secretion, whether it regard the formation of the superficial adipose sub- stance which invests her with beautiful and attrac- Appendix H. 18* 210 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. tive forms, or the nutrition of the new being which is the object of her attractions and of her life. Hence it is, that women naturally and instinct- ively affect abstemiousness and delicacy of appetite. Hence it is, that they compress the waist, and en- deavor to render it slender. Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. "Women have, in greater abundance than men, several of the fluids which enter into the composi- tion of the body. They appear to have a greater quantity of blood ; and they certainly have more frequent and more considerable hemorrhages. There is less force in the circulation and respiration; but the heart beats more rapidly. The pulse also is less full, but it is quicker. In woman, the purer lily and more vivid rose of complexion, depend on various causes. It would appear that, in women, the blood is in general carried less abundantly to the surface and to the extremities, where also the white vessels are more developed ; and that, to this, as well as to the subjacent adipose substance, the skin owes its whiteness. In youth, however, one of the constituent parts of the skin, the reticular tissue, or whatever the substance under the scarf-skin may be called, ap- pears to be more expanded, especially in women; and it would seem that this tissue is then filled with a blood which is less dark, and which forms the coloring of youth. This, differently modified THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 211 by the scarf-skin, gives the blue, the purple, and and all the teints formed by these and the color of the skin. Where the vessels are more patent, and the skin more thin, delicate, and transparent, as in the cheeks, the hue of the rose is cast over that of the lily. In addition to this, the slightest emotions of surprise, of pleasure, of love, of shame, of fear, often diversify all these teints. Lightness of complexion, however, is probably dependant more particularly on the arterial circula- tion, and darkness of complexion on the venous circulation ; for we know that in fairer woman the arteries possess greater energy, while in darker man the veins are more developed, larger, and fuller. Farther confirmation of this is afforded by an observation, which physiologists have neglected to make, that the kidneys, receiving arterial blood, are the artery-relieving glands, while the liver, re- ceiving venous blood, is the vein-relieving gland. Now, it is certain that, in cold climates, the urinary secretion and fairness prevail ; while, in hot cli- mates, the hepatic secretion and darkness prevail. Many physiologists have indeed made the insulated remark, that the dark complexion has much to do with the hepatic secretion. The more abundant urinary and hepatic secretions, however, may not be the causes, but only concomitant effects of the same cause with fairness and darkness of com- plexion. The SECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the circulating vessels, 212 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. being moderately active and finely ramified, bestow upon the skin a whiteness, a transparency, and a complexion, which are necessary to beauty. The whiteness, the transparency, and the color of the skin, have, in all highly civilized nations, been deemed essential conditions of beauty. The ancients regarded whiteness, in particular, as the distinctive character of beauty ; and they estimated that character so highly, that the name of Venus, from the Celtic ven, ben, or ban, signifies white, or whiteness; and Venus herself is said to be fair and golden-haired. Among the civilized moderns, also a taste which women seek always to satisfy, is that for whiteness of the skin : hence, the white lily, new-fallen snow, white marble, or alabaster, are the images which poetry employs, when the color of a woman is its subject. So greatly, indeed, does whiteness con- tribute to beauty, that many women deemed beauti- ful by us, have little other right to that epithet ex- cept what they derive from a beautiful skin. Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. The branches of the great artery of the body, the aorta, supplying the abdomen and pelvis, are larger in woman than in man, as well as more ha- bitually liable to variation in the quantity of their contents. The quantity of blood, also, which pas- ses to the abdomen, is greater. At the same time, the excretions are generally less in woman. Hippocrates says: " Nam corpus THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 213 muliebre minus dissipatur quam virile;" the expend- iture of the body of woman is less than that of man. It is evident, then, that the secretions, nutrition, in particular, must be greater. We actually know them to be so. But the nourishment of the organs concerned in locomotion is less active, and that of the cellular and adipose substance is generally more active, than in man. And on this, important consequences depend. Woman is subject to crises which would destroy all her organs, if they offered too powerful a re- sistance. Some parts of her body are exposed to great shocks, to alternate extensions, compres- sions, and reductions, which could not take place with impunity, but by means of this predominance of the cellular and adipose structure. The cellular expansion, the general basis of the structure, appears then to be more abundant in woman, more lax and yielding, more dilated and fuller of liquids ; and it is by yielding gradually, by decomposing and weakening shocks by means of the general suppleness of the different organs, thus procured, that nature seems, in woman, to avoid, or to destroy, every hurtful effort. It is observed, moreover, that certain parts, nat- urally more loose, receive into all their vessels a more considerable quantity of liquid, and assume a particular enlargement, at the moment when their sympathy with the uterus causes them to enter into action in concert with it ; and it is also 214 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. observed that they dilate more easily during preg- nancy. It is thus, then, that nature gives to all the parts of woman that suppleness which renders her capa- ble of easily yielding to the great revolutions which affect her organization in regard to repro- duction, as well as mark the different periods of her life. The great development of the cellular and fatty tissue in woman is illustrated by the remarkable fact, that anciently the Romans, in order to burn the bodies of dead men, were obliged to join to them those of women, the fat of which greatly fa- cilitated combustion. Now, with the great purposes described above, beauty is naturally associated. It is principally this excess of the cellular and fatty tissues which gives to the members of woman those round and beautiful outlines, that soft and polished surface, which the body of man does not possess. In every part, however, of the human figure, as observed by Reynolds, " when not spoiled by too great corpulency, will be found distinctness, the parts never appearing uncertain or confused, or as a musician would say, slurred; and all those small- er parts which are comprehended in the larger compartment are still found to be there, however marked." Now, while all this is the case, it appears that the true skin is much thinner and more delicate in woman than in man, and that it derives more or less of its clear whiteness from the quantity of fat THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 215 which is below it ; for meagerness inevitably tar- nishes and dries it. Hence, to possess a fine, soft, white, and fresh skin, it is also indispensable to possess plumpness. In relation to this purer white, it must also be observed, that transpiration, which might soil it, appears to be much less abundant in woman ; and that the liver or vein-relieving gland, is very large. The excretions of the skin in women are indeed chiefly limited to certain parts ; and it is thence that it has, in various parts, an odor which a French writer observes " it is difficult to describe, but which an exercised sense of smell easily suc- ceeds in distinguishing in women who fully enjoy all the attributes of their sex, and who are women even in the atmosphere which exhales from them." While the skin is thus more white in women, it is also more transparent. The reticular tissue, or substance interposed between the true skin and" scarf-skin, appears to have more clearness and turgescence, especially on the face, where, under the influence of various emotions, it easily permits a passage to the blood, as we see in blushing. It is in youth that this turgescence and clearness are most evident. Hence, the skin in woman less conceals the veins, of which the color, only enfeebled or modi- fied by the skin, " gives all those shades of azure which the charmed eye follows with so much pleasure on the surface of the bosom and of all the parts where the skin has least of thickness." All this constitutes freshness, or animation, 216 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. which is nearly synonymous with health, and with- out which there is no beauty. When that quality, as observed by Roussel, " is wanting, all other attractions strike but feebly, because the prompt judgment, which instinct suggests, warns us that the woman whose person does not present all the characters of perfect health, is in a disposition lit- tle favorable to the plan of nature, relatively to the maintenance of the species." The whiteness and the animation of the skin, however, do not alone constitute its beauty : there is still another quality which is absolutely neces- sary to it. This is the softness and the polish which, as the reader has seen, is one of the first conditions of physical beauty. In woman, this is probably derived from a slight degree of oleagin- ous secretion. Hence, she has few asperities of the skin, especially on the surface of the bosom, and other parts, where the skin is excessively smooth. Brown women, who probably have more of this oleaginous secretion, are said to possess in a great- er degree the polish of skin which gives impres- sions so agreeable to the organ of touch ; and hence, Winckelmann has said that persons who prefer brown women to fair ones allow themselves to be captivated by the touch rather than the sight. There is reason, however, to doubt the accuracy of this. Brown women appear to have greater softness, but less smoothness of skin. The body of woman is nearly deprived of hairs upon all parts, except the head, axillae, &c. ; and THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 217 the hair of her head is generally long, fine, and flexible. The quantity and the color of the hair are al- ways in relation to the constitution of the individ- ual to which it belongs, and generally to the tem- perature of the place. The people of northern countries have the hair of a silken fineness and of surprising length. The hair which is most admired is not only very fine and flexible, but light colored. Fair golden hair was, of all its teints, that which the ancient artists preferred. In woman, the hair of the head whitens and falls later than in man. It is curious that, in regard to the hair, the dis- tinctive characters of the sexes should not always have been preserved. Though nature gives long hair to woman, it has sometimes been the fashion to wear it short ; and though man has naturally shorter hair, it has sometimes been the fashion to cherish its growth, and to shave the beard from his face. The latter has especially been the case in degenerate and effeminate times ; and this has sometimes been accompanied by remarkable con- sequences. One of the greatest misfortunes, says a French writer, which France ever had to lament, the divorce of Louis le Jeune from Elinor of Guyenne, resulted from the fashion, which this prince wished to in- troduce, of shaving his chin and cropping his head. The queen, his wife, who appears to have possessed, with a masculine beauty, considerable acuteness of 19 218 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. intellect, observed with some displeasure, that she imagined herself to have espoused a monarch, not a monk. The obstinacy of Louis in shaving him- self, and the horror conceived by Elinor at the sight of a beardless chin, occasioned France the loss of those fine provinces which constituted the dowry of this princess j and which, devolving to England by a second marriage, became the source of wars which desolated France during four hundred years. The habit of wearing the beard is a manly and noble one. Nature made it distinctive of the male and female ; and its abandonment has commonly been accompanied not only by periods of general effeminacy, but even by the decline and fall of states. They were bearded Romans who con- quered the then beardless Greeks ; they were bearded Goths who vanquished the then beardless Romans ; and they are bearded Tartars who now promise once more to inundate the regions occu- pied by the shaven and effeminate people of west- ern Europe. In farther illustration of the manliness of this habit we may observe, that throughout Europe, wars have generally led to its temporary and par- tial introduction, as at the present day. Those assuredly blunder, who ridicule the wearing of the beard. Silly affectation, on the contrary, is im- putable only to those who, by removing the beard, take the trouble so far to emasculate themselves ! and who think themselves beautified by an unnatural imitation of the smoother face of woman ! As appendages of the skin, the nails may here THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 219 be noticed. Their beauty consists in their figure, their surface, and their color. By their figure, they serve as a defence to the delicate extremities of the fingers, which would otherwise be easily hurt against hard bodies. They form at once shields and supporting arches to the fingers 5 and they give facility in laying hold of bodies which would escape from their smallness. They ought accordingly to be arched, and to extend as far as the flesh which terminates the fingers. The form of the nails depends much on the care employed in cutting them during in- fancy, and still more on the mode of employing the hand. The nails ought also to be smooth and polished, somewhat transparent, and rose-colored. Their rosy color seems to show that their texture has less density and more transparence. It is in this view of the nutritive system and the characteristics which render it beautiful, and especially after this portion of it which regards the organs and functions of secretion, that the mammae and their beauty should be considered. In woman, the bust is smaller and more rounded than in man ; and it is distinguished by the volume and the elegant form of the bosom. The external and elevated position of the mammse is by far the most suitable for a nursling, which, no longer deriving subsistence from within the mother, nor yet able of itself to find it without, must be gently and softly borne toward her; an admirable position, says a French writer, " which, 220 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. in keeping the infant under the eyes and in the arms of the mother, establishes between them an interesting exchange of tenderness, of cares, and of innocent caresses, which enables the one the better to express its wants, and the other to enjoy the sacrifices which she makes, in continually con- templating their object." According to Buffbn, in order that the mammae be well placed, it is necessary that the space be- tween them should be as great as that from the mammse to the middle of the depression between the clavicles, so that these three points form an equilateral triangle. The two portions of the mammse should be well detached. The whole presents, in beautiful models, more elegance than volume ; and the areola, it may be observed, is red in fair women and deeper colored in brown ones. Winckelmann observes that, in the antique statues, the mammas terminate gently in a point, and that they have always virginal forms, as a consequence of the system of the ancient artists, which consists in not recalling in the ideal the wants and the accidents of humanity. Finally on this particular head, I must observe that the reproduction of the species is, in woman, the most important object of life, and that every thing in her physical organization has evident re- ference to it. Of all the passions in woman, says Richerand, " love has the greatest sway : it has even been said to be her only passion. All the others are modified by it, and receive from it a THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 221 peculiar cast, which distinguishes them from thoso of man. . . . Fontenelle used to say of the devo- tion of some women, ' One may see that love has been here.' It has been said, in speaking of St. Theresa, ' To love Goof, is still to love.' Thomas maintains that, ' With women a man is more than a nation.' 'Love,' says Madame de Stael, ' is but an episode in the life of man ; it is the whole history of the life of woman.' " The THIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the secreting vessels being active, not only cause the plumpness, &c., necessary to beauty, but furnish the mammary and uterine secretions, on which progeny is dependant. This must inevitably be followed by moderate ex- cretions. It should not pass unobserved that there exist, in some women, a fair skin and dark hair, forming a rather extraordinary and striking combination. As such women have the skin remarkably smooth and moist, this is probably connected with some peculiarity of secretion and excretion. It is evidently the UNION of all that is good in these varieties which renders beauty in the vital system perfect. This union is nowhere so frequently to be seen, as in England and in Holland. It is curious that cleanliness among women seems necessarily to increase with the develop- ment of this system ; and that, in general slovenli- ness and filth increase as we pass from England 19* 222 SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY. and Holland, toward France, Italy, Spain, and Por- tugal, even among women of the highest condition. Of the temperaments of the ancients, which, as already said, are only partial views of some of the varieties I am now describing, two, the phlegmatic temperament and the sanguine temperament, appear to belong fundamentally to this species. It has been supposed, that the first affects the absorbent, the second the circulating system. They appear to me to be exactly opposite affections of the whole nutritive system at least. The phlegmatic temperament may exist in both sexes. The causes which tend to develop it, are infancy, humidity with cold, the absence of light, indolence, and the feeble influence of the repro- ductive functions upon the general system. In this temperament, there exists an excess in the proportions of the absorbent vessels ; the pulse is weak, slow, and soft ; there is a turgescence of the cellular tissue, and a more marked development of the glands ; the internal stimulants, having less energy than in the other temperaments, life is less active, and all its actions are more or les's languid ; even the uterus is not endowed with suitable energy. But these characteristics are not confined to the nutritive system : they extend to the thinking one. The attention is not continuous ; the perceptions succeed with some difficulty ; the memory is not to be trusted ; the imagination is weak ; and the propensities, the appetites, and the passions, are so THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. 223 languid, as to be scarcely capable of troubling the quietude and the indolence which depend on such a constitution. These characteristics of the phlegmatic temper- ament, present to us forms more rounded and less expressive, a general softness, a feeble color of the skin, a sort of etiolation, a pale countenance, a light and abundant hair, and, generally, an insurmount- able inclination to sloth, averse alike to labors of the mind and body. It has been observed, that the sanguine tem- perament, so generally met with among northern nations, is the necessary consequence of the con- tinual and very energetic reaction of the powers of circulation, against the effects of external cold ; that it is only by the constant activity of the heart and vessels that calorification can be effected with the necessary vigor : and that the effects of this redoubled action are the same to the organs of cir- culation as to the muscles, under the influence of volition ; exertion in both increasing the power of the organs exerted. In the sanguine temperament, the lymphatic, cir- culating, and secreting systems appear to be in a sort of equilibrium ; the chest is larger, and the lungs more voluminous; the circulation is more rapid, the arterial predominance is obvious ; the pulse is sharp, frequent, and regular ; the com- plexion is ruddy ; all the vital actions are extreme- ly easy ; and the health is rarely altered. The mental functions correspond. The concep- tion is quick ; the memory is prompt ; the imagi- 224 BEAUTY OF THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM. nation is lively; the judgment has more readiness than depth and extent ; the mind, easily affected by the impressions of outward objects, passes rapidly from one idea to another; the tastes, pro- pensities, appetites, passions, are equally epheme- ral ; and there is much activity, but the strength is soon exhausted. In persons of this temperament, the countenance is animated ; the hair is fair, and inclining to chest- nut ; the shape is good ; the form is softened, though distinct ; and the muscles are of tolerable consistence, and moderate development. The whole appearance is generally so amiable, that this tem- perament may be called that of health, beauty, and happiness. In the women who present the attributes of their sex with the greatest unity, we distinguish, espe- cially during youth and adult age, the traits of the sanguine temperament, which may be regarded as the most suitable to the organization of woman. BEAUTY OF THE THINKING SYSTEM. 225 CHAPTER XIV. THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY BEAUTY OF THE THINKING SYSTEM. IN woman, the organs of sense are proportionally larger, and the sensibility is more quick and deli- cate than in man. Hence, also, the mental quickness and delicacy of woman are greater. Her perceptions succeed with rapidity and intenseness ; and the last of them generally predominates. In well-organized women, accordingly, the forehead and the observing facul- ties are peculiarly developed. The general nervous system of woman is like- wise far more mobile than that of man. Beauty of the thinking system in woman depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure, which thus distinguish her from man. In the woman possessing THIS SPECIES of beauty, accordingly, the greater development of its upper part gives to the head, in every view, a pyriform appearance; the face is generally oval; the high and pale forehead announces the excellence of the observing faculties ; the intensely expres- sive eye is full of sensibility ; in the lower fea- tures, modesty and dignity are often united ; she 226 THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. has not the expanded bosom, the general plump- ness, or the beautiful complexion, of the second species of beauty; and she boasts easy and graceful motion, rather than the elegant proportion of the first. The whole figure is characterized by intellectuality and grace. This species of beauty is less proper to woman, less feminine, than the preceding. It is not the intellectual system, but the vital one, which is, and ought to be most developed in woman. First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. In woman, the nervous extremities appear to be larger than in man 5 a pulpy appearance is more remarkable in them ; and the papillae in which they terminate, appear to have less rigidity. The organs of sense are proportionally larger, and more delicately outlined. There is indeed in woman more development in the organs of sensa- tion, than in that of understanding, reasoning, and judging ; while the contrary is the case in man. The sensations, accordingly, are in woman more acute, and their minute differences are more easily discerned. Man reflects more than he feels : woman always feels more than she reflects. The FIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the organs of sense is proportionally large, and the sensibility greater. It ought to be observed, that though, in woman, when well organized, the whole head is proper- THE THINKING SYSTEM. 227 tionally less than in man, yet, the organs of sense will be found to be proportionally larger. This sufficiently indicates the importance of such pro- portional development. Upon it, indeed, depend that increased sensibility and quickness of observa- tion, which are essential to the female character. Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. Of all parts of the brain in woman, when well formed, the forehead, especially, is found to be large. Without this, she would have sensibility without observation, a most unhappy condition of the nervous system. In woman, the brain partakes of the softness of all the other parts of her structure. The cellular tissue which covers it, and which descends between its convolutions, is more abundant, mucous, and loose. The mind, correspondingly, is more impressed by any new object of thought ; the whole nervous sys- tem is more extensively affected by impressions on the brain ; the propensity to emotion is stronger, and women are more habitually under its influence. The intimate connexion of the thinking, with a peculiar modification of the reproductive faculties, inspires in woman the want of maternity, which is more powerful than life, and which renders her ca- pable of every sacrifice. Associated with this, are her affection, tenderness, and compassion. Upon the whole, sensibility in woman is greater than understanding; the involuntary play of the 228 THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. imagination, more active than its regulated combi- nations ; and passion, generally of the gentler kind, predominates rather than resolve or determination. She has, therefore, more finesse and activity, than depth or force of thought ; and her nervous system is also more frequently deranged by accidents un- known to man. The extent of the brain, anteriorly, is measured by the different degrees of the opening of an an- gle, which Camper has called the facial angle ; and so far it is favorable to woman well conformed ; but it gives no notion of the magnitude of the brain superiorly, posteriorly, or laterally.* The brain of woman, however, in general, ex- tends a good deal posteriorly as well as anteriorly, though it narrows in the former of these directions ; and, to the proportional length thus acquired, is owing that intensity in her functions, which I have just described. Superiorly, centrally, and laterally, the brain of woman is generally much less than that of man 5 and hence the want of elevation, depth, and endurance, in her mental faculties-! Upon the whole, the brain of woman is less than that of man, and it is especially less in its superior, central, and, intellectually considered, more im- portant portions. The SECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this spe- cies of beauty, is that in which the development of * Appendix I. f See the causes of this explained in my work on *' Physiog- nomy." THE THINKING SYSTEM. 229 the brain is proportionally small. This is an evi- dent corollary from what we have just stated as to the first modification of this species ; for it is not possible that the organs of sense should be propor- tionally large, without the rest of the head being proportionally small. This is not quite conformable with the wishes of phrenology ; but we must leave any dispute be- tween that art and nature to its own issue. A Ve- nus, moreover, with a small, yet beautifully propor- tioned head, is often seen to be the mother of a boy who has a large head j the difference of sex caus- ing a vast modification and difference of develop- ment. Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty. From what has been already said, it may be con- cluded that, in action or conduct, women are less guided by intellect, and are more biased by feeling and emotion ; and it may also be concluded, that all their movements to fulfil the purposes of feeling and emotion, are made in a manner more easy and more prompt, though less sustained. This is in- creased by the ready obedience of the muscular fibre, and the relative shortness of the stature. This more easy and less forcible action is per- fectly conformable physically with the small and elongated form of the cerebel, or organ of the will, in woman ; as it is morally with the part which woman performs in life, and her desire to please, while it is that of man to protect and to defend. 20 230 THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. Conformably with the smaller size of the cere- bel, and especially with its smaller breadth (the influence of which is explained in the work last referred to), the disposition of woman to sustained exertion, whether mental or bodily, is much less j and hence the character " varium et mutabile sem- per fcemina." It is, then, the prompt and easily-affected sensi- bility of woman, not her understanding or force of mind, which renders her so eminently fit to be in- terested in infancy, which enables her to surmount maternal pains by the sentiment of affection and pity, and which makes agreeable to her the cares and the details of housekeeping ; and it is this which sometimes renders nothing too irksome or too painful for a mother, a wife, or a mistress, to endure. Hence, the constitution of woman is perfectly adapted to these functions ; hence, her existence is more sedentary than man's ; hence, she has more gentleness of character than he ; and hence, she is less acquainted with great crimes. The THIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the cerebel or organ of the will, as well as the muscles which it actuates, is proportionally small. The situation of this considerable organ is in the back and lower part of the head, and may be pretty accurately indicated by saying, that a line passing through it would complete, posteriorly, a longer line passing backward from the nose through the lower part of the ear. THE THINKING SYSTEM. 231 When this organ, which is that of the will, is high, and more especially when it is large, a deter- mination and force seem to he given by it to the character, which render it the reverse of feminine. Having spoken here of the ready exercise of the will in woman, and its adaptation to her wish to please, it seems to he here that some circumstances dependant on these should be noticed. With this ready exercise of the will and desire to please, are evidently connected the light care- lessness, the graceful ease, and the gentle softness, which add so much to the power of beauty. Hence, artists give to woman the bending form which as- sociates so well with all her characteristics ; for all feel with Hogarth that undulating lines are more or less formed in all movements executed with the in- tention of expressing sentiments of courtesy, re- spect, benevolence, or love. But it is grace that we must especially consider here grace which directly emanates from this ready exercise of the will and desire to please, es- pecially when combined with observing faculties so perfect and so perpetually active as those of woman. " Gracefulness," says Burke, " is an idea not very different from beauty ; it consists in much the same thing. . . Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of diffi- culty ; there is required a small inflexion of the body ; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, nor to ap- pear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this 232 THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. ease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called l je ne scais quoi? " It is not in these mere physical qualities, that all the magic of grace consists, which, in the state of Burke's knowledge, he might indeed well call "je ne scais quoi /" Let the reader hear what is said on this subject by a man who could look a little deeper than Burke, and who owed no fame to the little art of substituting a flash of words for depth of thought, and serving by it a venal purpose as little as the art itself. " What grace," says Smith, " what noble pro- priety do we not feel in the conduct of those who exert that recollection and self-command which constitute the dignity of every passion, and which bring it down to what others can enter into ! We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears, and importunate lamentation. But we reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks, and in the distant, but affecting address of the whole behavior. It imposes the like silence upon us ; we regard it with respectful attention, and watch over our whole behavior, lest, by any impropriety, we should disturb that concerted tran- quillity which it requires so great an effort to sup- port." This is eloquence, indeed. Alison duly appreciates this earliest definition of grace. " It is," he says, " this ' recollection and THE THINKING SYSTEM. 233 self-command,' which in such scenes constitute what even in common language is called the grace- ful in behavior or deportment; and it is the ex- pression of the same qualities in the attitude and gesture, which constitutes, in my apprehension, the grace of such gestures or attitudes. . . Where- ever, in the movements of the form, self-command or self-possession is expressed, some degree of grace, at least, is always produced. . . Whenever in such motions grace is actually perceived, I think it will always be found to be in slow, and, if I may use the expression, in restrained or measured mo- tions. " The motions of the horse, when wild in the pasture, are beautiful ; when urged to his speed, and straining for victory, they may be felt as sub- lime ; but it is chiefly in movements of a different kind that we feel them as graceful, when, in the impatience of the field, or in the curvetting of the manege, he seems to be conscious of all the powers with which he is animated, and yet to re- strain them, from some principle of beneficence or of dignity. Every movement of the stag almost is beautiful, from the fineness of his form and the ease of his gestures ; yet it is not in these or in the heat of the chase that he is graceful : it is when he pauses upon some eminence in the pursuit, when he erects his crested head, and when, looking with disdain upon the enemy who follows, he bounds to the freedom of his hills. It is not, in the same manner, in the rapid speed of the eagle when he 20* 234< THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. darts upon his prey, that we perceive the grace of which his motions are capable. It is when he soars slowly upward to the sun, or when he wheels with easy and continuous motion in airy circles in the sky. " In the personification which we naturally give to all inanimate objects which are susceptible of movement, we may easily perceive the influence of the same association. We speak commonly, for instance, of the graceful motions of trees, and of the graceful movements of a river. It is never, however, when these motions are violent or ex- treme, that we apply to them the term of grace. It is the gentle waving of the tree in slow and measured cadence which is graceful, not the tos- sing of its branches amid the storm. It is the slow and easy winding which is graceful in the move- ments of the river, and not the burst of the cataract, or the fury of the torrent. " It is only in the perfection of the human sys- tem, in the age when the form has assumed all its powers, and the mind is awake to the conscious- ness of all the capacities it possesses, and the lofty obligations they impose, that the reign of physical grace commences ; and that the form is capable of expressing, under the dominion of every passion or emotion, the high and habitual superiority which it possesses, either to the allurements of pleasure or the apprehensions of pain. It is this age, accord- ingly, which the artists of antiquity have uniformly represented, when they sought to display the per- fection of grace, and when they succeeded in leav- THE THINKING SYSTEM. 235 ing their compositions as models of this perfection to every succeeding age." It is evidently the UNION of all that is good in the varieties now described which renders beauty, in the thinking system, perfect. This is well illustrated in the Minerva of the Giustiniani gallery, which, in this respect, is scarcely the less valuable because it is draped, for it is the head that ever bears the greatest impress of intellectuality. This union is by no means perfect in the English female head, although, from the considerable de- velopment of the forehead and the moderate one of the backhead, the general form of that head is beautiful. As to the French female head, a French- man, writing under the name of Count Stendhal, scruples not to say : " The form of the head in Paris is ugly ; the cranium approaches to that of the ape ; and this occasions the women to have the appearance of age very early in life." The women of Paris differ not, in this respect, from those of France generally. Nearly all have the character here described. It is under this species that the nervous tempera- ment falls, which is constituted by great sensibility and corresponding mobility, and therefore belongs to the first and the last of those varieties ; a tem- perament chiefly to be found among women. This temperament scarcely exists in the athletic, is weak in the phlegmatic, is moderate in the san- guine, and is rather active in the bilious. 236 THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY. It is characterized by the smallness and the emaci- ation of the muscles, the quickness and intensity of the sensations, and the suddenness and fickleness of the determinations. It is seldom natural, but commonly depends on a sedentary and inactive life, on a diseased con- dition of the brain produced by reading works of imagination, and on habits of sensual indulgence. In confirmation of this, we are told that the Roman ladies became subject to nervous affections only in consequence of those depraved manners which marked the decline of the empire ; and that these affections were extremely common in France in the licentious times preceding the fall of the corrupt and corrupting monarchy. Another partial view falling under this species, and properly under the second variety, is the cer- ebral temperament, which results from the energy and influence of the brain. This temperament, being thus determined by an excess in the power of the brain, has been called the temperament of genius. When it is increased by education and habits, the other organs are gen- erally more feeble. In woman, the cerebral temperament is more particularly characterized by a predominance of imagination, which is evidently dependant on the organization which has already been described. It has been truly observed, that to contribute to the perfection of reason as well as to the preserva- tion of health, the brain ought to be exercised and developed in every direction 5 that the mere exer- THE THINKING SYSTEM. 237 cise of memory carried too far renders persons foolish ; that the predominance of imagination dis- poses to nervous affections, and even to alienation ; that meditation alters the digestive functions; and that the dry and minute contention which business requires, disposes, when joined to a defect of exer- cise (and I may add the vinous excesses in which men of business indulge), to apoplexy and to paralysis. 238 BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICITLAE. CHAPTER XV. BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. " IT is probable," says Dr. Prichard, " that the natural idea of the beautiful in the human person has been more or less distorted in almost every nation. Peculiar characters of countenance, in many countries, accidentally enter into the ideal standard. This observation has been made par- ticularly of the negroes of Africa, who are said to consider a flat nose and thick lips as principal ingredients of beauty ; and we are informed by Pallas that the Kalmucs* esteem no face as hand- some, which has not the eyes in angular position, and the other characteristics of their race. The Aztecs of Mexico have ever preferred a depressed forehead,! which forms the strongest contrast to the majestic contour of the Grecian busts : the former represented their divinities with a head more flattened than it is ever seen among the Caribs, and the Greeks, on the contrary, gave to * Pallas Voyages en Siberie. t Humboldt's Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain. BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 239 their gods and heroes a still more unnatural eleva- tion." Knowing, as the reader now does, what consti- tutes the worth, the dignity, and the beauty, of the various organs, this statement tends to show the value of that standard of beauty which we owe to the Greeks. I proceed to illustrate it in regard to the FACE. The beauty of the human countenance is de- scribed by various writers, as including the beauty of form, in the various features of the face ; the beauty of color, in the shades of the complexion ; the beauty of character, in some distinctive and permanent relations ; and the beauty of expression, in some immediate and temporary feeling. In regard to the form of the face, considered as a whole, the opening of the facial angle of Camper, in measuring geometrically the extent of the upper part of the head, marks the development of the brain or organ of thought, and shows the propor- tion which it bears to the middle and lower part of the face, or to the organs of sense and expres- sion. This development of the upper part of the head contributes essentially to beauty, by giving to the whole head that pyriform appearance already de- scribed, by which in every view it is larger at the superior part, diminishes gradually as it descends, and terminates by the agreeable outline of the chin. In the most beautiful race of men, the facial an- gle extends to eighty-five degrees, acquiring an in- 240 BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. crease of ten degrees above the inferior varieties ; the face is diminished ; the eyes are better placed ; the nose assumes a more elegant form ; and all appearance of muzzle vanishes. In the Greek ideal head, the development pre- senting a facial angle of ninety degrees, confers the highest beauty of the form of the head, the majesty of the forehead, the position of the eyes upon a line which divides the face into two equal parts, the elegant projection of the nose, the ab- sence of all tumidity of the lips. But of that, in the sequel. In the face, generally, as observed by Winckel- mann, beauty of form depends greatly upon the profile, and particularly on the line described by the forehead and nose, by the greater or less de- gree of the concavity or declivity of which, beauty is increased or diminished. The nearer the profile approaches to a straight line, the more majestic, and at the same time softer, does the countenance appear, the unity and simplicity of this line being, as in everything else, the cause of this grand, yet soft harmony. The face being the seat of several organs, each must be examined in its turn. Winckelmann observes, that "a large high FORE- HEAD [an excess, in this respect] was regarded by the ancients as a deformity." And "Arnobius says, that those women who had a high forehead, covered a part of it with a fillet." The reason of this will afterward be pointed out. The sense of TOUCH resides in all parts of the BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 241 face, but especially in the lips. It is most perfect, however, at the tips of the fingers. A thinner skin permits to the touch of woman more vivacity, delicacy, and profoundness. It seizes the details which generally escape the touch of man. It is more easily hurt by hard, rough and angular, cold or hot bodies. Hence, woman requires vestments which are light and smooth ; and she enjoys more than man the pleasure of reposing on flocculent substances which softly resist her pressure. In the face, the lips are peculiarly the organ of touch. Of all the organs of sense, the mouth admits, I believe, of the greatest beauty and the greatest de- formity. Considered in repose, nothing certainly is more lovely than this organ when beautifully formed in a beautiful woman. And in action, du- ring speech, the simplest words passing through it receive a charm altogether peculiar. The mouth ought to be small, and not to extend much beyond the nostrils : a large mouth and thick lips are contrary to beauty. The curve of the upper lip is said to have served as a model to the ancient artists for the bow of Love. The lower lip should be most developed, rounded and turned outward ; so as to produce, between it and the chin, that beautiful hollow which assists so much in giving the latter a more perfect rotundity. Both, but especially the upper, should become thin toward the angle of the mouth. Although we see many lips without erident and 21 242 BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. offensive defects, there are very few of them really beautiful ; and indeed it is only persons of great delicacy and of refined taste who attach the high- est value to perfect beauty of the lips. Lips of beautiful form and of vermillion hue, teeth which are small, equal, slightly rounded, Avhite, clean, and well arranged, and a pure breath, are the circumstances which constitute a beautiful mouth. The sense of TASTE is more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. She accordingly seeks for savors which are less rough and irritating than those which are agreeable to him. The NOSE is the most prominent and conspicu- ous feature of the face ; it is the central fixed point around which are arranged all its other parts ; and it is thus essential to the regularity of the features. When these, moreover, are in action, the nose, by its immobility, marks the degree of change which they undergo, and renders intelligible all the movements produced by admiration, joy, sadness, fear, &c. To perfect beauty of the nose, it is necessary that it should be nearly in the same direction with the forehead, and should unite with that part, without leaving more than a slight inflexion to be seen. This constitutes the Greek profile ; and the various degrees of deviation from it constitute, as to this organ, the various degenerations from beauty the most consummate to ugliness the most disgusting. Nature says Winckelmann, is sparing of this BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 243 beauty both in burning climates and in frozen re- gions.* The same writer says : " The flat compressed nose of the Kalmucs, Chinese, and other distant nations, is also a defect, because it destroys the harmony of forms, according to which all the other parts are constructed : nor is there any reason why nature should compress and hollow it, instead of continuing the straight line begun in the fore- head." The fact is true ; the reasoning false, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, to which this point properly belongs. Under the influence of passion, the nostrils ex- pand and are drawn upward ; and these two motions are the only ones of which the lower and moveable part of the nose is capable. The sense of smell, like that of taste, is more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. Woman accordingly enjoys more, and suffers more, by that sense than man does ; and its influence is said to dispose her more than man to those pleas- ures which have remarkable relations to that sense. To beauty of the EYE, magnitude and elongated form contribute more perhaps than color : if its form be bad, no color will render it beautiful. In woman, however, the most beautiful eyes, in rela- tion to color, are those which appear to be blue, It is remarkable that, in infants, the nose is almost always flat, and that, in some members of the same family, it always re- mains so, while, in others, it rises. This is attended by difference of function. 244< BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. hazel, or black. But no color of the eye is beau- tiful without clearness in every part. " The more obliquely, and at an angle to each other," says Winckelmann, " that the eyes are placed, as in cats, the more their position is re- moved from the base, or from the fundamental lines of the human face, which form a cross that divides it into four parts, the nose dividing it per- pendicularly into two equal parts, and the eyes dividing it horizontally. When the eyes are placed obliquely, they form an angle with a line parallel to that which we suppose to pass through their centre. And this indeed is doubtless the reason why it displeases us to see a mouth which goes awry, because it generally offends the eye to see two lines diverging from each other without any reason. Thus eyes placed obliquely, as may be seen sometimes among ourselves, and commonly among the Chinese, Japanese, and in Egyptian, heads, are an irregularity and a deformity." Here, again, Winckelmann's fact is true, and his reasoning false, or rather, perhaps, superficial. The real cause of the deformity of obliquely-placed eyes is, that the vital parts of the head preponderate. The cavities of the upper jaw, which open into the internal nose, are, in the Mongelic races, so large, that they raise the cheek-bones, throw the orbit upward at its lateral part, and encroach apparently upon the space which should contain a nobler or- gan, the brain. The causes assigned by Winckel- mann are but consequences of this. The eyelids in woman, when well formed, pre- BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 245 sent the gentlest inflexions. The eyelashes, when long and silky, form a sign of gentleness, and some- times of softness. The eyebrows ought to he fur- nished with fine hairs, arched, and separated : if they are too thin, they do not sufficiently protect the organ of sight : if they unite, they render the physiognomy sombre ; their too-marked approxi- mation, and their extreme separation, are real de- formities. The sense of sight in woman is rapid and active ; yet, in her, the slow and languid motion of the eye is generally employed, and is more beautiful than a brisk one. Woman requires a mild light, and colors of moderate vividness, rather than other- wise. The beauty of the EAR is too little regarded. To an experienced eye it presents great beauties, and great deformities, in form, magnitude, and projec- tion. The size and prominence of the ear, which char- acterize several nomadic tribes, are contrary to beauty, not merely because they alter the regulari- ty of the oval of the head, and surcharge its out- line with prominences, but because they are in themselves ugly, indicating rather the coarse strength common to inferior animals than the delicacy to be found in man. In woman, the ear is also more delicate, more sensible, but more feeble, than in man. Strong sounds, loud noises, which may be agreeable to the ear of man, are offensive to her. She prefers soft 21* 246 BEATJTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICTTLAR. and tender, gay, or pathetic music, to every other ; and whatever may be the perfection of her musical education, she also prefers sweet and tender melo- dy to the most complicated Sclavonic harmony. Such are the organs of sense or those of impres- sion, which form the first and most important portion of the face of woman. The organs of expression, the MUSCLES of the face, on the con- trary, are feeble in her; and correspondingly feeble and rounded are the bony points to which they are attached. Woman presents very little prominence of the frontal sinuses ; the cheek-bones display beautiful curves; the edges of the alveoli containing the teeth are much more elliptical than in man ; and the chin is softly rounded. Of the chin, it should be observed that it is a distinctive character of the human species, and is not found in any other ani- mal. When well formed, it is full, united, and gen- erally without a dimple ; and it passes gently and almost insensibly into the neighboring parts. In woman especially, the chin ought to be finely rounded ; for when projecting, it expresses, owing to its connexion with muscular action and power, a firmness and a determination which we do not wish to discover in her character. " The apparent con- vexity of the cheeks," says Winckelmann, " which in many heads appears greater than natural, con- tributes to this rotundity : it is not, however, ideal, but taken from natural beauty." The muscles of the face express all the shades of emotion and passion, not because such expression BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 247 is the primary, or the proper object of their motion, but because their various motions adapt the organs to the farther purposes required of them in conse- quence of preceding impressions ; and these mo- tions become expressive to us only because we are thus enabled to infer the feeling and purpose of the person in whom they occur. This is a fundament- al principle of physiognomy ; and its not being understood has led to many of our errors in that science. In woman, the countenance is more rounded, as well as more abundantly furnished with that cellular and, fatty tissue which fills all the chasms, effaces, all the angles, and unites all the parts by the gen- tlest transitions. At the same time, the muscles are feebler, more mobile, resigned for a shorter time to the same contraction, and as inconstant as the emotions and passions which their rapid play ex- presses. The result of all this is, that the muscles do not profoundly modify the face, which consequently has not so much of permanent character as that of a man, and which permits us more difficultly to dis- cover, through the rounded, short, and shifting parts, the nature of her various feelings. As, how- ever, the abundance of the cellular tissue diminish- es with age, and as the sentiments become at the same time less ephemeral, the physiognomical character and expression of woman become more decided. As to COLOR of the face, it may be observed that the forehead, the temples, the eyelids, the nose, 248 BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR the upper part of the superior lip, and the lower part of the inferior lip, ought in woman to be of a beautiful and rather opaque white. The approach to the cheeks and the middle of the chin ought to have a slight teint of rose-color, and the middle of the cheeks ought to be altogether rosy, but of a delicate hue. Cheeks of an animated white are preferable to those of a red color, although less beautiful than those of rosy hue. With regard to the HAIR, it may be observed, that sometimes, rising from its bulbs, it turns in irregular rings, and, by displaying a forehead rather large, confers a certain sanguine, as well as open air upon the physiognomy. This, however, is most frequently seen in men, and chiefly in men of ex- uberant vitality, rather than intellectuality : it in- deed depends entirely on the former. In other men, and almost always in women, the hair generally divides in a line extending from the crown to the forehead, and falls over the temples. The line thus formed, uniting with the median line, of the face in general, and that of the nose in par- ticular, gives to the whole of the features a pecu liar symmetry and beauty. I have said, already, that symmetry is a charac- teristic of thinking beings, and I have explained the reason of this. The present case admirably illus- trates it. This symmetrical arrangement of the hair bestows an intellectual air ; and it well may, for, when natural, it derives its tendency to fall on each side, from the top of the head, either from the general elevation of the calvarium, or from the par- BEAUTY OF THE FACE IH PARTICULAR. 249 ticular elevation of the forehead, which is charac- teristic of beauty in woman. It accordingly announces in the individual higher observing faculties : hence, the ancient sculptors never omitted this in their highest personages : hence, we find it in the heads of RafFaelle and Guido. " A fair hue, fiv0d," says Winckelmann, " has ever been regarded as the most beautiful ; and flaxen-colored hair was assigned to the most beau- tiful, not only among the gods, as Apollo [xP vero * 6 i tav 'ArrfAXui/a, golden-haired Apollo] and Bacchus, but also among the heroes : Alexander the Great had flaxen hair." The modern Italians call Cupid " II biondo Dio." Having concluded what I have here to say of the parts of the face, I may observe, that the different effects of the same face, even in a state of repose, have often been observed, never explained. I have, however, in another work, shown that the face is composed of motive, nutritive, and thinking parts or organs. Now, circumstances bring these vari- ously into action ; and the different effects alluded to, in reality depend on the motive, or the nutritive, or the intellectual expression being at the time, re- spectively, most apparent, or most attended to by us. The study of this subject, which I have not space here to develop, is of infinite importance to the man of taste, the physiognomist, and the artist. The latter cannot easily excel without understand- ing it. Another curious fact, not hitherto observed, is, 250 BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. that though beauty of face is, owing to the power of the vital system, almost universal at a certain age, there is always a faulty feature, which the physiognomist may observe, and which ever con- tinues to exaggerate, until it terminate in relative ugliness. Thus we scarcely observe the long up- per lip during youth, in some women j and yet it afterward gives to them the sober grimace of ba- boons. We admire in youth the spirit of the pier- cing eye, and aquiline nose in others, to whom these afterward give the look of so many old hawks. In others, still, we are charmed with the round, rosy, and innocent cheeks, which, when they become paler and more pendent, confer on them the aspect either of seals or of mastiffs, according to other circumstances of temper and disposition. I could easily trace these, and many more, from youth to middle age, and illustrate them convincingly, by drawings : but I have no room for it here. Each, indeed, of the subjects of the two imme- diately preceding paragraphs, is worthy of a vol- ume ; for the first is as essential to all judgment of existing beauty at the instant of its being before us, as the second is to all prescience of what beauty will very soon be to all who have no love for a leap in the dark. I add to this chapter but a few words on the very different organization of the head and face, and the very different mind, of the Greeks and Romans. Whoever, for the purpose of comparing the heads of these two nations, may walk into the British BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 251 Museum, will be struck with the difference between, them. The forehead is almost always rather narrow, and rather high, in the most illustrious Greeks ; and this could not so uniformly have been so represented in sculpture, unless it had been so also in fact. This is verified, in the third room of the Townley collection, by the heads of Homer, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Pericles, &c. by the almost universal conformation of Greek heads, to which there are but few exceptions : Sophocles, in this room, and Demosthenes, in the eleventh, are rather broader. . On the contrary, the forehead, the face, the jaws, are excessively broad, and the cranium is depressed and low, in the Romans in Severus, Nero, Cara- calla, &c., in the sixth room, and in Tiberius and Augustus, in the eleventh ; nor is this owing to the circumstance that these generally were men de- graded in feeling or intellect, for nearly the same configuration is found in Trajan, Hadrian, &c., in the fourth, sixth, and other rooms. The faces of the Romans are not less ugly than their heads ; and those of their women are absolutely detestable, as may be seen in Faustina, Plautilla, Sabina, Domitia, &c., in the sixth of these rooms. If farther illustration of this be wanting, it may be found in the circumstance that, while the Greeks preferred the rather high forehead, and invented the ideal one, the Romans, on the contrary, pre- ferred a little forehead and united eyebrows. Ovid assures us that the women of his time painted their 252 BEATTTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. eyebrows in such a manner, that they might appear to form only one. In the work so often referred to, I have shown that the intensity of functions is as the length of their organs, and the permanence of /unctions as the breadth of their organs. No truth can be bet- ter illustrated than this is, in the organization and the faculties of the Greeks and Romans. With the higher and larger head of the Greeks was united an intensity of genius, which no other people has yet rivalled ; and with the broader head of the Ro- mans, a perseverance, equally obstinate and unfeel- ing, which has been similarly unrivalled. A good illustration of the vaunted Roman virtue is recorded in Porcia, the daughter of Cato, the wife of Brutus, who plunged a toilet-knife into her thigh, and kept it eight days in the wound, without complaining, to prove to her husband that her courage and her discretion rendered her worthy of entering into the conspiracy, which he meditated ; and who also destroyed herself by swallowing burning coals, when she heard of his defeat. Ob- stinacy and insensibility were great sources of the crimes either perpetrated, or, by their lying histo- rians, pretended to be perpetrated, under the name of Roman virtue. It would be out of place, here, to enter farther into the character and expression of the face. Those whom these remarks dispose to do so, may refer to the physiognomical work, which I have BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR. 253 been so often compelled to allude to.* To those who are satisfied, neither with the vague, though tasteful inspirations of Lavater, nor with the em- pyrical or unreasoned manifestations of Gall and Spurzheim, but who desire the. assignment of a reason for every description of physiognomical character or expression, that work may afford some satisfaction. That the Greeks, either intuitively or reasonedly, distinguished the three species of beauty as to the figure, has been already seen. The heads of Diana, Venus, and Minerva, respectively present beauty of the locomotive, vital, and mental systems. * " Physiognomy founded on Physiology, and applied to various Countries, Professions, and Individuals : with an Appendix on the Bones at Hythe the Sculls of the ancient Inhabitants of Britain, and its Invaders: illustrated by Engravings." Smith, Elder, & Co., Cornhill. 22 254 COMBINATIONS AND TRANSITIONS OF THE CHAPTER XVI, COMBINATIONS AND TRANSITIONS OF THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. As to the COMBINATIONS of beauty, it must now be observed, that some one of these species of beauty always characterize the same individual during every stage of life j and, to the experienced ob- server, it never is difficult to say which of them predominates. Attention to the preceding prin- ciples will render this easy. It is right to mention here the cause of this general predominance of one species of beauty over the rest. It depends on this, that the slight- est original or accidental preponderance of strength in one system above that of the rest, though unob- served at first, leads to a more frequent employ- ment of its functions, and therefore to a more perfect development of its organs, until at last the disproportion between these and those of the other systems, becomes characteristic of the individual. In a truly beautiful woman, none of the systems described can exist in a great degree of degrada- tion ; but of the three, the nutritive or vital system is to woman the most essential. In England, from thirty to forty is generally the age of its highest perfection. THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 255 It often, however, occurs, that two, or even the whole of these species of beauty, are blended in considerable perfection. In those females in which it is found, the locomotive system is well developed in the length and elegance of the limbs ; the vital or nutritive system everywhere presents soft forms, and rounds both body and limbs ; and the mental or thinking system displays a capability of grace in action, notwithstanding the constrained attitude assumed to conceal the face. Although there can indeed be no great degree of beauty in which this combination is not more or less the case, yet a union of all the three species of beauty, in the greatest compatible degree, is to be found only in some of those immortal images of ideal beauty, which were created by the genius and the chisel of the Greeks. Having briefly spoken of these combinations, I may notice also those combinations which similarly occur among the temperaments, which, as already- said, .constitute partial views of the varieties I have been describing. In relation to a combination of the phlegmatic and nervous temperament, I may refer to Richerand, who says, that, " among the moderns, the easy Michael Montaigne, all of whose passions were so moderate, who reasoned on everything, even oa feeling, was truly pituitous. But in him the pre- dominance of the lymphatic system was not carried so far, but that he joined to it a good deal of ner- vous susceptibility." Of women, more especially, it is observed, that 256 COMBINATIONS AND TRANSITIONS OF THE they rarely present examples of the lymphatic tem- perament, unmodified by nervous mobility ; whence come extreme vivacity in the sensations with great feebleness, determinations equally precipitate and unsteady, excited imagination and ephemeral tastes, absolute will, &c. The sanguine temperament is similarly combined with the nervous one. Hence, the physiologist above quoted says, that " to the extreme love of pleasure, sanguine men join, when circumstances require it [he should have said, in some cases], great elevation of thought and character, and can bring into action the highest talents in every de- partment : the history of Henry IV., of Mirabeau, and others, proves that." The ancients gave the name of bilious, to a tem- perament in which the sanguineous system is ener- getic, the pulse strong, hard, and frequent, the sub- cutaneous veins prominent, the development of the liver excessive, the superabundance of bile remark- able, the sensibility easily excited, yet capable of dwelling upon one object, the passions violent, the movements abrupt and impetuous, and the charac- ter inflexible. This is evidently a very compound temperament, and should never have been classed, any more than the two preceding, with the simple temperaments, the athlectic or muscular, the phleg- matic or lymphatic, the sanguine, and the nervous, which I have noticed under the heads to which they belong. In persons of this temperament, the skin is of a yellowish brown the hair black, the muscles THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 257 marked, the form harshly expressed. " Bold in the conception of a project," saysRicherand, "con- stant and indefatigable in its execution, it is among men of this temperament, that we find those who, in different ages, have governed the destinies of the world : full of courage, boldness, and activity, they have signalized themselves by great virtues or great crimes, and have been the terror or admi- ration of the universe. Such were Alexander, Julius Cesar, Brutus, Mahomet, Charles XII., the Czar Peter, Cromwell, Sixtus V., Cardinal Richelieu [and, he should have added, Bonaparte] ... To attain to results of such importance, the profoundest dissimulation and the most obstinate constancy are equally necessary ; and these are the most eminent qualities of the bilious." A still more compound temperament is the mel- ancholic, in which disease is added to the bilious temperament, a derangement of the functions of the nervous system, and the diseased obstruction of some one of the organs of the abdomen, so that the nutritive functions are feebly or irregularly performed, the bowels sluggish, the pulse hard and contracted, the excretions difficult, the imagination gloomy, the disposition suspicious. In persons of this temperament, the skin is of a still deeper hue, and the look uneasy and gloomy. Rousseau and Tiberius are excellent examples of this temperament, as associated with genius and virtue in one, and with truly royal vice in the other. In women, this temperament is rarely so intense as in men. 22* 258 THIRD SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY. Of the TRANSITIONS of beauty, I have now to ob- serve, that, though one species of beauty always characterizes the same individual during every stage of life, yet it is remarkable, that the young woman (whatever species of beauty predominates) has always a tendency to beauty of the locomotive system ; that the middle-aged woman has always a tendency to beauty of the nutritive system ; and that the woman of advanced age has always a tendency to beauty of the thinking system. Some women would seem, in the progress of life, to pass through all these systems (and the more perfect the whole organization, the more will this seem to be the case) ; but the accurate observer will always see the predominance of the same system. PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 259 CHAPTER XVII. PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. WINCKELMANN says : " I cannot imagine beauty without the PROPORTION which is always its founda- tion. The drawing of the naked figure is founded upon the idea and the knowledge of beauty; arid this idea consists partly in measures and relations, and partly in forms, the beauty of which was, as Cicero observes, the object of the first Grecian artists : the latter determine the figure; the former fix the proportions." The great variety of proportions presented by the human body causes much difficulty in deter- mining with precision Avhat are the best. The difficulty becomes quite insurmountable if we at- tempt to assign precise dimensions to the details of configuration or to minute parts. Many circumstances are opposed to the exact- ness of these measures. Even in the same person, one part is rarely in all respects similar to the cor- responding part ; we are taller in the morning than in the evening ; and the proportions change at dif- ferent periods of life. In different individuals, the differences are still more evident. Moreover, hab- its, professions, trades, all unite to oppose regular- ity in the proportions. 260 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. It has farther been observed that, in the con- formation of woman, both as regards the whole and as regards the various parts, nature still more rarely approaches determinate proportions than in man. It is remarked by Hogarth, whose views I now abridge, that in society we every day hear women pronounce perfectly correct opinions as to the proportions of the neck, the bosom, the hands, and the arms of other women, whom they have an in- terest in observing with severity. It is evident that, for such an examination, they ought to be capable of seizing, with great precision, the rela- tion of length and thickness, and of following the slight sinuosities, the swellings, the depressions, almost insensible and continually varying, at the surface of the parts observed. If so, it is certainly in the power of a man of science, with as observing an eye, to go still farther, and conceive many other necessary circumstances concerning proportion. But he says : " Though much of this matter may be easily understood by common observation, assisted by science, still I fear it will be difficult to raise a very clear idea of what constitutes or com- poses the utmost beauty of proportion. . . We shall soon find that it is chiefly to be effected by means of the nice sensation we naturally have of what certain quantities or dimensions of parts are fittest to produce the utmost strength for moving or supporting great weights, and of what are most fit for the utmost light agility, as also for every degree, between these two extremes," PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 261 After some illustrations of this, which naturally leave the method very vague, he adds: " I am ap- prehensive that this part of my scheme, for explain- ing exact proportion, may not he thought so suffi- ciently determinate as could be wished." So that Hogarth's method as to proportions, both general and particular, reduces itself to the employment of the eye and the nice sensation we have of quanti- ties or dimensions. But the Greek artists had not only done what Hogarth thus vaguely speaks of, but advanced much farther j and indeed all that has been done on this important subject belongs rather to the history of art than that of nature. " It is not,' 1 says Buffon, " by the comparison of the body of one man with that of another man, or by measures actually taken in a great number of subjects, that we can acquire this knowledge [that of proportion] : it is by the efforts which have been made exactly to copy and imitate nature ; it is to the art of design that we owe all that we know in this respect. Feeling and taste have done all that * mechanics could not do; the rule and the compass have been quitted in order to profit by the eye ; all the forms, all the outlines, and all the parts of the human body, have been realized in marble ; and we have known nature better by the representation than by nature itself. It is by great exercise of the art of design and by an exquisite sentiment, that great statuaries have succeeded in making us feel the just proportions of the works of nature. The Greeks have foimed such admirable statues, 262 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. that with one consent they are regarded as the most exact representation of the most perfect hu- man body. These statues, which were only copies from man, are become originals, because these copies were not made from any individual, but from the whole human species well observed, so well indeed, that no man has been found whose figure is so well proportioned as these statues : it is then from these models that the measures of the human body have been taken." It is now necessary to lay before the reader the principles of the Greeks, as to the proportions of the human body. Much has been well done on this subject by Winckelmann, Bossi, and others ; but, at the same time, from want of enlarged ana- tomical and physiological views, they have over- looked some fundamental considerations, and have failed to unravel the greatest difficulties which the subject presents. That the reader maybe satisfied of the accuracy of my representations, I shall lay the statements of these writers before him in their own words, rendering them only as succinct as possible.* Of the first epoch of art among the Etruscans and Greeks, Mengs says : " They preferred the most necessary things to those which were less so ; and therefore they directed their attention first to the muscles, and next to proportion, these con- * Of the best works on this subject, those of Mengs alone, I believe, have been translated ; but the translation is so inaccuratjj as to be worthless. PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 263 stituting the two parts the most useful and neces- sary of the human form ; and this is, throughout, the character of their primitive taste. All this we observe in history, and in the divine and human figures which they have represented. " In these figures," he farther observes, " we find a proportion, impossible to be known and practised, without an art which furnishes sure rules. These rules could not be founded otherwise than in pro- portion, which was invented and practised by the Greeks." In this, Flaxman agrees, when he says : " It must not be supposed that those simple geometrical forms of body and limbs, in the divinities and heroes of antiquity, depended upon accidental choice, or blind and ignorant arbitration. They are, on the con- trary, a consequence of the strict and extensive examination of nature, of rational inquiry into its most perfect organization and physical well-being, expressed in outward appearance." " That the Greeks," says Bossi, " wrote much on this subject [their doctrine respecting symmetry] we have ample evidence in Pliny, Vitruvius himself, Philostratus the younger, and others. "Polycletus did not confine himself to giving a commentary upon this fundamental point, but, in illustration of his treatise, according to Galen, made an admirable statue that confirmed the pre- cepts laid down in the work ; and ' The Rule of Polycletus,' the name given to this statue, became so famous for its beauty, that it passed into a prov- 264 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. erb to express a perfect body, as we may find in Lucian. " But of so many writings, which ought at least to equal the works that remain to us, and probably were superior, inasmuch as it is easier to lay down precepts than to put them in execution of so many treatises, I say, not a fragment remains [ex- cept the few lines of Vitruvius], nor is there, now, any hope that a vestige will be found, unless some- thing may remain for posterity among the papyri of Herculaneum." Now, to approach to the ancients in excellence is quite impossible, until some one shall explain the great principles on which they acted. Assuredly they are, in some of the most important respects, unknown at present. Servile imitation will never answer the purpose ; and to learn as the ancients did, and reach perfection, perhaps, in as many ages, is not very rational, when we can avail ourselves of their practice to discover their principles. I will, in this chapter, endeavor to point out some of these principles in the practice of art, as I have al- ready done in the general theory of beauty. " It is probable," says Winckelmann, " that the Grecian artists, in imitation of the Egyptians, had fixed, by well-determined rules, not only the largest, but even the very smallest proportions, and the measure of the length proper to every age and to every kind of contour j and probably all these rules were learned by young persons, from books that treated of symmetry." These rules, we know, were of three kinds PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 265 numerical, geometrical, and harmonic ; and we shall see, in the sequel, that the loss of them has been much deplored. It is. not a little curious, however, that the numerical and geometrical meth- ods are, in some measure, actually practised even at the present day, and that the harmonic method (the loss of which has caused the greatest confu- sion) is easily deducible from anatomical and phys- iological principles, as I shall endeavor to show. As to the NUMERICAL METHOD, it is evidently that of which Vitruvius has preserved some notions, and which is at present practised by artists. "As it is the painter's business,"'saysBossi, "to imitate a great variety of human bodies, and as the difference of parts in beautiful bodies is generally slight, and becomes, as it were, imperceptible, in the most usual imitations less than life, Leonardo perceived it was necessary for the artist to use a general measure, for the purpose of preparing his- torical compositions quickly. He required that the figure to be employed should be carefully selected on the model of some natural body, the proportions of which were generally considered beautiful. This measure, he required, should be employed solely for length, and hot for width, which requires more -evident variety." " It has been observed," says Flaxman, " that Vitruvius, from the writings of the most eminent Greek painters and sculptors, informs us that they made their figures eight heads high, or ten faces, and he instances different parts of the figure measured according to that rule, which the great 23 266 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. Michael Angelo adopted, as we see by a print from a drawing of his." Winckelmann, however, shows that the foot served the Greeks as a measure for all their larger dimensions, and that their sculptors regulated their proportions by it, in giving six times its length, as the model of the human figure. Vitruvius says, " Pes vero altitudinis corporis sexto." " The foot," says Wincklemann, " which among the ancients was used as the standard of measures of every magnitude (for a given measure of fluids was also called by this name), was very useful to sculptors in fixing the proportions of the body, and with reason ; for the foot was a more determinate measure than that of the head or face, of which the moderns generally make use. The ancient artists regulated the size of their statues by the length of the foot, making them, according to Vitruvius, six times the length of the foot. Upon this principle, Pythagoras determined the height of Hercules, by the length of the feet with which he measured the Olympic stadium at. Elis. " This proportion of six to one between the foot and the body, is founded upon experience of nature, even in slender figures : it is found correct, not only in the Egyptian statues, but also in the Gre- cian ; and it will be discovered in the greater part of the ancient figures where the feet are preserved." " We would not omit mentioning," says Bossi, " the erroneous opinion of those, who esteem the feet of females beautiful in proportion to their smallness. The beauty of the feet consists in the PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 267 handsomeness and neatness of their shape, not in their being short, or extremely small : were it otherwise, the feet of the Chinese and Japanese women would be beautiful, and those of the Venus de Medici frightful." Such, then, is evidently the numerical method of the ancients. Of the GEOMETRICAL METHOD, we have many illustrations. A man standing upright, with his arms extended, is, as Leonardo da Vinci has shown, enclosed in a square, the extreme extent of his arms being equal to his height. This is evidently the most general measure of the latter kind. Of the latter kind, also, is Camper's ellipsis for measuring the relative size of the shoulders in the male, and the pelvis in the female. So also is the measure from the centre of one mammae to that of the other, as equal to the dis- tance from each to the pit over the breast-bone. We now approach the chief difficulty, which evidently formed a stumbling-block even to Leo- nardo da Vinci that HARMONIC METHOD which, strange as it may appear, will be found to afford rules that are at once perfectly precise, and yet infinitely variable. The apparent impossibility indeed of such a rule seems to have embarrassed every one. And the statement which Bossi makes in regard to Leonardo da Vinci, in this respect, is exceedingly interesting. "He thought," says Bossi, "but little of any general measure of the species ; and that ike true proportion admitted by him, and acknowledged to 268 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. be of difficult investigation, is solely the proportion of an individual in regard to himself, which, ac- cording to true imitation, should be different in all the individuals of a species, as is the case in nature. Thus, says he, ' all the parts of any animal should correspond with the whole ; that which is short and thick, should have every member short and thick ; that which is long and thin, every member long and thin ; and that which is between the two, members of a proportionate size.' From this and other precepts, it follows, that, when he speaks of proportion, he is to be understood as referring to the harmony of the parts of an individual, and not to the general rule of imitation in reference to dimensions." How clearly (notwithstanding the error as to all being short and thick) does this point to the harmonic method of proportion forth- with to be explained 1 " It would seem he felt within himself that he did not reach the perfection of those wonderful ancients of whom he professed himself the admi- rer and disciple. "It became, therefore, Leonardo's particular care and study to approach as nearly as he could to the ancients in the true imitation of beautiful nature under the guidance of philosophy. " But whether from want of great examples, or from not sufficiently penetrating, as he himself thought, into these artifices, or from comprehend- ing them too late, he modestly laments that he did not possess the ancient art of proportions. He then protests that he has done the little he was able PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 269 to do, and asks pardon of posterity that he has not done more. Such are the sentiments that Platino exhibits in the following epitaph : i " Leonardus Vincia (sic) Florentinus Statuarius Pictor que nobilissimus de se parce loquitur. " Non sum Lysippus ; nee Apelles ; nee Policletus , Nee Zeuxis ; nee sum nobilis sere Myron. Sum Florentinus Leonardus Vincia proles ; Mirator veterum discipulusque memor. Defuit una mihi symmetric, prisca : peregi Quod potui : veniam da mihi posteritas." " It is evident that these sentiments are not to be attributed to the imagination of the poet." Bossi, having no glimpse of the great principles for which Leonardo sought in vain, says : " Since, then, this great man could not satisfy himself in the difficult task of dimensions, while on other points he seems to dread no censure, it should give us a strong idea of the difficulty of determining the laws of beautiful symmetry, and preserving it in. works with that harmony which is felt, but cannot be explained, and which varies in every figure, accord- ing to the age, circumstances, and particular charac- ter of each. " And when we recollect that, though Leonardo sought successfully in Vitruvius the proportions which Vitruvius himself seems to have drawn from the Greeks, he yet lamented that he did not possess the ancient symmetry, it is easily seen that he did not mean by this science, as already stated, a de- terminate general measure for man, but that har- 23* 270 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. mony of parts which is suited to each individual, according to the respective circumstances of sex, age, character, and the like." Again, how clearly does this point to the harmonic method of proportion to be presently explained ! "But,"Bossi proceeds, "how difficult it is to combine the beautiful and elegant, with easy and harmonic measures, may be judged from the vain attempts of many otherwise ingenious men, as I will here relate for the benefit of artists. The dif ficulty will be still more evident if we reflect how arduous a task it is to make the proportions that the Greeks denominated numerical, harmonic, and geometrical, agree together, and to apply them thus agreeing, to the formation of rules and measures of a visible object so various in its component parts as the human body." In despair, Bossi tries to show its absolute impossibility ! " In the second place, to penetrate completely the natural reason of the proportions of the human body, would require a knowledge of physics, which it is not in man's power to obtain. The universal equilibrium of the numerous constituent parts of the human machine, every one of which eminently attains the end for which it was destined, without interrupting the course that every other part takes to its respective end, in which true proportion seems to consist, is more easily stated than under- stood. And even if an artist could arrive at such a knowledge of man as to be able, so to speak, to compose him, he would have done but little, be- cause he would have made but one man. By the PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 271 alteration of only one of .the infinite parts that compose the human frame, the equilibrium and respective relation of the others are necessarily altered : in short, each separate individual would be the subject of a totally new study. " Every human habit, of whatever nature it may be, has an influence over the human figure, and from the indefinable variety and incalculable mix- ture of such habits, there results an infinite variety of figures. Thus, it is evident that true general proportions cannot be laid down without violating nature, which it is the object of art to imitate." If, by " general proportions," Bossi here means proportions applicable to all or to a great number, he completely loses sight of the object of the great man on whose opinions he comments; for he sought a rule for the harmony of parts in each distinct in- dividual ! Again, Bossi abandons, as impossible, the finding of the harmonic rule, which was the great object of Leonardo. " From what has been said, we may finally conclude that large proportions only can be established, and that placing too much con- fidence in measures, retards, rather than favors the arts. " It was written of Raphael, and is seen, that he had as many proportions as he made figures. Mi- chael Angelo did the same, and it was his saying, that he who had not the compasses in his eye, would never be able to supply the deficiency by artificial means. Vincentio Danti, who treasured the doctrine of Michael Angelo, asserts in his 272 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. work, that the proportions do not fall under any measure of quantity. We have seen the infinite exceptions of Leonardo, respecting the measure- ment of man, and his own few works confirm it. I speak no more of inferior persons among the moderns ; but turning to the ancients, I find that the proportions of every good statue are different." And this will be found conformable to the har- monic rule. " And speaking generally of works in relievo, what canons can determine the largeness or small- ness of some parts, so as to obtain a greater effect according to the circumstances of light, distance, material, visual point, &c. 1 Certainly none." This was not to be expected from the rule sought for. " I shall deem that I have gained some recom- pense for the toil of wading through so many tedi- ous works, if it shall induce any faith in the advice I now give, namely, that ' every student of paint- ing should himself measure many bodies of ac- knowledged beauty, compare them with the finest imitations in painting and sculpture, and from these measures make a canon for himself, dividing it in the manner best suited to his genius and memory. If this plan were more generally adopted, art and its productions would both be gainers.' " It might do so, among as ingenious a people as the Greeks, in as many ages as the same method cost them to do it in ! Leonardo da Vinci wanted to abridge the time, instead of beginning again ! Winckelmann as little understands this great PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 273 man's object, when, after saying, "As the ancients made ideal beauty their principal study, they de- termined its relations and proportions," he adds "from which, however, they allowed themselves to deviate, when they had a good reason, and yielded themselves to the guidance of their genius." Why, the whole purpose of the rule sought for was to regulate every possible deviation, as will now be seen. The harmonic method of the Greeks that mea- sure which Leonardo calls the " true proportion" " the proportion of an individual in regard to him- self" "which should be different in all the indi- viduals of a species," but in which " all the parts of any animal should correspond with the whole," which constitutes " the harmony of the parts of an individual," and which, as Bossi adds, " varies in every figure, according to the age, circumstances, and particular character of each" in short, this method for the harmony of parts in each distinct in- dividual this method presenting rules, perfectly precise, and yet infinitely variable, has, in all its elements, been clearly laid before the reader (though not enunciated as a rule) in the relative propor- tions of the locomotive, nutritive, and thinking systems, or, generally speaking, of the limbs, trunk, and head, and in the three species of beauty which are founded on them. These, it is evident, present to the philosophic observer, the sole means of judging of beauty by harmonic rule, the great object of Leonardo da Vinci's desires and regrets. They present the 274 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. great features of the Greek method if that method conformed to truth and nature, as it undoubtedly did. This will be rendered still clearer by a single example. Thus, if any individual be characterized by the development of the nutritive system, this harmonic rule of nature demands not only that, as in the Saxon-English, the Dutch, and many Germans, the trunk shall be large, but consequently, that the other two portions, the head and the limbs, shall be relatively small , tha-t the calvarium shall be small and round, and the intellectual powers re- stricted j that the head shall, nevertheless, be broad, because the vital cavities of the head are large, and because large jaws and muscles of mas- tication are necessary for the supply of such a sys- tem j that the neck shall be short, because the locomotive system is little developed ; that it shall be thick, because the vessels which connect the head to the trunk are large and full, the former being only an appendage of the latter ; that the lower limbs shall be both short and slender ; that the calves of the legs shall be small and high ;* that the feet shall be little turned out, &c., &c. So also, if any individual be characterized by the development of the locomotive system, the harmonic rule demands, not only that the limbs shall be large, but, consequently, that the other * Thus it is not correct, as stated by Leonardo, that when some parts are broad or thick, all are broad ; though, in peculiar com- binations, that may occur. PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 275 two portions, the head and the trunk, shall be rela tively small ; that the calvarium shall he small and long, and the intellectual powers limited ; that the head shall be long, because the jaws and their muscles are extended, &c., &c. So likewise, if any individual be characterized by the development of the thinking system, the har- monic rule demands, not only that the head shall be large, but, consequently, that the other two portions, the trunk and limbs, shall be relatively small ; that the head shall not only be large, but that its upper part, the calvarium, shall be largest, giving a pyramidal appearance to the head; that the trunk and limbs, however elegantly formed, shall be relatively feeble, the former often liable to disease, the latter to accident, as we have seen in the most illustrious examples, &c., &c. It must be borne in mind, however, as already explained, that there may be innumerable combi- nations and modifications of these characteristics; certain greater ones, nevertheless, generally pre- dominating. Such, doubtless, was the harmonic method of the Greeks; whether, by them, it was thus clearly founded on anthropology, or not. It is curious that several writers, and Winckel- mann among the rest, should have adopted a triple division of the body without, however, duly founding it in anthropology. Thus Winckelmann says " the entire body is divided into three parts, and the principal members are also divided into three. The parts of the body are the trunk, the 276 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. thighs, and the legs !" a distribution and division founded neither in nature nor in truth. That the Greeks were more or less aware of the principles here stated, though their writings have not descended to us, is proved by their idealizations founded upon them. " If different proportions," says Winckelmann, " are sometimes met with in any figure, as for ex- ample, in the beautiful trunk of a naked female figure in the possession of Signior Cavaceppi at Rome, in which the body from the navel to the sexual parts is of an uncommon length, it is most probable that such figures have been copied from nature, that is, from persons so formed." Nothing certainly would be better founded in natural ten- dency than such idealization. All the three Greek methods of proportion being now before the reader, I mast briefly notice other circumstances. In the head in particular, may be observed CHAR- ACTER, or a permanent and invariable form, which defines its capabilities, and EXPRESSION, or tempo- rary and variable forms, which indicate its actual functions. The teachers of anatomy for artists have not, that I know of, clearly described the causes of these. I may therefore observe, that as character is permanent and invariable, it depends fundament- ally on permanent and invariable parts the bones; and as expression is temporary and variable, it de- pends on shifting and variable parts the muscles. It is well observed by Mengs that, in relation to PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 277 character, "the peculiar distinction of the ancients is, that from one part of the face, we may know the character of the whole." And, of expression, Winckelmann observes that " the portion which possesses beauty of expression or action, or beauty of both added to the figure of any person, is like the resemblance of one who views himself in a fountain ; the reflection is not seen plainly unless the surface of the water be still, limpid, and clear; quiet and tranquillity are as suitable to beauty as to the sea. Expression and action being, in art as in nature, the evidence of the active or passive state of the mind, perfect beauty can never exist in the countenance unless the mind be calm and free from all agitation, at least from everything likely to change and disturb the lineaments of which beauty is composed." Now the details which, during the period of per- fection in art, were so skilfully employed, were these very means of expression or circumstances attending and indicating them minuter forms which are universal, and without which nature is imperfectly represented minuter forms of the highest order, because the means of expressing in- tellect, emotion, and passion, if required. These higher details we find, for instance, in the turn of the inner end of the eyebrow, or constric- tion and elevation of the under eyelid, or a hundred other traits dependant on subjacent muscles. We find them in slight risings of mere cutaneous parts, when they lie over and are elevated by the attach- ment of muscles, as at the inner angles of the eyes, 24 278 PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. the corners of the mouth, and elsewhere. We find them in depressions or furrows, when they are drawn down by contiguous muscles. These are of higher character, because they belong to expression or its means ; and there is a corresponding want of completeness, of truth, of nature, without them. Between these intellectual means, these higher details, and those of a lower order, accidental de- tails, the great artists of Greece distinguished. Accidental details have nothing to do with expres- sion or the means of expression ; they depend upon an inferior system, that merely of life, and consti- tute all the depositions, excrescences, and growths, which confuse the vision of the inexperienced, and embarrass that of the most discriminating, in the examination of higher beauty. These lower details we find, for instance, in the puffings of adipose substance which project from the spaces between the muscles of the face, and from other accidents of the vital system, as wrin- kles or folds from the absence of adipose substance, fulness or emptiness of the vessels, projecting veins, peculiar conditions of the skin, turbidity of the eyes, hairs of the head, beard, or skin, &c. These have always characterized inferior artists and infe- rior periods of art. From these observations, it will be seen that such unqualified statements as the following by Azara, lead only to misconception: "A human face, for example, is composed of the forehead, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, chin, and beard. These are the great parts ; but each of these con- PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC. 279 tains many other minor parts, which also contain an infinity of others still less. If the painter will content himself to express well the great parts which I have taken notice of, he will have a grand style ; if he depicts also the second, his style will be that of mediocrity ; and if he pretends to intro- duce the last, his style will be insignificant and ridiculous." 280 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. CHAPTER XVIII. THE GREEK IDEAL BEATTTY. ON this important doctrine of art, of which Winck- elmann says : " The ideal is as much more noble than the mechanical as the mind is superior to the body," I shall follow, so far as I can advantage- ously, the great writers on this subject, in order that the reader may have all the confidence in its recognised portions that authority can bestow, and that he may the better distinguish them from the new views which are here added. " There are," says Winckelmann, " two kinds of beauty, individual and ideal : the former is a combination of the beauties of an individual ; the latter, a selection of beautiful parts from several. " The formation of beauty was begun from some beautiful individual, that is, from the imitation of some beautiful person, as in the representation of some divinity. Even in the ages when the arts were flourishing, the goddes&es were formed from the models of beautiful women, and even from those who publicly sold their charms : such was Theodota, of whom Xenophon speaks. Nor was any one scandalized at it, for the opinion of the ancients on these matters was very different from ours." THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 281 Winckelmann adds : " There is rarely or never, a body without fault, all the parts of which are such that it is impossible to find or draw them more perfect in other persons. The wisest artists, being aware of this ... did not confine themselves to copying the forms of beauty from one individual . . but seeking what is beautiful from various objects, they endeavored to combine them together, as the celebrated Parrhasius says in his discourse with Socrates. Thus, in the formation of their figures, they were not guided by any personal affections, by which we are frequently led, in the pursuit of beauty that pleases us, to abandon true beauty, " From the selection of the most beautiful parts and their harmonious union in one figure, arises ideal beauty : nor is this a metaphysical idea, be- cause all the portions of the human figure taken separately are not ideal ; but merely the entire figure." And he elsewhere says : " It is called ideal, not as regards its parts, but as a whole, in which nature can be surpassed by art." With deeper observation still, he adds that, " though nature tends to perfection in the forma- tion of individuals, yet she is so constantly thwarted by the numerous accidents to which humanity is subject, that she cannot attain the end proposed ; so that it is in a manner impossible to find-ah in- dividual in whom all parts of the body are perfectly beautiful." It was to the same purport that Proclus had in ancient times said : " He who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines him- 24 282 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. self to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any ob- ject ever presented to his sight, but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description."* In short, while the Greek artists perpetually studied nature, they discovered her best and highest tendencies even in her most perfect forms ; their works accordingly present nothing foreign to that which is strictly beautiful ; they present not only no inferior forms, but no idle ornaments ; and everything in them is accordingly at once simple and sublime. Barryf affords me the means of continuing the view I now wish to present. " In all individuals, he says, " of every species, there is necessarily a visible tendency to a certain point or form. In this point or form, the standard of each species * Lib. II. in Timseum Platonis. t This member of the Royal Academy was suspected of having written that "republics had done more for the advancement of the fine arts than monarchies." The late George III., who did not approve of truths of that kind, was thereby so much enraged, that he instantly sent for the list of the members of the academy, and therefrom erased the name of Barry. The academicians humbly submitted to the indignity which hereditary wisdom thus inflicted. It would appear, however, that bad principles are spreading among the Royal academicians ; for the works of this expelled member are now daringly given by them as a prize to students at the academy ! THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 283 rests. The deviations from this, either by excess or deficiency, are of two kinds: first, deviations indicating a more peculiar adaptation of certain characters of advantage and utility, such as strength, agility, and so forth; even mental as well as cor- poreal, since they sometimes result from habit and education, as well as from original conformation. In these deviations, are to be found those ingre- dients which, in their composition and union, ex- hibit the abstract or ideal perfection in the several classes or species of character. The second kind of deviation is that which, having no reference to anything useful or advantageous, but rather visibly indicating the contrary, as being useless, cumber- some, or deficient, is considered as deformity; and this deformity will be always found different in the several individuals, by either not being in the same part, in the same manner, or in the same degree. The points of agreement which indicate the species, are therefore many ; of difference which indicate the deformity, few." Barry, however, wrongly says : " Mere beauty, then, though always interesting, is, notwithstand- ing, vague and indeterminate ; as it indicates no particular expression either of body or mind." But it indicates the highest character, the capability of all noble expression, and this is better than its sac- rifice to actuality in one. I am now led to the greater rules which their ideal method suggested to the Greeks. Payne Knight indeed says : " Precise rules and definitions, in matters of this sort, are merely the playthings 284 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. or tools of system-builders j" and, unchecked by any recollection of the practical and unrivalled excellence of the founders of these rules, he adds a great deal of narrow-minded and mista- ken nonsense upon the subject, never distinguish- ing between rules in themselves rational, and the stretching of them to utter inapplicability. On this subject, even Reynolds properly observes, that " some of the greatest names of antiquity, and those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace ; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius not being destroyed by atten- tion or subjection to rules and science." But the grossest errors on this subject have been committed by Alison, who says : " Artists, in every age, have taken pains to ascertain the most exact measurement of the human form, and of all its parts. . . If the beauty of form consisted in any original proportion, the productions of the fine arts would everywhere have testified it ; and, in the works of the statuary and the painter, we should have found only this sole and sacred system of pro- portion. The fact however is, as every one knows, that, in such productions, no such rule is observed ; that there is no one proportion of parts which be- longs to the most beautiful productions of these arts ; that the proportions of the Apollo, for instance, are different from those of the Hercules, the Anti- nous, the Gladiator, &c. ; and that there are not, THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 285 in the whole catalogue of ancient statues, two, per- haps, of which the proportions are actually the same." Now, I believe, we may say that this original or most perfect proportion is presented in the Apollo, which is not, as generally supposed, an example of peculiar , but of universal beauty the locomotive system presenting as much strength as is compati- ble with agility, and as much agility as is compati- ble with strength, and any other modification of either ensuring diminution of power ; while the vital and mental systems are equally perfect. Wherever this model is deviated from by the an- cient artists it is peculiar beauty, I believe, that is represented. He farther says : " They have imagined also various standards of this measurement ; and many disputes have arisen, whether the length of the head, of the foot, or of the nose, was to be consid- ered as this central and sacred standard. Of such questions and such disputes, it is not possible to speak with seriousness, when they occur in the present times." So also Burke says : "It must be likewise shown, that these parts stand in such a relation to each other, that the comparison between them may be easily made, and that the affection of the mind may naturally result from it." Now, no man in his senses ever cared which of these measures was adopted, except as a matter of convenience, or ever imagined that peculiar virtue resided in any of them. The following are some of the principal rules 286 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. which, either by intuition or with due definition, resulted from and guided the practice of the an- cient Greeks. First, in regard to the THINKING SYSTEM, when the ancient artists, either from taste or from prin- ciple, gave greater opening to the facial angle than eighty degrees, they believed that an increase of intelligence corresponded to that conformation. By increasing the angle beyond eighty-five de- grees, they impressed upon their figures the grand- est character, as we see in the heads of the Apollo, the Venus, and others whose facial angle extends to or exceeds ninety degrees. In regard to the forehead, then, this afforded their rule for distinguishing beings of a superior kind. How well they observed the tendency of nature to increase that angle with the increase of some of the thinking faculties, we now know. This ideal rule was, therefore, admirably founded. Whoever reflects on the nature of this angle will perceive that its increase tended nowise to raise the forehead, but to throw it forward, and therefore to lengthen the head. This conforms to the meta- phor by which a long head is used for a wise head, and which has not yet given place to a broad head, preferred by the German craniologists, in compli- ment to their own organization. With regard to the height of the forehead, it has already been observed that it was, among the an- cient Greeks, more considerable than its breadth, as may be seen by the busts of their most illustri- ous men. Still, neither the natural nor the ideal THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY 287 forehead much exceeded the space from the fore- head to the bottom of the nose, or that from the nose to the bottom of the chin. Winckelmann accordingly says : " The forehead to be beautiful should be low [meaning, as his ex- pressions elsewhere show, no higher than the other two spaces just mentioned} ; and its lowness was so fixed among the ideas of beauty by the Grecian artists, that it serves as a mark to distinguish mod- ern heads from ancient. The reason of this ap- pears founded in the very rules of proportion, which, as in the whole human body, was among the an- cients tripartite : thus, the face also was divided into three parts ; so that the forehead should be of the same length as the nose, and the remainder of the face to the chin of the same length likewise. This proportion was founded on observation, and we may at any time convince ourselves of it in any individual with a low forehead, by covering with a finger the hair at the top of the forehead, so as to render it so much higher, and we shall then see a want of harmony of proportion and how detrimental a high forehead is to beauty." These views of Winckelmann, the ideal rule which they illustrate, and, above all, the actual di- mension of the forehead among the philosophers, the poets, and the legislators of Greece, whose genius has been unequalled in modern times, show the folly of the craniological hypothesis. The rea- son of the ideal rule has not, indeed, been assign- ed : it appears to me to be this, that the three parts of the face which, as I have shown both here and 288 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. in my work on physiognomy, are respectively con- nected with ideas, emotions, and passions, should be equal one to another, or that these acts of the organs of sense and brain should be in due propor- tion and harmony. AVhile, therefore, I do not, with the craniologists, seek the predominance of any one of them, neither do I, with Giovani de Laet, take no notice of the space between the top of the head and the commencement of the forehead, and say this part is not to be considered in the height of a man, quia pars excrementosa est ! Their next rule regarded the form of the nose, in nearly the same line with the forehead, and with little indentation between these parts. The foundation of this rule I have not seen point- ed out ; and it was indeed difficult of discovery, without previous knowledge of the physiological fact first mentioned in my physiognomical work, namely, that the nose is the inlet of vital emotion or pleasure, as the eye is of mental emotion ; while the passions connected with nutrition and thought respectively, depend upon other organs, the mouth and the ear. Anatomists know how closely asso- ciated are the nose and the eyes, and the mouth and the ears, respectively. Now, as in these ideal representations, their ob- ject was to increase the means of emotion, but not those of passion, the organs of the former, the nose and the eyes, were all, at the same time, enlarged by raising the junction of the forehead and the nose ; while those of passion, the mouth and the ears, were relatively decreased. Not only was the THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTV. 289 passage of nose or of the olfactory nerves to the brain strikingly dilated by this elevation of the in- termediate part, but the orbits of the eyes were en- larged. As then we naturally associate the increase of organs with the increase of their sensations and with corresponding effects upon the brain, and as the tendency to such configuration is as conspicuous in the countries they inhabited, as is the energy of the emotions with which they are connected, this rule was as admirably founded as the former in natural tendencies. I deem this a pendant to Camper's discovery of the facial angle, and one too which was not quite so obvious or so easy to be made. It disposes of this middle or intermediate part of the face, and shows that the Greeks in beings of the highest character, desired the gradual predominance of emotion over passion, and of ideas or intellect over emotion. A vague feeling of the curious fact I have here explained, Alison, as a man of taste, had, when he said : "Apply, however, this beautiful form to the countenance of the warrior, the bandit, the martyr, &c., or to any countenance which is meant to ex- press deep or powerful passion, and the most vulgar spectator would be sensible of dissatisfaction, if not disgust." In endeavoring to assign a reason for the con- figuration which I have just explained, Winckel- mann, in ascribing it to the mere production of ef- fect, is driven into a ridiculous inconsistency. He thinks that for large statues seen at a distance, it 25 290 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. was necessary, and so came to be used for small medals seen near, for which it was not necessary. " In the heads of statues, and particularly in ideal heads, the eyes are deeper set : the bulb re- mains more deep than is usual in nature, in which sunken eyes render the countenance austere and cunning instead of calm and joyful. In this respect, art has departed with reason from nature ; for, in figures placed to be seen at a distance, if the bulb of the eye were level with the edge of the orbit, there would be no effect produced of light and shade ; and the eye itself, placed under the eye- brows which do not project, would be dull and in- expressive. This maxim, adopted for large statues, became in time universal ; so that it may be ob- served even on medals, not only in ideal heads but in portraits." And elsewhere he says : " Art sub- sequently established it as a rule to give this form to the eyes even in small figures, as may be seen in the heads on coins." Thus Winckelmann's reason avowedly explains only the half of that to which it is applied, and in reality explains nothing, because it leaves a gross inconsistency, of which Greek genius was incapa- ble. Of the general outline thus formed of the face, Winckelmann more truly says : " In the formation of the face, the Greek profile is the principal characteristic of sublime beauty. This profile is produced by the straight line, or the line but very slightly indented, which the forehead and nose form in youthful faces, especially female ones. THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 291 Nature seems less disposed to accord this form to the face in cold than in mild and temperate climes ; but wherever this profile is found, it is always beautiful. The straight full line expresses a kind of greatness, and, gently curved, it presents the idea of agreeable delicacy. That in these profiles exists one cause of beauty is proved by the character of the opposite line ; for the greater the inflection of the nose, the less beautiful is the. face; .and if, when seen side wise, it presents a bad profile, it is useless to look for beauty in any other view." A third rule of the Greek artists, in heads of the highest character, is greatly illustrated by the new views just stated. If, in these, they desired to render ideas and intellect more dominant than emotions of pleasure or pain, and emotions more dominant than passion, -it becomes evident why they equally sought to avoid -the convulsions of impassioned expression. A very beautiful object of this, is mistaken by Winckelmann. I quote his words : " Taken in either sense [of action or of passion], expression changes the features of the face, and the disposition of the body, and, consequently, the forms which constitute beauty; and the greater the change, the greater the loss of beauty. Therefore, the state of tranquillity and repose was considered as a fundamental point in the art. Tranquillity is the state proper to beauty. " The handsomest men are generally the most mild and the best disposed. " Besides, tranquillity and repose, both in men 292 THE GKEEK IDEAL BEAUTY. and animals, is the state which allows us best to examine and represent their nature and qualities ; as we can see the hottom of the sea or rivers only when the waves are tranquil and the stream runs smoothly. " Therefore, the Grecian artists, wishing to de- pict, in their representations of their deities, the perfection of human beauty, strove to produce, in their countenances and actions, a certain placidity without the slightest change or perturbation, which, according to their philosophy, was at variance with the nature and character of the gods. The figures produced in this state of repose, expressed a perfect equilibrium of feeling. " But, as complete tranquillity and repose cannot exist in figures in action, and even the gods are represented in human form, and subject to human affections, we must not always expect to find in them the most sublime idea of beauty. This is then compensated for by expression. The ancient artists, however, never lost sight of it : it was always their principal object, to which expression was in some sort made subservient. " Beauty without expression would be insignifi- cant, and expression without beauty would be un- pleasing; but, from their influence over each other, from combining together their apparently discord- ant qualities, results an eloquent, persuasive, and interesting beauty." Some of these remarks are true and beautiful ; but the great object of the Greeks, in suppressing the convulsions of impassioned expression, was the be- THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 293 stowal of grace, the highest quality in all represent- ation. It is surprising that this should have been so universally overlooked, that, even among artists, nothing is more common than to hear regrets that the Greeks gave so little expression to their figures! Let the reader now peruse again Dr. Smith's and Mr. Alison's account of grace, and if he is ac- quainted with the productions of ancient art, he will see that the Greeks suppressed impassioned expression only to bestow the highest degree of grace. Those, therefore, who complain of this, show themselves ignorant of the best object of their art. If the explanation of this great purpose be clearly borne in mind, the remaining observations of Winckelmann will receive a better application than that to which he limited them : " Repose and tranquillity may be regarded as the effect of that composed manner which the Grecians studied to show in their actions and gestures. Among them, a hurried gait was regarded as con- trary to the idea of decent deportment, and parta- king somewhat of expressive boldness. . . While on the other hand, slow and regulated motions of the body were proofs among the ancients of a great mind. " The highest idea of tranquillity and composure is found expressed in the representations of the divinities ; so that from the father of the. gods to the inferior deities, their figures appear free from the influence of any affection. The greatest of the poets thus describes Jupiter as making all Olympus 25* 294 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. tremble by merely moving his eyebrow or shaking his locks. . . All the figures of Jupiter are not how- ever made in the same style. /'The Vatican Apollo represents this god quiet and tranquil after the death of the serpent Python which he had slain with a dart, and should also ex- press a certain contempt for a victory so easy to him. The skilful artist, who wished to imbody the most beautiful of the gods, has depicted anger in the nose, which according to the most ancient poets was the seat of it, and contempt in the lips : con- tempt is expressed by the drawing up of the under lip, and anger by the expansion of the nostrils. " The expression of the passions in the face should accord with the attitude and gestures of the body ; and the latter should be suitable to the dig- nity of the gods in their statues and figures : from this results its propriety. " In representing the figures of heroes, the an- cient artist exercised equal care and judgment ; and expressed only those human affections which are suitable for a wise man, who represses the violence of his passions, and scarcely allows a spark of the internal flame to be seen, so as to leave to those who are desirous of it, ihe trouble of finding out what remains concealed. " We have examples of this in two of the most beautiful works of antiquity, one of which is the image of the fear of certain death, the other of suffering exceeding anguish. " Niobe and her daughters, against whom Diana shot her fatal arrows, are represented as seized with THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 295 terror and horror, in that state of indescribable an- guish, when the sight of instant and inevitable death deprives the mind of the power of thought. Of this state of stupor and insensibility, the fable gives us an idea in the metamorphosis of Niobe into a stone ; and hence ^Eschylus introduces her in his tragedy as stunned and speechless. In such a mo- ment, when all thought and feeling ceases, in a state bordering upon insensibility, the appearance is not altered nor any feature of the face disturbed, and the mighty artist could here depict the most sub- lime beauty, and has indeed done so. Niobe and her daughters are, and ever will be, the most per- fect models of beauty. " Laocoon is the image of the most acute grief, that puts the nerves, the muscles, and the veins, in action. His blood is in a state of extreme agitation from the venomous bite of the serpents ; every part of his body evinces pain and suffering ; and the artist has put in motion, so to speak, all the springs of nature, and thus made known the extent of his art and the depth of his knowledge. In the repre- sentation, however, of this excessive torment, we' can still recognise the conduct of a brave man struggling against his misfortunes, stifling the emo- tions of his anguish, and striving to repress them." " The ancient artists have preserved this air of composure even in their dancing figures, except the Bacchanals ; and thus an opinion obtained that the action of their figures should be modelled on the manners adopted in their ancient dances, and therefore, in their later dances, the ancient figures 296 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. served as a model to the performers to prevent their overstepping the hounds of a modest deportment : . Molli diducunt Candida gestu Brachia. Propert. " No immoderate or violent passions are ever found expressed in the public works of $e ancients. " The knowledge of the ancients cannot be better known than by comparing their performances with the majority of those of the moderns, in which a little is expressed by much, instead of much by a little. This is what the Greeks call xapcv6vpaos ; a word that aptly expresses the defect produced by too much expression in modern artists. Their figures resemble in action the comedians of the ancient theatre, who, to render themselves visible even to the most distant portion of the audience, were compelled to exceed the limits of nature and truth ; and the faces of modern figures are like the ancient masks, which for the same reason, the in- crease of expression, became hideous. " This excess of expression is taught in a book which goes into the hands of all young artists, 'A Treatise on the Passions,' by Carlo Le Brun, and in the annexed- drawings, not only is the highest degree of passion expressed on the face, but in some even to madness." Hence, w r e may say with Azara, that "the Greeks possessed that art in such perfection, that in their statues one scarcely discover* that they had thought of expression, and nevertheless each says that which it ought to say. They are in a repose w r hich shows THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 297 all the beauty without any alteration ; and a soft and sweet motion, of the mouth, the eyes, or the mere action, expresses the effect, enchanting at once the mind and the senses." In the inferior beings, however, when passion is expressed, the features are varied by the Greek artists as they are in nature. Such are the great ideal rules with regard to the head and the functions of thought. With regard to the body and the NUTRITIVE SYS- TEM, the Greeks similarly idealized. " Seeking for images of worship, consequently of a nature supe- rior to our own, so that they might awaken in the mind veneration and love, they thought that the representations most worthy of the Divinity, and most likely to attract the attention of man, would be those expressing the continuance of the gods in eternal youth and in the prime of life. " To the idea derived from the poets, of the eternal youth of the deities, whether male or fe- male, was added another by which they supposed the female divinities should have all the appearance of virgins. " The form of the breast in the figures of the divinities, is like that of a virgin, which, to be beautiful, must possess a moderate fulness. This was particularly shown in the breasts, which the artists represented without nipples, like those of young girls, whose cincture, in the poet's phrase, Lucina has not yet undone. On their treatment of the limbs and LOCOMOTIVE SYSTEM, Hogarth throws light ; and, as I am not 298 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. aware that he was anticipated in this respect, I quote him : " May be," he says, " I cannot throw a stronger light on what has been hitherto said of proportion, than by animadverting on a remarkable beauty in the Apollo Belvidere, which hath given it the pref- erence even to the Antinous : I mean a superaddi- tion of greatness, to at least as much beauty and grace as is found in the latter. " These two masterpieces of art are seen to- gether in the same apartment at Rome, where the Antinous fills the spectator with admiration only, while the Apollo strikes him with surprise, and, as travellers express themselves, with an appearance, of something more than human ; which they of course are always at a loss to describe : and this effect, they say, is the more astonishing, as, upon examination, its disproportion is evident even to a common eye. One of the best sculptors we have in England, who lately went to see them, confirmed to me what has been now said, particularly as to the legs and thighs being too long, and too large for the upper parts. " Although, in very great works, we often see an inferior part neglected, yet here it cannot be the case, because, in a fine statue, just proportion is one of its essential beauties : therefore, it stands to reason, that these limbs must have been length- ened on purpose, otherwise it might have been easily avoided. " So that if we examine the beauties of this figure thoroughly, we may reasonably conclude, THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 299 that what has been hitherto thought so unaccount- ably-excellent in its general appearance, has been owing to what has seemed a blemish in a part of it : but let us endeavor to make this matter as clear as possible, as it may add more force to what has been said. " Statues, by being bigger than life (as this one is, and larger than the Antinous), always gain some nobleness in effect, according to the principle of quantity, but this alone is not sufficient to give what is properly to be called greatness in propor- tion. . . Greatness of proportion must be considered as depending on the application of quantity to those parts of the body where it can give more scope to its grace in movement, as to the neck for the larger and swanlike turns of the head, and to the legs and thighs, for the more ample sway of all the upper parts together. " By which we find that the Antinous being equally magnified to the Apollo's height, would not sufficiently produce that superiority of effect, as to greatness, so evidently seen in the latter. The additions necessary to the production of this great- ness in proportion, as it there appears added to grace, must then be, by the proper application of .them to the parts mentioned only. " I know not how farther to prove this matter than by appealing to the reader's 'eye, and common observation, as before. . . The Antinous being al- lowed to have the justest proportion possible, let us see what addition, upon the principle of quanti- 300 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. ty, can be made to it, without taking away any of its beauty. " If we imagine an addition of dimensions to the head, we shall immediately conceive it would only deform if to the hands or feet, we are sensible of something gross and ungenteel if to the whole lengths of the arms, we feel they would be dan- gling and awkward if, by an addition of length or breadth to the body, we know it would appear heavy and clumsy there remains then only the neck, with the legs and thighs to speak of; but to these we find, that not only certain additions may be ad- mitted without causing any disagreeable effect, but that thereby greatness, the last perfection as to the proportion, is given to the human form, as is evi- dently expressed in the Apollo." This is well done by Hogarth. It required but a little anatomical knowledge to see the reason of this. The length of the neck, by which the head is farther detached from the trunk, shows the inde- pendence of the higher intellectual system upon the lower one of mere nutrition ; and the length of limbs shows that the mind had ready obedience in locomotive power. I have now to obviate some OBJECTIONS to the existence of simple, pure, high, and perfect ideal beauty, objections, which writers on this subject have hitherto neglected. Alison says: "The proportions of the form of the infant are very different from those of youth ; these again from those of manhood ; and these again perhaps still more from those of old age and THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 301 decay. . . Yet every one knows, not only that each of these periods is susceptible of beautiful form, but, what is much more, that the actual beau- ty in every period consists in the preservation of the proportions peculiar to that period, and that these differ in every article almost from those that are beautiful in other periods of the life of the same individual." But the beauty of the infant is not perfect beau- ty : it is that, on the contrary, of mere promise, not that of fulfilment. So also the beauty of old age is not perfect beauty : it is that, on the con- trary, which affects and interests us chiefly by the regret we feel that its perfection has passed, or is gradually vanishing. " The same observation," says Alison, " is yet still more obvious with regard to the difference of sex. In every part of the form, the proportions which are beautiful in the two sexes are different ; and the application of the proportions of the one to the form of the other, is everywhere felt as painful and disgusting." So also says Burke : "Let us rest a moment on this point; and consider how much difference there is between the meas- ures that prevail in many similar parts of the body, in the two sexes of this single species only. If you assign any determinate proportions to the limbs of man, and if you limit human beauty to these proportions, when you find a woman who differs in the make and measure of almost every part, you must conclude her not to be beautiful in spite of the suggestions of your imagination j or 26 302 ' THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. in obedience to your imagination you must re- nounce your rules ; you must lay by the scale and compass, and look out for some other cause of beauty. For, if beauty be attached to certain measures which operate from a principle in nature, why should similar parts with different measures of proportion be found to have beauty, and this, too, in the very same species V To this I" might say the beauty of woman. is not the highest beauty : it is beauty of the nutritive more than of the higher thinking system. But there is another and a better answer : the differ- ence of sex which affects all the higher animals is a greater difference than that which subsists be- tween some of their varieties or even of their spe- cies ; and the same laws of ideal beauty are as inapplicable to different sexes as to different spe- cies. " We see, every day, around us," says Alison, " some forms of our species which affect us with sentiments of beauty. In our own sex, we see the forms of the legislator, the man of rank, the gen- eral, the man of science, the private soldier, the sailor, the laborer, the beggar, &c. In the other sex, we see the forms of the matron, the widow, the young woman, the nurse, the domestic servant, &c. . . We expect different proportions of form from the painter, in his representation of a warrior and a shepherd, of a senator and of a peasant, of a wrestler and a boatman, of a savage and of a man of cultivated manners. . . We expect, in the same manner, from the statuary, very different pro- THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. 303 portions in the forms of Jove and of Apollo [this should have been excepted], of Hercules and of Antinous, of a Grace and of Andromache, of a Bacchanal and of Minerva," &c. That, in all these cases, the heauty is partial, is evident from the circumstance that what is found in one is wanting in another ; and partial beauty is not perfect beauty. But this last point has been well stated by Reynolds and Barry. "To the principle I have laid down," says Rey- nolds, " that the idea of beauty in each species of being is an invariable one, it maybe objected, that in every particular species there are various cen- tral forms which are separate and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful ; that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another [again the . same error] ; which makes so many different ideas of beauty. . . It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in their kind, though of different character and proportions; but still none of them is the repre- sentation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is one general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at large, so in each of these classes there is one common idea and cen- tral form, which is the abstract of the various indi- vidual forms belonging to that class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood, and a com- mon form in age, which is the more perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiarities. But I must 304 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. add farther, that though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any individual form of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo, but in that form which is taken from all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one to the exclusion of the rest : no one, therefore, must, be predominant, that no one may be deficient." "A high degree of particular character," says Barry, " cannot be superinduced upon pure or simple beauty without altering its constituent parts ; this is peculiar to grace only ; for particular char- acters consist, as has been observed before, in those deviations from the general standard for the better purpose of effecting utility and power, and become so many species of a higher order ; where nature is elevated into grandeur, majesty, and sublimity." There is AN IDEAL IN ATTITUDE as well as in the form of the head and body. This ideal is exactly opposed to the academical rule mentioned by Dufresnoy, Reynolds, and others, namely, that the right leg and left arm, or the left leg and right arm, should be advanced or with- drawn together. These are the mere attitudes of progression, not those of expression j and the THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUT-Y. - 305 academical rule is only an academical blunder To anything but walking to the free and unem- barrassed expressions of the body, it is, indeed, quite inapplicable, and could produce only con- tortion. The rule of ideal attitude, which I long ago de- duced, both from physiological principles, and from the practice of the Greek -artists, is that all the parts of one side of the body should be advanced or withdrawn together ; that when one side is ad- vanced, the other should be withdrawn ; and that when the right arm is. elevated, extended, or bent forward, the left leg should be elevated, extended, or bent backward in all respects the reverse of the academical rule, so complacently mentioned by Dufresnoy, Reynolds, &c. The foundation of this rule in the necessary bal- ance of the body, and that distribution of motion which equally animates every part, must be obvious to every one. It is illustrated by the finest statues of the Greeks, wherever the expression intended was free and unembarrassed, and even in those, as the Laocoon and his sons, where, though the ac- tion was constrained and convulsive, the sculptor was yet at liberty to employ the most beautiful at- titude. It is abandoned in these great works, when either action embarrassed by purpose, or clownishness, as in the Dancing Faun, are ex- pressed.* * This rule is well explained, and variously illustrated by Donald Walker, in his work, equally philosophical, instructive, and amu- 26 306 THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY. I have now only to add, with Moreau, that in- dividual beauty, the most perfect, differs always greatly from the ideal, and that which is least re- moved from it, is very difficult to be found. Hence, in all languages, the epithet rare is attached to beauty ; and the Italians even call it pellegrina, foreign, to indicate that they have not frequently an opportunity of seeing it : they speak of " bel- lezze pellegrine" " leggiadria singolare e pelle- grina." sing, entitled " Exercises for Ladies," a knowledge of which, and the practice of its principles, would render beauty, and especially beauty of the shoulders and arms, far more common in every family. THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 307 CHAPTER XIX. THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. " Hominum divGmque voluptas, alma Venus." OF this, the most perfect models have been created by Grecian art. Few, we are told, were the living beauties, from whom such ideal model could be framed. The difficulty of finding these among the women of Greece, must have been con- siderable, when Praxiteles and Apelles were obliged to have recourse, in a greater or less degree, to the same person, for the beauties of the Venus of Cnidos, executed in white marble, and the Venus of Cos, painted in colors. It is asserted by Athe- nseus, that both these productions were, in some measure, taken from Phryne of Thespia, in Boeotia, then a courtesan at Athens. Both productions are said to have represented Phryne coming out of the sea, on the beach of Sciron, in the Saronic gulf, between Athens and Eleusis, where she was wont to bathe. It is said, that there, at the feast of Neptune, Phryne, in the presence of the people of Eleusis, having cast aside her dress, and allowing her long hair to fall over her shoulders, plunged into the 308 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. sea, and sported long amid its waves. An immense number of spectators covered the shore ; arid when she came out of it, all exclaimed, "It is Venus who rises from the waters!" The people would actually have taken her for the goddess, if she had not been well known to them. Apelles and Praxiteles, we are told, were both upon the shore ; and both resolved to represent the birth of Venus according to the beautiful model which they had just beheld. Such is said to have been the origin of two of the greatest works of antiquity. The work of Apelles, known under the name of Venus Anady- omene, was placed by Cesar in the temple of Venus Genitrix, after the conquest of Greece. An idea of the sculpture of Praxiteles is supposed to have been imperfectly preserved to modern times in the Venus de Medici. We are farther told, that, after having studied several attitudes, Phryne fancied to have discover- ed one more favorable than the rest for displaying all her perfections ; and that both painter and sculptor were obliged to adopt her favorite posture. From this cause, the Venus of Cnidos, and the Venus of Cos, were so perfectly alike, that it was im- possible to remark any difference in their features, contour, or more particularly in their attitude. The painting of Apelles, it is added, was far from exciting so much enthusiasm among the Greeks, as the sculpture of Praxiteles. They fancied that the marble moved ; that it seemed to speak ; and their illusion, says Lucian, was so great, that they THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 309 ended by applying their lips to those of the god- dess.* " Praxiteles," says Flaxman, " excelled in the highest graces of youth and beauty. He is said to have excelled not only other sculptors, but himself, by his marble statues in the Ceramicus of Athens j but his Venus was preferable to all others in the world, and many sailed to Cnidos for the purpose of seeing it. This sculptor having made two stat- ues of Venus, one with drapery, the other without, the Coans preferred the clothed figure, on account of its severe modesty, the same price being set upon each. The citizens of Cnidos took the re- jected statue, and afterward refused it to King Nicomedes, who would have forgiven them an immense debt in return ; but they were resolved to suffer anything so long as this statue by Praxiteles ennobled Cnidos. . . . This figure is known by the descriptions of Lucian and Cedrenus, and it is rep- resented on a medal of Caracalla and Plautilla, in the imperial cabinet of France. This Venus was still in Cnidos during the reign of the emperor Alcadius, about four hundred years after Christ. * It was at the extremity of the modern Cape Crio, anciently Triopium, a promontory of Doris, a province of Caria, that was built the celebrated city of Cnidos. Here Venus was worshipped : here was seen this statue of that goddess, the most beautiful of the works of Praxiteles. A temple, far from spacious, and open on all sides, contained it, without concealing it from view ; and, in whatever point of view it was examined, it excited equal admira- tion. No drapery veiled its charms ; and so uncommon was its beauty, that it inflamed with a violent passion another Pygmalion. 310 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. This statue seems to offer the first idea of the Venus de Medici, which is likely to be the repe- tition of another Venus, the work of this artist." He elsewhere says of the Venus of Praxiteles, it was "the most admired female statue of all an- tiquity, whose beauty is as perfect as it is elevated, and as innocent as perfect ; from which the Medi- cean Venus seems but a deteriorated variety." Flaxman states that he himself had seen, in the stables of the Braschi palace, a statue which he supposed might be the original work of Praxiteles. Strange to tell, nothing is nov^known of its fate ! A supposed cast from this,'*pf .frojp -a copy of it, conforming to the figure on thyg-triodel of Caracalla, is to be seen at the Royal Academy. Of the VENUS DE MEDICI, Flaxman says, it " was so much a favorite of the Greeks and Romans, that a hundred ancient repetitions of this statue have been noticed by travellers. The individual figure is said to have been found in the forum of Octavia. The style of sculpture seems to have been later than Alexander the Great. Let us now briefly examine this Model of Female .Beauty. The Venus de Medici represents woman at that age when every beauty has just been perfected " The Venus de Medici at Florence," says Winckel- mann, " is like a rose which, after a beautiful day- break, expands its leaves to the first ray of the sun, and represents that age when the limbs assume a more finished form and the breast begins to devel- op itself." THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY: 311 The size of the head is sufficiently small to leave that predominance to the vital organs in the chest, which, as already said, makes the nutritive system peculiarly that of woman. This is the first and most striking proof of the profound knowledge of the artist, the principles of whose art taught him that the vast head, on the contrary, was the char- acteristic of a very different female personage* In mentioning the head, it is scarcely possible to avoid noticing the rich curls of the hair. The eyes next fix our attention by their soft, sweet, and glad expression. This is produced with exquisite art. To give softness, the ridges of the eyebrows are rounded. To give sweetness, the under eyelid, which I would call the expressive one, is slightly raised. "The eyes of Venus," says Winckelmann, " are smaller, and the slight eleva- tion of the lower eyelid produces that languishing look called by the Greeks ; yp oK." To give the ex- pression of gladness or of pleasure, the opening of the eyelids is diminished, in order to diminish, or partially to exclude, the excess of those impres- sions, which make even pleasure painful. Other exquisite details about those eyes, confer on them unparalleled beauty. .Still, as observed by the same * The phrenologists have told us that the head of this Venus is too small. They might as well have said, that the head of the Minerva, or of the Jupiter, is too large, or a hundred other ignor- ant inapplicabilities, and ridiculous pedantries. But to set aside ideal forms, I may observe, that sex makes a vast difference in the head, and a woman with a small head often produces a son with a large one. 312 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. writer, this look is far from those traits indicative of lasciviousness, with which some modern artists have thought to characterize their Venuses. Love was considered by the ancient masters, as by the wise philosophers of those times, to use the expres- sion of Euripides, as the counsellor of wisdom : ri? ao$ia Trapefyns Spura;. One thing must be observed : there is not here, as in some less happy represent- ations of Venus, any downcast look, but that aspect of which Metastasio, in his Inno a Venere, says : ' " Tu colle lucide Pupille chiare, Fai lieta e fertile La terra e'l mare." And again : " Presto a tuoi placidi Astri ridenti, Le nubi fuggono, Fuggono i venti."* Art still profounder was perhaps shown in the configuration of the nose. The peculiar connexion of this sense with love was evidently well under- stood by the great artist ; and it is only gross ig- norance that has made some persons question the appropriateness of that development of the organ which is here represented. Not only is smell pecu- liarly associated with love, in all the higher ani- * This is beautiful, but is evidently borrowed from the great philosophical poet's " Te, Dea, te fugiunt ventei, te nubila coeli, Adventumque tuum." THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 313 mals, but it is associated with reproduction m plants, the majority of which evolve delicious odors only when the flowers or organs of fructification are displayed.* Connected, indeed, with the ca- pacity of the nose, and the cavities which open into it, is the projection of the whole middle part of the face. In the mouth, also, is transcendent art displayed. It is rendered sweet and delicate by the lips being undeveloped at their angles,! and by the upper lip continuing so, for a considerable portion of its length. It expresses love of pleasure by the central development of both lips, and active love by the especial development of the lower lip.J By the slight opening of the lips, it expresses desire. These exquisite details, and the omission of nothing intellectually expressive that nature pre- sents, have led some to imagine the Venus de Medici to be a portrait. In doing so, however, they see not the profound calculation required for near- ly every feature thus imbodied. More strangely still, they forget the ideal character of the whole : the notion of this ideal head being too small, is * That, in plants, these odors are even necessary to their repro- duction, is proved by their uniform existence at that period. And if being affected by odors implies a sense of smell, or some modi- fication of it, then must plants possess it. f In all grossly sensual nations and individuals, the lips are everted even at the angles. t See this explained in " Physiognomy." " Venere suol tenere alquanto aperte le labbra, come per indi- care un languido desiderio ed amore." Storia dellc Arti. 27 314 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. especially opposed to such an opinion. If more is wanting, it will surely be enough that the other works which we are supposed to possess of Prax- iteles, the Faun and the Cupid, present similar fine details.* Withal, the look is amorous and languishing, without heing lascivious, and is as powerfully marked by gay coquetry, as by charming inno- cence. The young neck is exquisitely formed. Its beau- tiful curves show a thousand capabilities of motion ; and its admirably-calculated swell over the organ of voice, results from, and marks, the struggling expression of still mysterious love. In short, I know no antique figure that displays such profound knowledge, both physiological and physiognomical, even in the most minute details ; and all who are capable of appreciating these * In the Cupid, the form of the head is godlike. The hair not only curls with all the vigor of early years, but, with perfect knowl- edge of nature's tendency, is bent into a ridge along the middle of the upper headi The brow, full, open, and charmingly rounded, is the evident throne of young observation, and it flows with such beauty into the parts behind, as if it actually said its purpose was to fling its observations back on thought and will. Its beginnings at the eyebrows display exquisite knowledge : the bony ridge is ad- mirably shown to be yet unformed ; and while its outer extremity forms but the orbital convexity, or shell for the globe of the eye, the inner extremity of the eyebrow is with infinite art drawn over soft and hollow space, as if the few hairs that composed it made there its only convexity. In short, in every part of the face, fine and faint as is every youthful feature, no detail is lost ; and this, added to the pointed chin and upper lip, declare the purpose of the little god. THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 315 things, may well smile at those who pretend to compare with this any other head of Venus now known to us. With regard to the rest of the figure, the admi- rable form of the mammae, which, without heing too large, occupy the bosom, rise from it with va- rious curves on every side, and all terminate in their apices, leaving the inferior part in each pre- cisely as pendent as gravity demands ; the flexile waist gently tapering little farther than the middle of the trunk ; the lower portion of it beginning gradually to swell out higher even than the umbili- cus ; the gradual expansion of the haunches, those expressive characteristics of the female, indicating at once her fitness for the office of generation and that of parturition expansions which increase till they reach their greatest extent at the superior part of the thighs ; the fulness behind their upper part, and on each side of the lower part of the spine, commencing as high as the waist, and terminating in the still greater swell of the distinctly-separated hips ; the flat expanse between these, and immedi- ately over the fissure of the hips, relieved by a con- siderable dimple on each side, and caused by the elevation of all the surrounding parts ; the fine swell of the broad abdomen which, soon reaching its greatest height, immediately under the umbili- cus, slopes gently to the mons veneris, but, narrow at its upper part, expands more widely as it de- scends, while, throughout, it is laterally distin- guished by a gentle depression from the more mus- cular parts on the sides of the pelvis j the beautiful 316 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. elevation of the mons veneris ; the contiguous ele- vation of the thighs which, almost at their com- mencement, rise as high as it does ; the admirable expansion of these bodies inward, or toward each other, by which they almost seem to intrude upon each other, and to exclude each from its respective place ; the general narrowness of the upper, and the unembraceable expansion of the lower part thus exquisitely formed; all these admirable charac- teristics of female form, the mere existence of which in woman must, one is tempted to imagine, be, even to herself, a source of ineffable pleasure these constitute a being worthy, as the personifica- tion of beauty, of occupying the temples of Greece ; present an object finer, alas ! than nature seems even capable of producing ; and offer to all nations and ages a theme of admiration and delight. Well might Thomson say : " So stands the statue that enchants the world, So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, The mingled beauties of exulting Greece." And Byron, in yet higher strain : " There, too, the goddess loves in stone, and fills The air around with beauty; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; And to the fond idolaters of old Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould : We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness ; there for ever there Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart," THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 317 PROPORTIONS OF THE VENUS DE MEDICI. Has seven heads, seven parts, and three minutes in height. From the top of the head to the root of the hair, three parts. From the root of the hair to the eyebrows, three parts. From the eyebrows to the bottom of the nose, three parts. From the bottom of the nose, to that of the chin, three parts. From the bottom of the chin to the depression between the clavicles, four parts, three minutes and a half. From the depression between the clavicles to the lowest part of the breast, ten parts, five minutes. From the lowest part of the breast to the middle of the navel, eight parts, three minutes. From the middle of the navel to the base of the belly and beginning of the thighs, eleven parts, four minutes and a half. From the bottom of the belly to the middle of the knee- pan, eighteen parts, two minutes. From the middle of the kneepan to the beginning of the flank, twenty-seven parts, three minutes. From the middle of the kneepan to the ground, twenty- five parts, three minutes. The greatest height of the foot, three parts, five minutes and a half. From the neck of the leg to the end of the toes, nine parts and half a minute. From the commencement of the humerus to the elbow, twenty parts, two minutes. From the elbow to the beginning of the hand, fourteen parts. The greatest breadth of the forearm, five parts. The greatest breadth of the arm, four parts, five minutes. From the depression between the clavicles to the begin- ning of the deltoid, six parts, four minutes. 27* 318 THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. From the depression between the clavicles to the point of the nipple, ten parts and half a minute. Between the points of the nipples, eleven parts, two min- utes. The breadth of the torso, at the level of the lowest part of the breast, fifteen parts, four minutes and a half. The least breadth of the torso, at the commencement of the flanks, fourteen parts, one minute. The greatest breadth of the torso, at the bottom of the flanks, seventeen parts, five minutes. The breadth from the trochanter of one thigh to that of the other, nineteen parts, three minutes. The greatest breadth of the thigh, nine parts, five min- utes. The greatest breadth of the knee, six parts. The greatest breadth of the calf of the leg, six parts, three minutes and a half. The breadth from one ankle to another, four parts. The least breadth of the foot, three parts, three minutes and a half. The greatest breadth of the foot, five parts and one min- ute. The arms of the Venus de Medici, it should be observed, are of modern construction, and unwor- thy of the figure. The VENUS OF NAPLES is of altogether a different species of beauty. That figure represents an ample and rather vo- luptuous matron, in an attitude of scarcely sur- passable grace. The character of the face is beau- tiful, in profile especially, and its expression is grave. The mouth has much of nature about it, resembling greatly in character that feature as seen THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 319 in Southern Europe ; but its expression, though tender, is somewhat serious or fretful. It presents, however, many faults. The head is monstrous. The neck is equally so, as well as coarse. The forehead, eyes, nose, and cheeks, present none of the finely-calculated details, which surprise and delight us in the Venus de Medici. The mammse are not true. After these, the androgynous being, called the VENUS OF ARLES, is scarcely worthy of being men- tioned. She derives some grandeur from antique character and symmetry, and some from her mas- culine features. The head is monstrous ; the neck horrid j the nose heavy ; the mouth contemptuous. Upon the whole, neither the graceful matron of Naples, nor the manlike woman of the Louvre, can be brought into competition with the Venus de Medici. 320 DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. CHAPTER XX. DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. Defects of the Locomotive System. 1. IF the whole figure be either too broad or too tall ; because, the first is inelegant, and the last unfeminine. Persons who are too tall are gener- ally ill at ease and destitute of grace, a greater misfortune to a woman than to a man. Too low a stature is a defect less disagreeable, especially for women. If, however, on the one side, it gives prettiness, on the other, it deprives of all imposing appearance. 2. If the bones, except those of the pelvis, be not proportionally small ; because, in woman, this portion of the locomotive system ought to be com- pletely subordinate to the vital. 3. If the ligaments, and the articulations they form, be not proportionally small ; because, in wo- man, this portion of the locomotive system ought also to be completely subordinate to the vital. Either of the last two defects will produce what is termed clumsiness. 4. If the muscles, generally more slender, feeble, soft and yielding than in man, be not large around the pelvis, and delicate elsewhere ; because, this DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. 321 is necessary, for reasons which will be afterward assigned, as well as to permit the ease and supple- ness of the movements. 5. If, in a mature female, the length of the neck, compared with the trunk, be not proportionally somewhat less than in the male ; because, in her, the subordination of the locomotive system, the predominance of the vital, and the dependance of the mental, are naturally connected with the shorter vertebrae and shorter course of the vessels of the neck. (The following defects, from 6 to 15 inclusive, have necessarily a reference also to the vital sys- tem ; because, the form and capacity of the cavities here spoken of, as formed by the osseous frame of the locomotive system, have an obvious relation to the vital organs, which these cavities are destined to contain.) 6. If the upper part of the body (exclusive of the bosom) be proportionally more, and the lower part of the body less prominent, than in man, so that, when she stands perfectly upright or lies on the back, the space between the breasts is more promi- nent than the mons veneris ; because, such confor- mation is injurious to impregnation, gestation, and parturition. 7. If the shoulders seem wider than the haunches; because, this appearance generally arises from the narrowness of the pelvis, and its consequent unfit- ness for gestation and parturition. 8. If, on the contrary, the shoulders be much 322 DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. narrower than the pelvis ; because, this indicates extreme weakness of the locomotive system. 9. If the shoulders do not slope from the lower part of the neck ; because, this shows that the upper part of the chest is not sufficiently wide of itself, but is rendered angular by the muscularity, &c., of the shoulders. 10. If the upper part of the chest be not rela- tively short and wide, and if it owe not its width rather to itself than to the size of the shoulders ; because, this shows that the vital organs contained in the chest are not sufficiently expanded. 11. If, in youth, the upper part of the trunk, in- cluding the muscles moving the shoulders, do not form an inverted cone, whose apex is the waist ; because, in that case, the lightness and beauty of the locomotive system are destroyed by the unre- strained expansion of the vital. 12. If the loins be not extended at the expense of the chest above and of the limbs below ; because, on this depends their capacity to receive organs enlarged or displaced during gestation. 13. If the back be not hollow ; because, this shows that the pelvis is not sufficiently deep to project posteriorly, nor consequently of sufficient capacity for gestation and parturition. 14. If the haunches be not widely expanded (as already implied in speaking of the shoulders) ; be- cause, the interior cavity of the pelvis is then in- sufficient for gestation and parturition. 15. If, in consequence of the form of the pelvis, and the arch of the pubis being larger, the mons DEFECTS OF BEAUTY 323 veneris be not more prominent than the chest ; because, the pelvic cavity is then also insufficient for gestation and parturition. 16. If the thighs of woman be not wider than those of man ; because, the width of the female pelvis, and the purposes which it serves, require this. 17. If the size of the thighs be not large, the haunches as it were increasing till they reach their greatest extent at the upper part of the thigh, which anteriorly rises as high as the mons veneris, and if the knees do not approximate. 18. If the arms and the limbs be not relatively short, if they do not taper greatly as they recede from the trunk, arid if the hands and feet be not small ; because, it is the vital system and the trunk, which is by far the most important part in the female. 19. If the larynx or flute part of the throat be not small ; because their magnitude indicates a masculine character. Defects of the Vital System. (Defects of the contained vital parts, which have been already implied in enumerating those of the containing locomotive parts, are not again men- tioned here, as the intelligent reader can easily supply these and similar omissions.) 1. If, in consequence of marriage taking place 324 DETECTS OF BEAUTY. before their full growth, women remain always of diminished stature, weak, and pale. 2. If the digestive organs being large rather than active, is inconsistent with the greater activity and less permanence of all the other functions, secre- tion, gestation, &c., excepted. 3. If the absorbing vessels, being inactive, are in- sufficient for large secretions. 4. If the circulating vessels, being inactive and imperfectly ramified, leave the skin cold, opaque, and destitute of complexion. 5. If the secreting vessels, being inactive, furnish neither the plumpness necessary to beauty, nor those ovarian, uterine, and mammary excretions on which progeny is dependant. 6. If the neck form not an insensible transition between the body and head, being sufficiently full to conceal the muscles of the neck and the flute part of the throat. 7. If, in a young woman, the mammae, without being too large, do not occupy the bosom, and rise from it with nearly equal curves on every side, which similarly terminate in their apices ; or if, in the mature woman, they do not, when supported, seem laterally to protrude somewhat on the space occupied by the arms ; because, these show that this important part of the vital system is insuffi- ciently developed. 8. If the waist, tapering little farther than the middle of the trunk, and being sufficiently marked, especially in the back and loins, by the approxi- mation of the expanded pelvis, be not also slightly DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. 325 encroached on by the plumpness of all the contig- uous parts, without however destroying its ele- gance, softness and flexibility ; because, this sim- ilarly shows feebleness in a portion of that system, which is by far the most important to woman. 9. If the waist be broader than the upper part of the trunk, including the muscles moving the shoul- ders ; because, this indicates that expansion of the stomach, liver, and other glands, which is gener- ally the result of their excessive use or excitement. It is attended with a common look and an inele- gant appearance. 10. If the abdomen be not moderately expanded, its upper portion beginning to swell out, higher even than the umbilicus, and its greatest projection being almost immediately under that point ; be- cause, this shows a weakness of the vital system, and a disproportion to the parts immediately above. 11. If the abdomen, which should be highest immediately under the umbilicus, slope not gently toward the mons veneris, and be more prominent elsewhere ; because this is the result of that ex- cessive expansion which takes place during partu- rition. 12. If the abdomen, which, as well as being ele- vated, should be narrow at its upper part, become as broad there as below, and lose that gentle lateral depression by which it is distinguished from the more muscular parts on the sides of the pelvis; because, this indicates the operation of the causes mentioned in the preceding paragraph. 13. If a remarkable fulness exist not behind the 28 326 DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. upper part of the haunches, and on each side of the lower part of the spine, commencing as high as the waist, and terminating in the still greater swell of the distinctly separated hips j the flat expanse between these and immediately over the fissure of the hips, being relieved by a considera- ble dimple on each side, caused lay the elevation of all the surrounding parts ; because, it indicates feebleness in that system which is most essential to woman. 14. If the cellular tissue and the plumpness which is connected with it, do not predominate, so as to obliterate all distinct projection of the mus- cles ; because, this likewise shows that an impor- tant portion of the vital system is feeble, and it deprives woman of the forms which are necessary to love. Nothing can completely compensate, in woman, for the absolute want of plumpness. The features of meager persons are hard ; they have a dry and arid physiognomy ; the mouth is without charm ; the color is without freshness ; their limbs seem ill united with their body ; and all their move- ments are abrupt and coarse. 15. If plumpness be too predominant ; because, it then destroys the distinctness of parts, and con- stitutes an excess productive of inconvenience. 16. If that excessive plumpness be broken, as it were, into masses ; because, it constitutes coarse- ness of the vital system. 17. If former plumpness have left the previously- filled cellular tissue and expanded integuments en- feebled ; because, that constitutes flaccidity. DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. 327 18. If the almost entire absorption of adipose substance have finally left the bones angular, the muscles and other parts permanently rigid, and the skin dry ; because, that indicates decay of the vital system, and characterizes age. 19. If the skin be not fine, soft, and white, deli- cate, thin, and transparent, fresh and animated, if the complexion be not pure and vivid, if the hair be not fine, soft, and luxuriant, and if the nails be not smooth, transparent, and rose-colored ; because, these likewise show the feebleness of that system which is most important to woman. Defects of the Mental System. 1. If the head, compared with the trunk, be not less than that of the male ; because, the mental system, in the female, ought to be subordinate to the vital, and the reverse is inconsistent with the healthful and happy exercise of her faculties as woman. 2. If the organs of sense be not proportionally larger, when compared with the brain, and more deli- cately outlined than in the male ; because, sensibility should exceed reasoning power, in the female. 3. If the brain (in other words) be not propor- tionally smaller, when compared with the organs of sense, than in the male ; because, reasoning power should be subordinate to sensibility in the female. 4. If the cerebel be not proportionally smaller, when compared with the organs of sense, than in the male ; because, voluntary power should also be subordinate to sensibility, in the female. 328 DEFECTS OF BEAUTY. 5. If the cerebel be not narrow and pointed pos- teriorly, that is, long rather than broad (its general form in woman) ; because, the volitions of woman should be intense, not permanent. 6. If the forehead be not large in proportion to the backhead, but on the contrary low, or very narrow ; because, the former being the seat of ob- servation, if the organ be small, the function must be correspondingly so, and in that case passion will probably predominate. 7. If the delicacy of the skin permit not to the touch of woman corresponding delicacy. 8. If the mouth be not small, or extend much beyond the nostrils, and if the lips be not delicately outlined and of vermillion hue. 9. If the nose be not nearly in the same direction with the forehead, or if more than a slight inflexion is to be seen. 10. If the eyes be not relatively large and per- fectly clear in every part. 11. If the eyelids, instead of an oblong, form nearly a circular aperture, resembling somewhat the eye of monkeys, cats, or birds ; because, this round eye, when large, and especially when dark, is always indicative of a bold, and, when small, of a pert insensibility of character. 12. If the eyelashes be not long and silky, and if the eyebrows be not furnished with fine hairs, and be not arched and distinctly separated. 13. If the ears be prominent, so as to alter the regularity of the oval of the head, or surcharge its outline with prominences. EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, AS TO BEAUTY. 329 CHAPTER XXL EXTERNAL INDICATIONS } OR ART OF DETERMINING THE PRECISE FIGURE, THE DEGREE OF BEAUTY, THE MIND, THE HABITS, AND THE AGE OF WOMAN, NOTWITH- STANDING THE AIDS AND DISGUISES OF DRESS. External Indications of Figure. EXTERNAL indications as to figure are required chiefly as to the limbs which are concealed by drapery. Such indications are afforded by the walk, to every careful observer. In considering the proportion of the limbs to the body if, even in a young woman, the walk, though otherwise good, be heavy, or the fall on each foot alternately be sudden, and rather upon the heel, the limbs, though well formed, will be found to be slender, compared with the body. This conformation accompanies any great pro- portional development of the vital system ; and it is frequently observable in the women of the Saxon population of England, as in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, &c. In women of this conformation, moreover, the slightest indisposition or debility is indicated by 28* 330 EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, a slight vibration of the shoulders, and upper part of the chest, at every step, in walking. In considering the line or direction of the limbs if, viewed behind, the feet, at every step, are thrown out backward, and somewhat laterally, the knees are certainly much inclined inward. If, viewed in front, the dress, at every step, is as it were, gathered toward the front, and then tossed more or less to the opposite side, the knees are certainly too much inclined. In considering the relative size of each portion of the limbs if, in the walk, there be a greater or less approach to the marching pace, the hip is large ; for we naturally employ the joint which is surrounded with the most powerful muscles, and, in any approach to the march, it is the hip-joint which is used, and the knee and ankle-joints which remain proportionally unemployed. If, in the walk, the tripping pace be used, as in an approach to walking on tiptoes, the calf is large ; for it is only by the power of its muscles that, under the weight of the whole body, the foot can be ex- tended for this purpose. If, in the walk, the foot be raised in a slovenly manner, and the heel be seen, at each step, to lift the bottom of the dress upward and backward, neither the hip nor the calf is well developed. Even with regard to the parts of the figure which are more exposed to observation by the closer adaptation of dress, much deception occurs. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the arts em- ployed for this purpose, at least by skilful women. AS TO BEAUTY. 331 A person having ar narrow face, wears a bonnet with wide front, exposing the lower part of the cheeks. One having a broad face, wears a closer front ; and, if the jaw be wide, it is in appearance diminished, by bringing the corners of the bonnet sloping to the point of the chin. A person having a long neck has the neck of the bonnet descending, the neck of the dress rising, and filling more or less of the intermediate space. One having a short neck has the whole bonnet short and close in the perpendicular direction, and the neck of the dress neither high nor wide. Persons with narrow shoulders have the shoul- ders or epaulets of the dress formed on the outer edge of the natural shoulder, very full, and both the bosom and back of the dress running in oblique folds, from the point of the shoulder to the middle of the bust. Persons with waists too large, render them less before by a stomacher, or something equivalent, and behind by a corresponding form of the dress, making the top of the dress smooth across the shoulders, and drawing it in plaits to a narrow point at the bottom of the waist. Those who have the bosom too small, enlarge it by the oblique folds of the dress being gathered above, and by other means. Those who have the lower posterior part of the body too flat, elevate it by the top of the skirt being gathered behind, and by other less skilful adjust- ments, which though hid, are easily detected. Those who have the lower part of the body too 332 EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, prominent anteriorly, render it less apparent by shortening the waist, by a corresponding projection behind, and by increasing the bosom above. Those who have the haunches too narrow, take care not to have the bottom of the dress too wide. Tall women have a wide skirt, or several flounces, or both of these : shorter women, a moderate one, but as long as can be conveniently worn, with the flounces, &c., as low as possible.* External Indications of Beauty. Additional indications as to beauty are required chiefly where the woman observed precedes the observer, and may, by her figure, naturally and reasonably excite his interest, while at the same time it would be rude to turn and look in her face on passing. There can, therefore, be no impropriety in ob- serving, that the conduct of those who may happen to meet the woman thus preceding, will differ ac- cording to the sex of the person who meets her. If the person meeting her be a man, and the lady observed be beautiful, he will not only look with an expression of pleasure at her countenance, but will afterward turn more or less completely to survey her from behind. If the person meeting her be a woman, the case becomes more complex. If both be either ugly or beautiful, or if the person meet- ing her be beautiful and the lady observed be ugly, then it is probable, that the approaching person * Appendix K. AS TO BEAUTY. 333 may pass by inattentively, casting merely an indif- ferent glance : if, on the contrary, the woman meeting her be ugly, and the lady observed be beautiful, then the former will examine the latter with the severest scrutiny, and if she sees features and shape without defect, she will instantly fix her eyes on the head-dress or gown, in order to find some object for censure of the beautiful woman, and for consolation in her own ugliness. Thus he who happens to follow a female may be aided in determining whether it is worth his while to glance at her face in passing, or to devise other means of seeing it. Even when the face is seen, as in meeting in the streets or elsewhere, infinite deception occurs as to the degree of beauty. This operates so powerfully, that a correct estimate of beauty is perhaps never formed at first. This depends on the forms and still more on the colors of dress in relation to the face. For this reason, it is necessary to understand the principles according to which colors are em- ployed at least by skilful women.* When it is the fault of a face to contain too much yellow, then yellow around the face is used to remove it by contrast, and to cause the red and blue to predominate. When it is the fault of a face to contain too much red, then red around the face is used to re- * I speak not of paint here. It is now used only by meretricious persons and by those harridans of higher rank who resemble them in every respect, except that the former are ashamed of their pro- fession, and the latter advertise it. 334 EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, move it by contrast, and to cause the yellow and blue to predominate. When it is the fault of a face to contain too much blue, then blue around the face is used to remove it by contrast, and to cause the yellow and red to predominate. When it is the fault of a face to contain too much yellow and red, then orange is used. When it is the fault of a face to contain too much red and blue, then purple is used. When it is the fault of a face to contain too much blue and yellow, then green is used. It is necessary to observe that the linings of bonnets reflect their color on the face, and trans- parent bonnets transmit that color, and equally tinge it. In both these cases, the color employed is no longer that which is placed around the face, and which acts on it by contrast, but the opposite. As green around the face heightens a faint red in the cheeks by contrast, so the pink lining of the bonnet aids it by reflection. Hence linings which reflect, are generally of the teint which is wanted in the face ; and care is then taken that these linings do not come into the direct view of the observer, and operate prejudicially on the face by contrast, overpowering the little color which by reflection they should heighten. The fronts of bonnets so lined, therefore, do not widen greatly forward, and bring their color into con- trast. When bonnets do widen, the proper contrast is used as a lining; but then it has not a surface AS TO BEAUTY. 335 much adapted for reflection, otherwise it may per- form that office, and injure the complexion. Understanding, then, the application of these colors in a general way, it may be noticed, that fair faces are hy contrast best acted on by light colors, and dark faces by darker colors. Dark faces are best affected by darker colors, evidently because they tend to render the complex- ion fairer ; and fair faces do not require dark col- ors, because the opposition would be too strong. Objects which constitute a background to the face, or which, on the contrary, reflect their hues upon it, always either improve or injure the com- plexion. For this and some other reasons, many persons look better at home in their apartments than in the streets. Apartments may, indeed, be peculiarly calculated to improve individual com- plexions. External Indications of Mind. External indications as to mind may be derived from figure, from gait, and from dress. As to figure, a certain symmetry or disproportion of parts (either of which depends immediately upon the locomotive system) or a certain softness or hardness of form (which belongs exclusively to the vital system) or a certain delicacy or coarse- ness of outline (which belongs exclusively to the mental system) these reciprocally denote a loco- motive symmetry or disproportion or a vital softness or hardness or a mental delicacy or 336 EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, coarseness, which will be found also indicated by the features of the face. These qualities are marked in pairs, as each belonging to its respective system ; for, without this, there can be no accurate or useful observa- tion. As to gait, that progression which advances, un- modified by any lateral movement of the body, or any perpendicular rising of the head, and which belongs exclusively to the locomotive system or that soft lateral rolling of the body, which belongs exclusively to the vital system or that perpen- dicular rising or falling of the head at every im- pulse to step, which belongs exclusively to the mental system these reciprocally indicate a cor- responding locomotive, or vital, or mental charac- ter, which will be found also indicated by the fea- tures of the face. To put to the test the utility of these elements of observation and indication, let us take a few instances. If, in any individual, locomotive sym- metry of figure is combined with direct and linear gait, a character of mind and countenance not ab- solutely repulsive, but cold and insipid, is indica- ted. If vital softness of figure is combined, with a gentle lateral rolling of the body in its gait, vo- luptuous character and expression of countenance are indicated. If delicacy of outline in the figure, be combined with perpendicular rising of the head, levity, perhaps vanity, is indicated. But there are innumerable combinations and modifications of the elements which we have just described. Expres- AS TO MIMD. 337 sions of pride, determination, obstinacy, &c., are all observable. The gait,- however, is often formed, in a great measure, by local or other circumstances, by which it is necessarythat the observer should avoid being misled. Dress, as affording indications, though less to be relied on than the preceding, is not without its value. The woman who possesses a cultivated taste, and a corresponding expression of counte- nance, will generally be tastefully dressed ; and the vulgar woman, with features correspondingly rude, will easily be seen through the inappropriate mask in which her milliner or dressmaker may have invested her. External Indications of Habits. External indications as to the personal habits of women are both numerous and interesting. The habit of child-bearing is indicated by a flat- ter breast, a broader back, and thicker cartilages of the bones of the pubis, necessary widening the pelvis. The same habit is also indicated by a high rise of the nape of the neck, so that the neck from that point bends considerably forward, and by an ele- vation which is diffused between the neck and shoulders. These all arise from temporary disten- sions of the trunk in women whose secretions are powerful, from the habit of throwing the shoulders backward during pregnancy, and the head again 29 338 EXTERNAL INDICATIONS, forward, to balance the abdominal weight ; and they bestow a character of vitality peculiarly ex- pressive. The same habit is likewise indicated by an ex- cess of that lateral rolling of the body in walking, which was already described as connected with voluptuous character. This is a very certain indi- cation, as it arises from temporary distensions of the pelvis, which nothing else can occasion. As in consequence of this lateral rolling of the body, and of the weight of the body being much thrown forward in gestation, the toes are turned somewhat inward, they aid in the indication. The habit of nursing children is indicated, both in mothers and nursery-maids, by the right shoul- der being larger and more elevated than the left. The habits of the seamstress are indicated by the neck suddenly bending forward, and the arms being, even in walking, considerably bent forward or folded more or less upward from the elbows. Habits of labor are indicated by a considerable thickness of the shoulders below, where they form an angle with the inner part of the arm ; and, where these habits are of the lowest menial kind, the elbows are turned outward and the palms of the hands backward. The habits of many of the inferior female pro- fessions might easily be indicated ; but they would be unsuitable to a work like this. AS TO MIND 339 External Indications of Age. External indications of age are required chiefly where the face is veiled, or where the woman ob- served precedes the observer and may reasonably excite his interest. In either of these cases, if the foot and ankle have lost a certain moderate plumpness, and as- sumed a certain sinewy or bony appearance, the woman has generally passed the period of youth. If in walking, instead of the ball or outer edge of the foot first striking the ground, it is the heel which does so, then has the woman in general passed the meridian of life. Unlike the last indi- cation, this is apparent, however the foot and ankle may be clothed. The reason of this indication is the decrease of power which unfits the muscles to receive the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint. Exceptions to this last indication are to be found chiefly in women in whom the developments of the body are proportionally much greater, either from a temporary or a permanent cause, than those of the limbs, the muscles of which are consequently incapable of receiving the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. A. MR. WALKER'S extravagant admiration of the Grecian mythology has led him to over-estimate its influence upon poetry and the arts. That these were influenced, in a veMMimportant degree,' by the religion of Greece, no one acquainted with the history of that na- tion, can doubt ; but, that the arts cannot exist where the Grecian mythology is not the popular religion, is an opinion unsupported, by the history of the past, and altogether opposed to their present flourishing state in civilized countries. In no age or nation has the art of painting, for example, attained higher perfection, than in Italy during the 13th and 14th centuries ; a period which has been called " the golden age of Italian art," and its high excellence has been justly attributed to the introduction of Christianity. " The walls and cupolas," says a late writer, " of new and splendid churches were immediately covered, as if by enchantment, with the miracles of paintings and sculpture the eager multitude were not compelled to wait till genius had labored for years on what it had been years in conceiving. Those eager spirits seemed to breathe out their creations in full and mature beauty performing at once, by the buoyant energies of well-disciplined genius, more than all the cold precision of mechanical knowledge can ever accomplish." Allan Cunningham, in his life of Flaxman, the artist, speaking of these paintings, remarks : " Into these Flaxman looked with the eye of a sculptor and of a Christian. He saw, he said, that the . mistress to whom the great artists of Italy had dedicated their genius was the Church ; that they were unto her as chief priests, to interpret her tenets and her legends to the world in a more brilliant language than that of relics and images. To her illiterate people, the Church addressed herself through the eye, and led 344 APPENDIX. their senses captive by the external magnificence with which she overwhelmed them." But it is unnecessary to multiply quotations to prove this point. Flaxman never uttered a truer saying, than when he remarked, that " the Christian religion presents personages and subjects no less favorable to painting and sculpture than the ancient classics.' 1 Accordingly, we find among his own immortal productions, that the monument erected in memory of Miss Lushington, in Kent, representing a mother mourning for her daughter, comforted by a ministering angel, was inspired by that text of holy writ, " Blessed are they that mourn ;" and the monument in memory of the family of Sir Francis Baring imbodies these words, " Thy will be done thy kingdom come deliver us from evil." To the first motto belongs a devotional figure as large as life " Her looks communing with the skies ;" a perfect image of piety slWresignation. On one side, imbodying " Thy kingdom come," a mother and daughter ascend to the skies welcomed rather than supported by angels ; and on the other, ex- pressing the sentiment " Deliver us from evil," a male figure, in subdued agony, appears in the air, while spirits of good and evil contend for the mastery. This has been considered one of the finest pieces of motionless poetry in England. We hold, then, that Mr. Walker's remark that "neither poetry nor the arts can have being, without the religion of Greece," is far from being sustained, either by history or observation. B. The remarks of Mr. Walker, in relation to the duty of parents and teachers, seem to us well-founded and judicious. If moral, as well as intellectual and physical education, be part of the parental duty, then it would seem to follow, that it should embrace those subjects which are of the most importance, both to the physical and moral well-being of the child ; and surely, the relation of the sexes, and the due subjection of the animal propensities, are not the least important of these. There is a delicacy generally felt and observed on this point, which springs from a principle that we honor and respect, while, at the same time, we doubt whether it leads to favorable and auspicious results. No one, who looks back APPENDIX. 345 Upon the years of his own childhood, can for a moment doubt that judicious advice and seasonable information on certain subjects, which were probably considered of a too delicate nature to be even hinted at, would have been highly useful. The young will inevitably become initiated into certain vices and evil practices, unless put on their guard, by the warning voice of those they love and respect- There are a variety of passions, affections, and appetites, which be- long to our nature, and were intended when properly directed and indulged, to promote our interest and happiness. Those under consideration, early begin to manifest themselves, and, when left without the restraints of enlightened intellect and the moral sense, invariably lead to disastrous consequences. The question then is, shall the young and inexperienced be left to the mere accidents of its condition, without an effort to give it sound principles to govern it, or without bringing some conservative influence to bear upon it ? We think, with Mr. Walker, that it should not. Both philoso. phy and reason prove the danger of such a course. The circum- stances which are connected with sexual vices cannot be wholly kept out of view. They meet the eye, or are suggested to the imagination, at almost every turn. A thousand scenes and incidents occur to excite the passions, if the mind is not fortified against their influence. Those who are fastidious, and believe that delica- cy forbids all allusion to such subjects, will say, " Keep the youth in ignorance conceal, if possible, everything from his view, that may excite the passions." Still, there remain the constitutional susceptibilities ; passion and appetite cannot be eradicate.d, and . they will often be excited by incidents, which the most wakeful vigilance will not detect or suspect. The fact is, that long before parents are aware of it, the child has obtained knowledge on these subjects through many corrupt channels ; and the associations first formed, are destined .to exert, ever afterward, a powerful influence for evil. The early associations might, by judicious instruction on the" part of parents, 'be of such character, as to throw around the youth a barrier almost impregnable. As to the time and manner of imparting this instruction, it must be left to the wisdom and prudence of teachers and parents and, perhaps, as a general rule, it should be left wholly to the latter. 346 APPENDIX. c. Much has been written on the nature of beauty, from the divine Plato, who dedicated one of his dialogues to this subject, to Lord Jeffries, the editor of the Edinburgh Review ; who, in his celebra- ted article in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, has excelled all previous efforts in its elucidation, and produced an essay, which will stand an imperishable monument of his taste, learning, and genius. It is not our design to enter upon a consid- eration of beauty in the abstract, or to attempt its analysis, as this has been done by our author in a very able, if not satisfactory manner. We take it, however, to denote that quality, or assem- blage and union of qualities in the objects of our perception, wheth- er material, intellectual, or moral, which we contemplate with emotions of pleasure ; and we refer it to that internal sense, which is usually called taste. When it is asked, why a thing is beautiful, it is not always easy to find a satisfactory answer. We find beauty in color, in sound, in form, in motion, in everything. We have beauties of speech, beauties of thought, beauties in art, in nature, in the sciences, in actions, in affections, and in characters. Dr. Reid well asks, " In things so different, and so unlike, is there any quality, the same in all, which we may call by the name of beauty?" We shall not attempt to fathom this difficulty ; indeed, it could not be done, without entering upon a metaphysical discus- sion, dry in detail, and uninteresting in result. When we come to inquire in what female beauty consists, we shall find that there is something which enters into it, beside phy- sical goodness. It is not a mere matter of flesh and blood ; but color, form, expression, and grace, are all essential to its perfec- tion. The two first have been called the body, the two latter, the soul of beauty and without the soul, the body is but a mass of deformed and inanimate matter : " Mind, mind, alone ! bear witness earth and heaven, The living fountains in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime. Here, hand-in-hand, Sit paramount the Graces. Here, enthroned, Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, Invites the soul to never-failing joy." AKENSIDE Color and form are only beautiful, because they are expressive of health, delicacy, and softness, in the female sex. It has been re- APPENDIX 347 marked, that expression has greater power than either beauty or form, as it is only the expression of the tender and kind passions that gives beauty ; that all the cruel and unkind ones add to de- formity, and that, on their account, good-nature may very properly be said to be the best feature, even in the finest face. Modesty, sensibility, and sweetness, blended together, so as either to enliven or correct each other, give almost as much attraction as the pas- sions are capable of adding to a very pretty face. It is owing to this force of pleasingness, which attends all the kinder passions, that lovers not only seem, but really are, more beautiful to each other than to the rest of the world ; and in their mutual presence and intercourse, says a French writer, there is a soul upon their countenances, which does not appear when they are absent from each other or even in company that lays a restraint upon their fea- tures. Indeed, it will appear that all the ingredients of beauty ter- minate in expression, and this may be, either perfection of the body, or the qualities of the mind. Dr. Reid indeed goes so far as to say, that beauty originally dwells in the moral and intellectual perfections of mind, and in its active powers. Thus beauty may be ascribed to all those qualities which are the natural objects of love and kind affections, as the moral virtues, innocence, gentle- ness, condescension, humanity, natural affections, and the whole train of soft and gentle virtues qualities amiable in their nature, and on account of their moral worth. So also do intellectual tal- ents excite our love and esteem of those who possess them ; these are knowledge, good sense, wit, humor, cheerfulness, good taste, excellence in any of the fine arts as music, painting, sculpture, embroidery, &c. Thus, for example, the beauty of good breeding is not originally in the external behavior in which it consists, but is derived from the qualities of mind which it expresses ; for it has been well observed, that though there may be good breeding with- out the amiable qualities of mind, its beauty is still derived from what it naturally expresses. Flaxman has truly said, that neither mind nor any one of its qualities or powers, is an immediate object of perception to men. These are perceived through the medium of material objects, on which their signatures are impressed. The signs of these qualities are immediately perceived by the senses, and by them reflected to the understanding ; and we are apt to attribute to the sign, the beauty which is properly and originally in the thing signified. Thus, the invisible Creator hath stamped on his works signatures of his divine wisdom, power, and benignity, which are visible to all 34-8 APPENDIX. men. The works of mea in science, in the arts of taste, and in the mechanical arts, bear the signatures of those qualities of mind which were employed in their production. Their ex- t rnal behavior or conduct in life, expresses the good or bad qualities of their minds. In every species of animals we perceive, by visible signs, their instincts, appetites, affections, or sagacity ; and even in the inanimate world, there are many things analogous to the qualities of mind ; so that there is hardly anything belong- ing to mind which may not be represented by images taken from objects of sense ; and, on the other hand, every object of sense is beautiful, by borrowing attire from attributes of the mind. Thus, the beauties of mind, though invisible in themselves, are perceived in the objects of sense, in which their beauty is impressed. Thus, also, in those qualities of sensible objects to which we ascribe beauty, we discover in them some relation to mind, and the greatest in those that are most beautiful. Every beauty in the vegetable creation, of which we can form any rational judgment, expresses some perfection in the object, or some wise -contrivance in the author. In the animal kingdom we perceive superior beauties, re- sulting from life, sense, activity, various instincts and affections, and, in many cases, great sagacity ; which are attributes of mind, and possess an original beauty. In their manner of life, we ob- serve that they possess powers, outward form, and inward struc- ture, exactly adapted to it ; and the more perfectly any individual is fitted for its end and manner of life, the greater is its beauty. This, also, was manifestly Milton's theory of beauty ; for, in his unrivalled description of our first parents in Paradise, he derives Zheir beauty from those expressions of moral and intellectual qualities which shone forth in their outward form and demeanor : " Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, God-like erert ! with native honor clad, In naked majesty, seemed lords of all, And worthy seemed, for, in their looks divine, The image of their glorious Maker, shone Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure ; Severe, but iu true filial freedom placed, Whence true authority in mun ; though both Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed, For contemplation he, and valor formed, For softness she, and sweet attractive grace." From these remarks, it will appear that we do not regard novelty alone as being " the exciting cause of pleasurable emotions, and of APPENDIX. 34-9 tile consequent perception of beauty in the relation of things." The beautiful, both in statuary and painting, we believe to depend chiefly on the perfection with which the artist succeeds in expres- sing the qualities of the mind, whether good or evil ; and it is worthy of notice, that Plato, in his Dialogues, declares that the good and the beautiful are one and the same. Hence, the Greeks called the beautiful KAAOS. The influence of novelty has been so well illustrated in an Essay by the author of a Treatise on Happiness, that we trust no apology will be required for transferring a portion of it to our pages: "The term novelty applies to everything new either newly invented, or newly exhibited to us ; in the former case the thing is novel to the world, in the latter it is novel to ourselves. Novelty powerfully influences the senses, the passions, and the manners of human beings ; it furnishes amusement, employment, and main- tenance for man ; it accompanies him in his progress through this variable being, from the commencement of life to the period of dissolution. " Novelty may be either pleasing or unpleasing. When it affects the senses by grateful influences, it occasions admiration and de- light. How powerfully must the vision of Adam have been affect- ed, when he was introduced to being ! Everything which he beheld was new. There was drawn out before him, the plain, the fruitful valley, the verdant hill. Shrubs and trees were distributed around him. The earth was strewed with flowers: rivulets and rivers diversified the scene ' Rolling on orient pearl, and sands of gold.' The ocean, perhaps, was stretched out as a plain of silver in the distant view ; the heavens were robed in splendor ; the sun shone brilliantly. His own person himself, was an inextricable mys- tery. He could move ; he could think ; he could behold the dis- play of creation ; he could close his eyes, and exclude every im- pression. All was new ; and everything, he might naturally hare fancied, would remain the same ; but, he was destined to behold a series of novelties. In a short time, he saw the sun sinking below the horizon. The heavens were adorned in their most splendid robes, like the gorgeous display of an Eastern monarch. A shade was cast over the valleys, and darkness began to gather among the trees, while their tops and branches were still illumined in the sunbeams. The shadows of evening are now gathered around him j the twinkling stars adorn the heavens ; but the beauties' of 30 350 APPENDIX. hill, vale, waters, trees, and flowers, are departed ! How sensibly must lie have been affected ! He would now conclude that his future time must be spent in darkness ; but he looks toward the East, and across the wide expanse of waters he beholds a gleam of light, which leads the eye to some great luminary, rising above the horizon, to cheer the nightly solitude ; and, as it mounts to the zenith, new beauties delight the vision of this lonely and astonished inhabitant of the earth. After a short period the moon sinks, the sun rises in the heavens, and the same delightful scenery is exhibited which was beheld the previous day. " We can imagine the effect of novelty in producing admiration ; when travellers, who having been toiling for many days or weeks, on the burning sands of interminable deserts, come suddenly upon some lovely valley, watered by cooling streams, shaded by groves of trees, and beautified with clusters of flowers. Or, we can fancy the pleasure which would be produced on wayworn voyagers, who had been long toiling on the great deep and they come to some blest isle, 1 Where the voluptuous breeze The peaceful native breathes, at eventide, From nutmeg-groves, and bowers of cinnamon.' To the infant everything is novel, and almost everything is a source of admiration. The people who move to and fro ; the walls and furniture of the room ; the fire and the candles ; the bustle and movement of men and carriages ; the heavens, sunshine, and rain. These occasion interest and surprise. Dr. Brown has inquired, ' What metaphysician is there, however subtile and pro- found in his analytical inquiries, and however successful in the analyses which he has made, who would not give all his past dis- covery, and all his hopes of future discovery, for the certainty of knowing, with exactness, what every infant feels?" But he would, probably, meet with few who would sacrifice so much for the purpose ; and yet the feelings of an infant must be exceedingly interesting. " We can easily suppose the effect which would be produced on a company of savages, if, in the midst of their woods, one of our best military bands were to strike up a powerful strain of martial music. At first they would sit motionless, or stand as statues ; then look toward the place whence the sounds proceeded, where they would behold a company of persons, in many-colored APPENDIX. 351 dresses, and splendid ornaments, with curious musical instruments, dropped, as they would fancy, from the clouds. " But the effect of novelty may be painful ; and this feeling will be powerful in the same proportion as the circumstances are im- portant and new. Suppose, for instance, a person who had been trained in the ways of propriety and virtue were introduced, for the first time, to a village-wake, or some such brutal holyday, where he would behold bull-baiting and cock-fighting, boxing and drunkenness ; where he would listen to quarrelling and pro- fane swearing ; how would his feelings be shocked ! He would scarcely have fancied that a spot so small, on the surface of the globe, could have exhibited so great a variety of wickedness. " Or, we may imagine some one endowed with a delicate ear for music, who had been accustomed to the practice of delightful harmony, obliged, for the first time, to listen to the harsh scraping of some barbarous laborer on the violin, or the useless attempts ot some tasteless practitioners to perform a piece of music ! How irksome and insufferable must such an ordeal be to a man of re- finement ; and how would its painfulness be increased by its novelty ! " By the same rule, a person who may have been accustomed to luxury and dainty food, but is obliged, for the first time, to feed on loathsome bread and nauseous water, feels doubly the misery of his condition. And thus the man who has been used to salubri- ous air and grateful scents, will be the more effected by disgusting smells. " Novelty operates also in powerfully exciting the passions. Suppose a general to be usually unfortunate in his combats with the enemy, and his army to be consequently dispirited ; but, upon some particular occasion, the favors of fortune and of Providence are bestowed upon them, their efforts are successful, and the main body of the enemy begin to waver, how would this inspirit them, and brighten their courage! They would lush forward, uncon- scious and careless of danger, and the foe must fly before such unconquerable ardor ! " If a man who had lived in poverty, in dependance on others for a subsistence, had constantly wished for independence and comparative influence, and had endeavored to swim against the stream of adversity but had never succeeded, and, all at once, a handsome fortune were left to him, how would his eyes sparkle with exultation ! If a person had been separated from his friends, and doomed to spend his days in the solitude of a foreign land, 352 APPENDIX. and he met, unexpectedly, with some of his nearest and kindest friends, how would his countenance beam with delight ! x The novelty of the circumstance would increase the amount of his joy! " A traveller in a foreign country would be exceedingly pleased to discover some trinket which had been made in his native city ; and especially if he saw on it the name of an intimate friend as the manufacturer. A toy, a dog, or a cat, under some circumstances, has occasioned tears. A beautiful female has appeared more lovely, when interesting events have introduced her to our notice ; and one who is not usually attractive, has appeared so, when novelty has thrown its fascinations around her. " The feeling of hope may be excited most powerfully by novel and unexpected circumstances. When the mariner has been long toiling in storms and dangers ; when the heavens have been cover- ed with darkness, and no information or guidance could be gained from the stars or the sun, the tempest suddenly ceases, the cheer- ing sunbeams break upon him, and he finds himself, unexpectedly, near the haven where he would be how does his heart exult with hope, and the consciousness of security ! " The passions may be excited, also, in an unpleasing manner ; the feeling of fear may be powerfully produced by novelty. Sup- pose, for instance, a youth, who was trained in the ways of tran- quillity and enjoyment, with a feeling heart for the sufferings of others, to be brought, all at once, on the field of war and blood- shed. Suppose him passing along some narrow defile, where the distant scenes could scarcely affect him, and where he would perceive only a din of discordant sounds. But, on a sudden, he reaches the termination of the passage, and all the pomp, and circumstance, and horror of war, are exhibited before him. Here he beholds rank opposed to rank, in deadly conflict ; troops of horsemen butchering each other ; forests of deadly weapons gleaming in the sunbeams. Now he listens to the shouts of vic- tors, the cries of the vanquished, the groans of the wounded and dying ; to the swelling notes of some musical band ; the discord- ant sounds of the drum ; the clashing of arms, and the shrill clamor of trumpets ; to the rattling of musketry and the roaring of artillery ! How would his heart sink within him at these novel scenes ! " Novelty will also occasion sorrow ; as, when a man has been accustomed to independence, and the comforts which wealth, judiciously managed, may produce, and his riches are suddenly swept away, he is reduced from affluence to dependance, from APPENDIX. 353 comforts to privations. And when a person has been used to the society of pleasant friends, and these are removed by the hand of death, and the clay-cold body alone remains as the representative of a cheerful and amiable companion, the novelty of this event will occasion heartfelt sorrow. " When those who have been accustomed to associate as faithful friends ; or, when a monarch has been surrounded by persons who have pretended feelings of attachment, and evinced much hypo- critical fidelity, and, all at once, the veil of deception has been drawn aside, and an aspect has presented itself of a new and treacherous kind, how powerful have been the feelings of abhor- rence and anger ! " And when a person, who has been nurtured in the lap of ease and comfort, and blessed with that best of all blessings (if it be rightly managed), the gift of liberty, is torn from his home, and his family, and his engagements, and carried into a land of slavery, where he is laden with oppressive chains, and insulted by a cruel task-master, with no chance of freedom, nor any ray of happiness, how will his spirits sink, and how will the haggard lineaments of despair be drawn on that countenance which was formed for cheerfulness ! Or, suppose a person who was accus- tomed to a dwelling in some verdant valley, undisturbed by storms or the hazards of the sea ; and he was introduced, for the first time, to some of the most aggravated dangers of that boisterous element. Suppose the winds were driving furiously over the ocean, and the huge billows were breaking on the helpless bark, while the darkness of the night was varied only by the gleam of the lightning, which exhibited breakers, and rocks, and over- hanging precipices, how would this new and dangerous condition, agitate his mind, and drive him to despair ! " Novelty influences the customs or habits of mankind. On some occasions novel engagements are pleasing ; and thus we practise them again, and acquire a habit of performing them. For instance, the citizen who has walked into the country as a novelty, has been pleased with his ramble, and induced to practise it daily. It sometimes occasions a progress in the arts ; and thus the first attempts at music, at painting, and at sculpture, have produced a pleasure which has stimulated the person to future and continued labors. " Sometimes, when the first impression has been rather un- pleasing, a custom has been acquired, because, afterward, it had been found pleasing or advantageous. Thus there are many kinds 30* of food, which were originally uagrateid, bfft are now- delicious. Port wine is nauseous for a ehild, bat it is pleasing to tike taste of a person who has been accustomed to it. SowkBg, Ike takag el swiff, and masticating of tobacco, with, many other useless and dirty customs, are not prodBced by the pleasing m- fraence of novelty ; bat they are ratlier opposed to it. They arise principally from the inclination of following injurious examples. la seme cases ladies hare set their faces against such customs, and have prohibited the practice among those who would gain their esteem: in other cases they have been more lenient, because they have found that a flame of lore may burn amid volaaMs of moke from, cigars or tobacco-pipes. Novelty fr--i nn inioMid a sensation of unpleasantness, with regard to particular modes of dress ; but afterward these fastoow have become necessary to our , the rery things which we commonly hate to oar happiness. When Louis XVL ascended the throne of France, the doors of some of the dark cells m the Bastile were opened, and the hapless residents were allow. ed once more to breathe the pure air of heaven. Among the rest, there was one mam who had been immured for nearly fifty years fa a wretched cell, the area of which was so snail as scarcely to allow him room to more about ; bat, having a rigorous body and a firm and, be snpported himself, nntil he had almost forgotten the world in which he lived, having had no intercourse with any one but the jailer, who brought him his daily food. When he received the srrmmons to depart, which seemed like a message in a dream, he was astonished ; but when he walked through the spacious pamgn* and the open conns, and saw the heavens ex- tended above him, and the son shining in his splendor, he was overcome by his feelings. He could badly walk, and badly speak , and he seemed as if he had entered a new world. He went into the city, and found the street in which he had formerly lived, bat his friends were dead ; there was no living being in the world that knew him, and the poor man wept with sorrow. He was a stran- ger in a strange country. He went to the minister who had given him his freedom, and said : ' Sir, I can bear to die, but to live in a world unknown and forlorn, the last human being of my race, is insupportable ; do, therefore, send me to my cell, that I may finish my days there ." No blessing of Providence will be felt as a benefit, unless it be powssod by a person for whom it is adapted. " Impressions of a novel and pleasing kind soon lose their APPENDIX. 355 attraction j and thus the honors which are acquired by civil and literary e ininence, quickly fade away. They are like a beautiful cloud in the heavens, or a dew-drop on a leaf, which glitters and exhibits its beauties for a while, but the fervent sun absorbs both . or, they are like a gaudy flower, which a man fixes in his bosom very lovely at first, but its attractions soon vanish. On the other hand, painful occurrences leave but a faint impression. Although, at first, a man may be bowed down with trouble, yet he will soon regain an erect position and a smiling countenance. A few weeks or months hide most of our sorrows from us ; and this is an emi- nent proof of the wisdom and beneficence of the Deity : for the general amount of human happiness is by this means more equally divided. A state of elation is temporary, and so is a state of de- pression ; and thus, whether a man rises or sinks in worldly pos- sessions and honors, although there will be some difference in the amount of enjoyment, yet there will be much less than we are generally disposed to imagine. "A taste for novelty affects the engagements of society: it is the source of fashion ; it gives labor to the mechanic, to the artist, and to almost every man who obtains his maintenance by industry. And thus there are new buildings, new vehicles, new machines, and new methods of doing most things. There are dresses of various kinds the result of ingenuity and taste. One thing is new and attractive, but it soon becomes stale, and then we look for something novel. Some kinds of food are scarce and costly: these are approved by the great, but they become plentiful and cheap, and then the rich man looks for something rare, some new discovery in the art of cookery. The round of pleasures and amusements is continually varying. Formerly the men, and even the ladies, were delighted by exhibitions of combats among savage beasts lions, elephants, and tigers; they feasted their eyes on the bloody combats of human beings with each other, or with bulls and other furious animals. They attended dog-fights, cock-fights, and other barbarous diversions. But the taste has become im- proved ; novelty has taken a praiseworthy direction : boxing, wrestling, and other disgraceful exhibitions, are now transferred to the vulgar and disreputable ; many innocent amusements have been introduced, and these also have been regulated by the universal love of novelty. The same variety has existed in lan- guage. A certain style of speech, and certain phrases, are fash ionable in the best society ; these are gradually introduced among the lower ranks, and then the better classes look for something 356 APPENDIX. novel. Many words and phrases originally introduced for the purpose ol' expressing things delicately, become vulgar : terms which were primarily intended as a reproach become a designation of honor, and those once deemed honorable become reproachful. " The love of novelty occasions the great variety of tunes which we possess, and the diversity of musical skill. A newly-construct- ed instrument, a new or superior mode of performing on it, and the last new tune, are objects of universal attraction. The same disposition arises with respect to books. Novelty has occasioned all the variety which the history of literature exhibits, from the bulky folio to the penny pamphlet, and the annual publication to the daily newspaper : it has occasioned, also, in a great degree, the multitude of opinions which have deluged the world. Some- thing new, as the loungers of Athens demanded, has been the requirement of the public in all ages. If it be new, it will be attractive, and if pleasing or convenient, it will be embraced, and then its strength and consistency will soon be deemed demon- strated : but when the writers on the subject, and the readers of those writings, become cool ; when reason takes the place of imagination, then the system will be often discovered to be de- fective, the vapory faoric will fade away, and some other will obtain its place. We are too frequently going round in our prog- ress, rather than forward. In many respects we are not much farther advanced than the ancients, and yet we ought to be, and should be if we had pursued a direct course. " But one of the most pleasing sources of novelty is that which the Almighty has given us in the seasons of the year ; and this distinctly shows us that the love of novelty is not only natural, but it is allowable and praiseworthy, if it be regulated by reason ; for the Great Creator himself indulges us in this respect. And thus we have all the variety of summer and winter, of sultry and frosty days, of clear and cloudy skies ; of the budding and blooming of spring, and the richness and luxuriance of autumn ; the breaking forth of the sun in the morning, and the setting of that glorious luminary ; the light of the stars ; the silvery splendor of the moon ; the glare of lightnings and meteors, the rolling of thunder, with vapors, rain, hail, and snow. " The love of novelty is injurious only when it is carried beyond what the Almighty intended ; when it does not animate a person to perform his necessary engagements, but carries him away from them ; when it makes him restless and wavering. Novelty ac- companies man in infancy and in youth ; it cheers and exalts him APPENDIX. 357 in the changing scenes of manhood ; and when we leave this earthly sphere, and the soul bursts forth from its corporeal dwelling, it will fly upward to regions of still greater novelty, and never- hailing interest !" D. Mr. Walker, in various places of his work, calls the cerebel or cerebellum, " the organ of volition," and, at page 145, he attributes ideas, emotions, and passions, to the cerebrum, though he states that acts of the will result from these. Now, if there is any truth established, it is that the will is the result of the simultaneous ac- tion of the higher intellectual powers, and supposes attention, re- flection, comparison, and judgment, mental operations, which Mr. Walker himself attributes to the cerebrum. Gall has made it very evident, that the will is not the impulse that results from the ac- tivity of a single organ, but the concurrent action of many of the higher intellectual faculties motives must be weighed, compared, and judged, before there can be any will, or determination of mind. The decision resulting from this determination, is called will. We consider it then proved, that there is no particular organ of the will. " Every fundamental faculty," says Dr. Gall, " accompanied by a clear notion of its existence, and by reflection, is intellect or intelligence. Each individual intelligence, therefore, has its proper organ ; but reason supposes the concerted action of the higher fac- ulties. It is the judgment pronounced by the higher intellectual faculties. A single one of these, hotvever, could not constitute rea son, which is the compliment, the result of the simultaneous action of all the intellectual faculties. It is reason that distinguishes man from the brute ; intellect they have in common to a certain degree. There are many intelligent men, but few reasoning ones. Nature produces an intelligent man ; a happy organization, culti- vated by experience and reflection, forms the reasoning man." Nearly all physiologists, deserving of the name, are now united in the opinion that the cerebellum is the organ of amativeness, as well as concerned in the regulation of voluntary motion. " It is impossible," says Dr. Spurzheim, " to unite a greater number of proofs in demonstration of any natural truth than may be present- ed to determine the function of the cerebellum." "Mr. Scott," says George Combe, " in an excellent essay on the influence of 358 APPENDIX. amativeness on the higher sentiments and intellect, observes that it has been regarded by some individuals, as almost synonymous with pollution ; and the notion has been entertained, that it cannot be even approached without defilement. This mistake has origi- nated from attention being directed too exclusively to the abuses of the propensity. Like everything that forms part of the system of nature, it bears the stamp of wisdom and excellence in itself, al- though liable to abuse. It exerts a quiet but effectual influence in the general intercourse between the sexes, giving rise in each to a sort of kindly interest in all concerns the other. This disposition to mutual kindness between the sexes, does not arise from benevo- lence or adhesiveness, or any other sentiment or propensity alone ; because, if such were its sources, it would have an equal effect in the intercourse of the individuals of each sex among themselves, which it has not. ' In this quiet and unobtrusive state of the feel- ing,' says Mr. Scott, ' there is nothing in the least gross or offen- sive to the most sensitive delicacy. So far the contrary, that the want of some feeling of this sort is required, wherever it appears, as a very palpable defect, and a most unamiable trait in the char, acter. It softens all the proud, irascible, and antisocial principles of our nature, in everything which regards that sex which is the object of it ; and it increases the activity and force of all the kindly and benevolent affections. This explains many facts which appear in the mutual regards of the sexes toward each other. Men are, generally speaking, more generous and kind, more benevolent and charitable, toward women, than they are to men, or than women are to one another.' The abuses of this propensity are the sources of innumerable evils in life ; and as the organ and feeling exist, and produce an influence on the mind, independently of external communication, Dr. Spurzheim suggests the propriety of instruct- ing young persons in the consequences of its improper indulgence as preferable to keeping them in a state of ignorance that may provoke a fatal curiosity, compromising in the end their own aud their descendants' bodily and mental constitution." It may be proper in this place, to point out some of the anatomi- cal differences of the sexes more definitely than has been done by Mr. Walker, as they are intimately connected with the form and contour of the body, and must be understood to appreciate fully the bearing of much that is laid down by our author : APPENDIX. 359 ANATOMICAL SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. The stomach is the only portion of the alimentary canal which presents sexual differences. It is larger, shorter, and broader, in the male ; smaller, narrower, and longer, in the female. Its muscular coat, like that in the whole alimentary canal, is generally also thinner in the female. OSSEOUS SYSTEM. Ribs. The ribs of the female are generally straighter than those of the male. The posterior segment unites sooner with the anterior ; its curve differs less from that of the last, and disappears sooner in the female ; hence, the chest is narrower. The ribs are usually thinner ; hence, the edges are sharper. Sometimes, how- ever, this is far from being true. Their length is nearly the same ; but according to Mechel, the length of the two upper ribs is pro- portionally, and when the subject is short, absolutely greater in the female than in the male. Clavicle. The clavicle is generally straighter, and proportion- ably smaller in the female than in the male. The greater straight- ness depends particularly on the lesser curve of its external portion, while in man it extends far backward, and then comes forward. The internal anterior half presents nearly the same curve in both sexes. The clavicle of the female is rounder than that of the male ; we however find clavicles of females perfectly like those of males, and vice versa. Sometimes, of the two clavicles in the same body, one is constructed in the type of the male, and the other in that of the female. Pelvis. The chief points of difference between the male and female skeleton, beside the disparity in the size and the greater smoothness of the bones, lie in the pelvis. In the female this is less strong and thick, and contains less osseous matter than that of the male. In the female, the arch of the pubis is much the great- est, and the long diameter of the brim of the pelvis is from side to side ; in the male it is from before backward ; in the female, the brim is more of the oval shape, in the male more triangular ; in the female, the ilia are more distant ; the tuberosities of the ischia are also more remote from each other, and from the os coccygis, and as these three points are farther apart, the notches between them are consequently wider, and there is of necessity a considerably great- er space between the os coccygis and pubis than in the male. The female sacrum is broader and less curved than in the other sex. 360 APPENDIX. The ligamentous cartilage at the symphysis pubis is broader and shorter. In consequence of the cavity of the pelvis being wider in woman, the superior articulations of their thigh bones are farther removed from each other, which circumstance occasions their pe- culiarity in walking ; they seem to require a greater effort than men to preserve the centre of gravity, when the leg is raised ; owing to the greater length of the crural arch, there is less resist- ance to the pressure of the abdominal viscera ; consequently fe- males are more subject to femoral hernia than males. The angle of union of the ossa pubis in the male is from sixty to eighty de- grees, whereas, in the female it is ninety degrees. The mean height of the male, at the period of maturity, is about five feet eight and a half inches, and that of the female about five feet five inches ; a well-formed pelvis has a circumference equal to one- fourth of the height of the female. ORGAN OF VOICE. The larynx is one of the organs which presents most manifestly the differences of sex. That of the female is usually one third, and sometimes one half smaller than that of the male : all its constitu- ent cartilages are much thinner ; the thyroid cartilage also is even flatter, because its two lateral halves unite at a less acute angle. Hence the reason why the larynx in the male forms at the upper part of the neck a prominence which is not visible in the female. The glottis in the iemale is much smaller than in the male, and the vocal cords are shorter. These sexual differences do not appear till puberty ; until then the larynx has precisely the same form in the two sexes, and consequently the voice is nearly the same in both. In eunuchs it is small as in females. PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE BEAUTY OF FORM. A very ingenious Physiological explanation of the beauty of form, has been suggested by Professor B. T. Joslin, of the Uni- versity of the city of New York, which is published in the Trans- actions of the New York State Medical Society for 1836. As this theory is characterized by great originality and genius, and but little known, we shall present our readers with some extracts from the Essay, calculated to elucidate the views of the talented author. Speaking of material objects, not including the human form, Dr. J. remarks : APPENDIX. 361 " There is in objects a kind of beauty which is intrinsic and physical, which belongs to them in every association, and whether at rest or in motion ; such is the beauty of color, and that of con- figuration. The contemplation of the beauty of coloring and of form gives physical pleasure, i. e., physical as opposed to mental, but physiological as opposed to physical. Employing physical in its comprehensive sense, I say that this physical pleasure attending vision is of two distinct kinds; 1st, that which depends on the character of the impression on the retina, and consequently on the intensity and nature of the light ; and 2dly, that which depends upon the form of the object, and, consequently, on the muscular actions employed in tracing its outlines. As the latter constitutes the proper subject of this essay, I shall dismiss the former with a single remark. " Some colors are more agreeable than others, but these differ with different eyes, and with the nature of the color to which the eyes have been previously exposed. A bluish green relieves the eye when over-excited with red, and a mild red is agreeable after the protracted action of intense green ; and in general, the com- plementary colors are most agreeable in succession. Again, it is well known, that no kind of light is painful, unless excessively vivid ; we are pleased with a mild radiance in objects of every hue, from the whiteness of the moon to the crimson of the setting sun. But is there no other physical property by which these luminaries directly contribute to the gratification of taste ? It is true that light, abstractedly from all objects is agreeable, and agreeable on the same principle that sweetness is to the taste, i. e., from the mere character of the nervous impression. But this is a pleasure merely passive, and in an active being it is, perhaps, on that ac- count, one grade lower than the gratification afforded by the beauty of form, and is more allied to the gross pleasure of literal taste. Hence, we scarcely employ a figurative expression, in de- claring that light is sweet. But the highest degree of physical gratification is not enjoyed by the eye, unless this agreeable ex- citant proceeds from an object of beautiful form. "Light is sweet," but " it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun." What is the source of this additional pleasure which we receive, when light proceeds either by radiation or reflection from regular curvilinear objects ? " I shall offer what I believe to be an original and satisfactory explanation of the beauty of form, on principles purely physiologi- cal. It is based on the proposition, that the action of every muscle 31 362 APPENDIX. is attended with a sensation which is at first agreeable, but which, if the action is continued for a short time with intensity, and without intermission, becomes painful. That there is pleasure attending those varied motions which depend upon the actions of different muscles in succession after intervals of rest in each, we know from our own consciousness as well as from that instinctive propensity to play which we observe in children and young animals. That the prolonged action of a muscle is painful, we may readily convince ourselves by endeavoring to hold the arm for some time at right angles with the erect trunk. With the arm in this posi- tion, a pound weight on the hand or even the weight of the arm itself becomes in a few minutes almost insupportable. We pre- sently begin to feel pain in the shoulder and anterior part of the arm, the former from fatigue of those muscles which originate from the scapula and keep the os humeri elevated, and the latter from fatigue of the muscles which originate from the scapula and os humeri, whose muscular fibres are in front of the os humeri and by their contraction elevate the fore-arm in consequence of their tendinous attachment to its bones. Yet a man may labor all day with his arms without this painful sensation ; because a muscle requires but a momentary rest, in order to regain that degree of energy which is momentarily lost by action. " None but an anatomist can duly appreciate the variety of separate actions, on which depend the motions of a single limb, and the consequently numerous opportunities of rest which the muscles enjoy. To the superficial and unscientific observer, an arm is an arm ; it is a single member which may be fatigued by a day's work and recruited by a night's rest. But to the anatomist the arm is a complex object, and its muscular energy is that of its component muscles, each of which may be fatigued by a minute's action and recruited by a minute's repose. It would be easy to extend this farther, and state ^reasons for believing that the com- ponent fasciculi and fibres of an individual muscle act still more transiently, and that their momentary and successive actions con- stitute the action of a single muscle. " But waiving this refinement, it will be sufficient for our pur- pose to consider a single muscle as having a simple action, an ac- tion which cannot be sustained with uniformity a minute of time without actual pain, nor a second of time with positive pleasure. This, however, is not to be understood as an attempt to fix these limits with precision. To express the law in more general terms, as we diminish the duration of a muscle's action we diminish the APPENDIX. 363 pain until we arrive at an action whose attendant sensation is neutral, i. e., neither painful nor pleasurable ; as soon as we have passed that point and have begun to execute motions a little more transient, the attendant sensation becomes positively pleasurable, and the pleasure increases as the separate actions become more transient. It is not necessary to infer that there is attending each action of shorter duration a pleasure exceeding that which attends each action of greater duration ; for the more transient actions are, in a given time, more numerous ; so that with the same amount of pleasure for each muscular contraction, the amount of pleasu- rable sensation in a given time say a second would exceed the amount attending the less frequent and more prolonged actions in the same period : a greater number of separate impressions be- come so to speak crowded together and condensed, and thus produce a more vivid pleasure. Several contiguous impressions thus conspire to heighten the contemporaneous effect, inasmuch as we are unable to distinguish those impressions which are made at very short intervals on the muscular sense, any more than we are those made at very short intervals on the retina. We have an ex- ample of the latter in the familiar experiment of swinging a coal of fire in a circle, and in various optical instruments for combining colors and images. " The proposition which I have endeavored to establish is, that there is a neutral point to which, if constant action is prolonged, its pleasurable character begins to be reversed ; that the vividness of the sensation increases with the distance from this point, being on the one side pleasurable, on the other painful ; the more tran- sient the actions ate, the more pleasurable ; the more prolonged they are, the more painful. " I am of opinion that this physiological principle is susceptible of interesting applications to a class of pleasures, which metaphy- sicians have regarded as exclusively mental, and dependant upon certain supposed ultimate principles of the constitution of mind, principles not resolvable into others more elementary. As physi- ology shall advance, it may be expected that many of these imagi- nary elements will yield to its searching analysis. Whether the writer has been so fortunate as to resolve any of the generally ad- mitted elements of mental taste, the reader will be able to judge from the sequel. As preparatory to the consideration of the beauty of form, it will be necessary to give an explanation of the gracefulness of motion. Although this has been vaguely and in part referred to 3b4 APPENDIX. ease of execution, yet, the physiological principle on which ease of execution depends, not having been clearly understood and dis- tinctly stated, the gracefulness of all motions could not be referred to their true source. Thus, writers on taste have been under the necessity of admitting, as a distinct and independent source of gracefulness, the curvilinear direction of motions, and have been able to generalize this fact no farther than by referring it to the beauty of curved forms, which beauty was considered an ultimate fact. In applying the principles above developed, to the explana- tion of the pleasure or pain attending the contemplation of particu- lar motions, we shall defer for the present the investigation of the intrinsic beauty of curved motions, which is the same as that of curved lines, and assume that in general those motions which are physically pleasurable to the agent are agreeable to the observer. The pleasure or pain of the agent will engage the sympathy of the observer ; for he associates the observed action with his own ex- perience. To make a single application, suppose a public speaker extend his arm horizontally and move it slowly in a horizontal po- sition, through one third of a circle. This motion would not ap- pear graceful. That it would not be performed with perfect ease, any one might prove by experiment. The principal difficulty is ia preserving for a long time the horizontal position." " In the ordinary state of the muscular system, and within certain limits, the motion of the eye in any direction is pleasurable. Whenever the power of directing the eye is acquired, the tracing of a line will, to a certain extent and for a certain time, afford some degree of positive pleasure ; in other words, any short line will possess some degree of positive beauty, and the infant becomes conscious of an emotion of which he was previously ignorant the emotion of beauty of form. A point awakens no such emotion ; it never will ; it can possess no beauty. It must be recollected, that this has been restricted to minute points of inappreciable form. Circular dots will be considered under the head of figures. The colorific property of a dot as compared with that of the grovnd on which it is placed, may afford that kind of ocular pleasure which is foreign to the present inquiry. " From points as compared with lines, we naturally proceed to lines as compared with each other. " When the head is erect, in examining a straight horizontal line we employ one of the lateral recti ; if the line be vertical we em- ploy the rectus inferior or superior. In either case, but one muscle acts, and that continuously. The muscle is not relieved, and its APPENDIX. 365 action is not attended with the maximum amount of pleasurable sensation. When the vision has been extended along the whole line, if we then immediately proceed to examine it in the opposite direction, the opposite rectus must at one exert a force sufficient to overcome the momentum of the eyeball, and then exert a continu- ous action. Both these circumstances are unfavorable to pleasure. If the line is oblique, one lateral together with one inferior or one superior muscle is exerted, and the same principles which have been applied to the single muscles, apply to the muscles acting in pairs. " The Beauty of Curved Lines. As from the foregoing analy- sis of the vision of straight lines in general, it results that they are deficient in the elements of ocular agreeableness, in other words, of beauty ; little more need be said of regular and gentle curves, than that the survey of them is not attended with the abovemen- tioned disadvantages. In viewing a regular curve, no muscle of the eyeball acts continuously and uniformly, but enjoys partial re- lief by remissions, or total relief by intermissions of its action ; and the regularity of these remissions and intermissions, as well as the equal distribution of exercise, is promoted by the regularity of the curve. Acting in succession, the muscles afford mutual relief after actions of such short duration and variable intensity, as to afford positive pleasure ; and in this muscular pleasure of the eye con- sists the beauty of configuration. " The successive and accurate survey of distant points is not, however, invariably requisite to a degree of similar pleasure, in viewing a figure of such small angular extent as to be instantly recognised by one location of its image, as analogous to a larger one whose survey has directly afforded muscular pleasure. Although I thus recognise the influence of association, the facts of this very case afford an interesting confirmation of the physiological theory ; for a large circle or ellipse is more beautiful than one of diminu- tive size. The beauty of the one is original, its influence is direct ; the beauty of the other is in part borrowed, and this part is weak- ened by reflection. Or, to express it more literally, the one ex- cites a pleasurable sensation, the other suggests a similar idea ; the one affords a perception, the other a conception, of beauty. Such, even with similar color and brilliancy, would be the difference between the full moon and a circular dot () or period ; such the difference between a rainbow and a diminutive arc (<---), a- short accent inverted. Here the critic might be inclined to charge us with confounding the beautiful with the sublime. But the fact is, 31* 366 APPENDIX. that criticism has constructed the sublime as it has the beauti- ful from heterogeneous materials, one of which is identical with one of the elements of beauty, and should, in a physiological ar- rangement, be referred to the same class. In many instances a magnifying instrument will disclose minute irregularities and blem- ishes ; but in every other case, physiology would show, that, with- in certain limits, to magnify a beautiful object is to magnify beauty. " The foregoing statements of general principles preclude the necessity of minute details in relation to particular curves. I shall at present consider those which do not return into themselves, so as to constitute the outlines of figures in the geometrical sense. Let us first select a semi-circumference, for example, that of a rainbow of maximum dimensions. In tracing it once, we employ three out of the four muscles. They are brought into action suc- cessively and rapidly, but not abruptly. All these circumstances are favorable to pleasure. Yet they are not conducive to it in the highest possible degree ; for each muscle acts only once unless the examination be repeated ; and in case of its repetition, the momen- tum of the eyeball is destroyed in stopping and reversing its mo- tion. The waving line, as Hogarth's line of beauty, obviates the first difficulty. This ensures not only the successive action of dif- ferent muscles, but a repetition of action in the same. If the line forms a number of equal waves, these repetitions will be propor- tional to the number of waves, and will alternately and totally re- lieve, at least two muscles, and allow, in the action of a third, regular remissions of intensity at equal intervals. We have proved then, that on this physiological theory, a semi-circumference pos- sesses more of the elements of beauty than any straight line, and a regular-waved line more than either. These results are conforma- ble to experience. If there is any difficulty in admitting this, it will vanish on comparing the ocular with other muscles. " Let us select a joint, which, in its spherical form, and the cir- cular arrangement of its muscles, is analogous to the eye ; for ex- ample, the shoulder joint. I think it will be uniformly found, that in the use of this joint, the curves most readily traced, are those of sjentle and nearly equal curvature, and being such as are most easily traced by the eye, they would appear more beautiful than those drawn by the fingers with the same education. For example, let a man, without bending his wrist or elbow, draw various lines with a light stick or cane on the surface of snow : the lines most easily drawn (or most easily traced if already drawn) , will be curves of considerable beauty, and nearly equal curvature ; such APPENDIX. 367 as waved lines and spirals and looped curves. Circles and ellipses would also be among the figures with most facility and precision traced, and especially in cases of repeated tracing ; but we are not at present considering figures in the proper geometrical sense of the term. In writing letters by the above method, a succession of 'e's, would be more readily drawn than a succession of 'i's, or a zigzag line with acute angles. " To institute a fair comparison between terminated lines and figures, the component lines of the figures should be as beautiful as the terminated lines with which they are compared. With this precaution, physiology will conduct to the conclusion, that figures are more beautiful than terminated lines. For the survey of any figure requires the successive action of all these ocular muscles, and a repeated survey requires no reversal of the motion. " We may apply the same principles to figures as compared with each other. Here we shall find the advantage on the side of those which are geometrically regular. We perceive that the circle and ellipse must possess in great perfection the essentials of beauty. " From figures, the transition is natural and easy to solids or bodies of three dimensions. The form of a body depends on those of all its faces and sections ; and these last are plane figures. The elliptical sections of a regular spheroid are all highly beauti- ful, but its sections are not all elliptical. Unless the spheroid be in certain positions, the sphere possesses still higher beauty, as presenting the same circular and highly beautiful outline in every position ; although a variety of positions is not essential to the perception of its peculiar beauty, whenever the observer has learned by different methods, and especially by different degrees of convergence of the two optic axes, to estimate the relative dis- tances of the different points of the visible hemisphere, and thus to recognise the spherical form. I will only add, from the analy- sis of the beauty of the circle it is evident, that within certain limits, to magnify a sphere is to magnify its beauty. " The relative beauty of the sphere and spheroid, and of the spheroid as compared with itself in different positions, is modified by symmetry. The principle of symmetry, is in some measure distinct from any other heretofore considered. It may be treated under the heads of 1st, geometrical symmetry, or symmetry of form; 2d, of symmetry of position. " Symmetry of form, though implied in geometrical regularity, is not identical with it, and requires a separate consideration. The beauty of forms geometrically symmetrical, in contradistinction 368 APPENDIX. from those deficient in the correspondence of opposite halves, de- pends upon two similar series of actions in different pairs or muscles. For example, the survey of an ovate leaf, or indeed that of almost any vegetable leaf so numerous are the provisions for our gratification requires for its opposite halves two series of muscular actions, the different parts of the one corresponding with those of the other in duration, intensity, and order of suc- cession. The gratification in this case results from the harmony of muscular sensations individually pleasurable. The agreeable- ness of this harmony may depend upon a principle more psycolo- gical than that of the agreeableness of its elementary sensations. Yet-the former is to a certain extent susceptible of a physiological generalization. This harmony would probably have been impaired by any considerable inequality in the distances between the points of insertion of the recti muscles, or in the strength of the antag- onists. It is a curious coincidence, that in both these respects, these muscles are more nearly symmetrical than any others in the hu- man body. Physiology, then, explains, not only the agreeableness of the elementary sensations, which give rise to the perception of beauty in regular curves, but unfolds the provisions for two similar series of such sensations, not only in figures simply regular, but in those which are simply symmetrical, and in those which are both symmetrical and regular. The principles of muscular action ex- plain the agreeableness of a rapid succession of varied actions equally distributed among the muscles, and the structure of the optical apparatus explains why the curvature and regularity of an object require such actions in vision. Again, we discover in the symmetrical structure and arrangement of the ocular muscles, a provision for two similar series of pleasurable sensations in the survey of a symmetrical figure, in whatever position it may be placed, provided it retains its symmetry with respect to some visual plane. The coincidence between the location of the ocular muscles diametrically opposite, on the one hand, and our propen- sity to compare the opposite halves of bodies, and the pleasure afforded by their similarity on the other hand, is curious, and to a certain extent affords a physiological explanation of the beauty of symmetrical forms. " The same principles which apply to the beauty of form of inanimate objects are applicable to the paths described by them in motion. The intrinsic beauty of their motions is exclusively referrible to sensations in the ocular muscles of the observer, APPENDIX. 369 while the gracefulness of human motions is referrible in part to these, and in part to sensations in other muscles. " It would be foreign to the subject of the present memoir, to consider the beauty of expression of the human countenance ; al- though this species of beauty is in a great degree referrible to mus- cular action. That muscular action which belongs to the present topic is not that of the object, but that of the observer. It may be scarcely necessary again to disclaim any design of giving a complete analysis of beauty in general, or to repeat the concession that man's notions of beauty are modified by various associations. " Final Cause. The benevolence of the Author of nature is stri- kingly manifested in connecting present pleasure with obedience to the natural laws. It has been shown that vision is attended with muscular action which is generally pleasurable. If seeing had re- quired no muscular action, we should have wanted one of our present stimuli to the acquisition of knowledge. This stimulus is especially necessary in infancy, and then powerfully prompts to observation, even anterior to the dawnings of intellectual curiosity, with which it subsequently co-operates. We see, in this arrange- ment, the exemplification of a principle which extensively pervades the laws under which we are placed by the Creator which is, that mental attainments, as well as other acquisitions, shall re* quire action ; and that action shall be attended with pleasure. Whether the acquisition is to be made by the manual labor of the artisan, by the manipulations of the artist, the chymist, or the ex- perimental philosopher, by the sedentary student of books, or by the observer of natural phenomena in his original survey of the universe in every case it is muscular action. " This application to natural theology, has thus far had reference to that degree of intrinsic agreeableness which is common to forms in general. But the laws of nature specially tend to the production of curved, regular, and symmetrical objects and motions, in inorganic vegetable and animal bodies ; and impose the necessity of similar forms in artificial structures. With a different structure and ar- rangement of the ocular muscles, those forms peculiarly condu- cive to our welfare and that of the universe, had possessed no peculiar attractions ; and ve had felt no special impulse of this kind to conform our own artificial structures to those laws of na- ture, or to investigate many of the most important works of the Creator. Yet neither gravity or any other law of the external world could have determined the peculiar formation of the mus- cles of the human eye. We must, therefore, refer their actual 370 APPENDIX. structure and location to that Being who gives to the objects ot his creative power, and to the principles by which he governs them, such a mutual adaptation as conduces to the greatest achievable good. Thus, while muscular pleasure originally prompts to the observation of the Creator's works, this observation is rewarded and subsequently prompted by a pleasure of an incomparably higher order, of a character purely mental, by the discovery of moral beauty, which in rank and refinement surpasses all others. Still, the muscular pleasure of the eye strongly incites to the examina- tion of the numberless forms of beauty in the organic and inorgan-' ic kingdoms, such as the symmetrical leaf, the bending bough, the symmetry of the tree itself, that of inferior animals, and of the human form. Or we may extend our view to the circular or undu- lating horizon, the apparent limits of the apparently round world ; or we may elevate the eyes to the arched dome of the firmament, on which the arches of the iris and aurora occasionally confer ad- ditional beauty. Or with the telescope we may pierce this appa- rent limit of upward vision, and discover beyond it a universe of spherical and spheroidal worlds, revolving in circular and elliptical orbits, worlds and orbits which present, even in our diminutive diagrams, a high order of beauty, designed to incite us to the con- templation of these most magnificent works of the Creator. ' All this beauty had been lost to man, but for the property of the e}-e, which, on a superficial reflection, might seem a defect. It is no less true than paradoxical, that the perception of these beauties depends on indistinctness of vision. To a being so constituted as to see with equal distinctness by oblique and direct vision, the same forms might be presented, but not as forms of beauty. Has the Creator, then, sacrificed a portion of our perceptive powers to our sensual gratification ? I answer no. Has he, then, sacrificed a por- tion of our direct means of acquiring knowledge, to afford an in- citement which should ultimately and indirectly enhance our at- tainments? Again I am compelled to answer in the negative. There is, in this arrangement, no intellectual sacrifice whatever, direct or indirect. This indistinctness of oblique vision, which might seem a defect, I consider an excellence. A simultaneous and distinct impression received from the whole field of vision, would distract the attention and preclude a minute and accurate examina- tion of any particular part. But as our eyes are so constituted as to receive a strong and distinct impression only from the images of those objects toward which their axes are directed, and as our minds are so constituted that we can in a great measure neglect APPENDIX. 371 the weaker or less distinct impressions, we are able to acquire a more exact knowledge of any part of the field to which we choose to attend. To see every thing at once, would be to examine nothing. Such a constitution of the eye would be to vision what an indis- criminating memory is to the understanding. E. OF BEAUTS'. To show that the sentiments of mankind with regard to female beauty, have been very various in different ages and nations, and that it is not possible to establish a standard which shall compre- hend all, without discriminations, a few facts may be mentioned. Among the ancients, a small forehead and joined eyebrows were much admired in a female countenance ; and in Persia, large joined eyebrows are still highly esteemed. In some parts of Asia, black teeth and white hair, are essential ingredients in the character of a beauty ; and in the Marian Islands, it is customary among the ladies to blacken their teeth with herbs, and to black their hair with certain liquors. Beauty, in China and Japan, is composed of a large countenance, small, and half-concealed eyes, a broad nose, little and useless feet, and a prominent belly. The Flat-head Indians compress the heads of their children between two boards, with a view to enlarge and beautify the face ; some tribes compress the head laterally ; others depress the crown, and others make the head as round as possible. " The Moors of Africa," says Park, " have singular ideas of female perfection ; the gracefulness of figure and motion, and a countenance enlivened by expression, are by no means operative points in their standard ; with them corpulency and beauty are terms nearly synonymous, Or women of tven moderate pretensions, must be one who cannot walk without a slave under each arm to support her, and a perfect beauty is a load for a camel. In consequence of this prevalent taste for unwieldiness of bulk, the Moorish ladies take great pains to acquire it early in life, and for this purpose many of the young girls are compelled by their mothers to swallow a great quantity of kouskous, and drink a large bowl of camel's milk every morn- ing. It is of no importance whether the girl has an appetite or not, the kouskous and milk ^.ust be swallowed, and obedience is 372 APPENDIX. frequently enforced by blows. I have seen a poor girl sit crying with the bowl at her lips for more than an hour, and her mother with a stick in her hand watching her all the while, and using the stick without mercy whenever she observed that her daughter was not swallowing. This singular practice, instead of producing in- digestion and disease, soon covers the young lady with that degree of plumpness, which in the eye of a Moor, is perfection itself." These facts show that every nation almost has ideas of beauty peculiar to itself; and it is no less evident that nearly every in- dividual has his own notions and taste concerning it. " The em- pire of beauty, however," says a writer already quoted, "amid these discordant ideas, with respect to the qualities in which it consists, has been very generally acknowledged, and particularly in all civilized countries ; and when it is united with other accom- plishments that tend to render females amiable, it contributes in no small degree, to give them importance and influence, to polish the manners of society, and to contribute to its order and happiness." F. TEMPERAMENT. The views of Mr. Walker in relation to Temperaments, corre- spond with those usually entertained by physiological writers. It is to be observed, however, that they rarely occur simple in any in- dividual, two or more being generally combined. The bilious and nervous, for example, is a common combination, which gives strength and activity ; the lymphatic and nervous, is also common, and produces sensitive delicacy of mental constitution, conjoined with indolence. The nervous and sanguine combined, give extreme vivacity, but without corresponding vigor. Dr. Thomas of Paris, has advanced the following theory of the temperaments : When the digestive organs, filling the abdominal cavity, are large, and the lungs and brain small, the individual is lymphatic ; he is fond of feeding, and averse to mental and muscular exertion. When the heart and lungs are large, and the brain and abdomen small, the individual is sanguine ; blood abounds, and is propelled with vigor ; he is therefore fond of muscular exercise, but averse to thought. When the brain is large, and the abdominal and thoracic viscera small, great mental energy is the consequence. These APPENDIX. 373 proportions may be combined in great varieties, and modified re- suits will ensue.* Mr. Combe, in 'his late lectures in this city, laid great stress on the relative size of the three great visceral cavities, in determining the temperament. Thus, if the abdominal and thoracic cavities be small, and the cranial cavity large, the nervous temperament is indicated. If the abdomen and scull be comparatively small, and the chest large, the sanguine tempera- ment is indicated. The predominance of the abdominal cavity in- dicates the lymphatic temperament. Mr. C. also pointed out the important changes produced in the temperament by a long con- tinued course of training. It is common for the bilious, to be changed into the nervous temperament, by habits of mental ac- tivity, and close study ; and, on the other hand, we often see the nervous or bilious changed into the lymphatic about the age of 40, when the nutritive system seems to acquire the preponderance. Spurzheim used to say, that he had originally a large portion of the lymphatic temperament, as had all his family ; but that in himself the lymphatic had gradually diminished, and the nervous gradually increased ; whereas, in his sisters, owing to mental in- activity, the reverse had happened, and when he visited them, after being absent many years, he found them, to use his own ex- pression, " as large as tuns." The subject of temperament has been treated with consummate ability by Dr. Charles Caldwell of Kentucky ; and as his essay is but little known, we shall present some extracts from it. It will be seen that his views bear a close resemblance to those of Dr. Thomas, already mentioned ; but Dr. C. has shown that they were publicly maintained by him, at least two years before the appearance of Dr. Thomas's work.f After explaining the doctrine of the temperaments, as taught by the ancients, and showing that it is founded on the exploded hypothesis of humoralism, Dr. C. goes on to show, that it is the solids of the body which make man what he is ; that they form the fluids, and give them their character ; that they are, in short, the cause, and the fluids the effect. " The difference," says Dr. C., "between individuals, or rather classes, of the human family, which temperament is made to desig- nate, appears to depend on two causes ; diversity of organization * Combe's Phrenology. . t Physiologic des Temperamens on Constitutions. Paris, 1826. 32 374 APPENDIX. in parts or the whole of the bodies of different persons, giving rise to a corresponding diversity in the vital properties ; and difference of size and vigor in certain ruling organs of the system. The existence and influence of the former of these causes are in the highest degree probable ; those of the latter certain. The one is susceptible of strong support, the other of proof that may be term- ed positive. By ' organization' is here meant, the minute interior or radical structure of the tissues which compose the human body. That diversity in this creates a diversity in the vital properties, and that again a diversity in character, cannot 1 think be doubted. Whether the difference of organization here referred to, consists in different proportions of the element of living matter that form the tissues, united in the same way, or in their different modes of ar- rangement and union, or both, or whether it may not arise in part from different proportions of the simpler tissues entering into the formation of the more compound organs, is not known. Minute anatomy has not yet attained a degree of perfection competent to settle a point of such subtility." Dr. C. afterward goes on to prove that no single nerve, or organ, can perform two distinct functions, but that each is capable of one mode of action, and no more; that between a nerve, a muscle, and a gland, the only difference known to exist, is that of organization ; and that if they are organized alike, and endowed with life, their properties will be similar, and they will act in the same way. So also between animals of the same race, we dis- cover innumerable differences, which can be referred to nothing but differences in organization, and the same may be affirmed of vegetables. The conclusion to which Dr. C. arrives, and which he maintains with great ingenuity is, that independently of all other causes, differences in human temperament are to be attributed, in part, to corresponding differences in the organization of certain portions, or the whole of the body ; and that, other things being equal, in consequence of this source of influence alone, one person differs from another in many of the qualities of both person and intellect. In other words, he is more highly gifted, sprightly, and vigorous, or the reverse ; or he is more courageous or timid, gen- erous or selfish, according to his organization. " But the second cause that was represented to be instrumental in diversifying the human temperaments is by far the most power- ful. It will be remembered to have been, ' difference of size and vigor in certain ruling organs of the system.' The organs alluded to are those contained in the three great cavities of the body ; the APPENDIX. 375 chylopoetic, situated in the abdomen, and including the stomach and intestines, with the liver, pancreas, mesentery, and lacteals ; those of sanguification and circulation, situated in the thorax, and consisting of the lungs, heart, and bloodvessels ; and the brain, with its appendages, the spinal cord and nerves. These three groups (for the brain is multiplex as well as the other two) are not only the ruling organs in the person of man ; connected with the hard and soft parts that enclose them, they constitute the per- ton. The upper and lower extremities are but appendages ; im- portant and necessary, it must be acknowledged ; but still appen- dages. The individual can exist and be a human being without them. Nor have they any influence in imparting constitutional character to their possessors. Standing only in the capacity of subordinates to the controlling organs, they are not only nourished and put in motion by them ; they labor mechanically for their uses, and serve as instruments to execute their purposes. They are composed of the extreme ends of the organized matter of the system, constitute only its outworks, and possess but little influ- ence over its central parts. This representation rests on evidence that may be termed demonstrative. Many persons destitute of the upper or lower extremities, or toth, have strong characters and well-marked temperaments. But the extremities, if deprived of the influence of any one group of the ruling organs, are converted not only into useless but lifeless masses. Of the skin, muscles, and bones, which compose the head, neck, and trunk of the body) the same is true. Of themselves they possess no character, and can therefore bestow none. They also are but appendages to the organs they cover, affording them a secure lodgment and protec- tion from external injuries, and aiding them in the performance of some of their functions. And from this alone is their importance derived. Were it possible for them to exist apart from the viscera they contain, their grade of being would be below that of many vegetables. Most fatal diseases, moreover, have their original seat in the viscera of one of the three great cavities of the body, and no disease originating elsewhere can become fatal, until, by sympathy or metastasis, some of those parts are deeply affected. To enlightened physiologists this statement presents but a series of familiar truths. To the groups of organs exclusively, then, I repeat, contained in the abdomen, the thorax, and the cranium, must we look as the main source of human character. And that character is different according to the predominance, in different individuals, of one group or another, or of any two of them. An 376 APPENDIX. * equilibrium between the three groups constitutes another variety, by bestowing on character a corresponding equilibrium. Let the word temperament be substituted for ' character,' and what is true of the latter will be so of the former. As already mentioned, the organs referred to will be its source ; and the differences in their predominance will give diversity to it." Dr. C. then shows that the strength and perfection of each of the senses are proportioned to the size of the nerve on which that sense depends. This is illustrated by a powerful array of facts, drawn from different orders of the animal kingdom, as well as from the different varieties of mankind. It is also stated, that where any nerve or set of nerves, is peculiarly large, the portion of the brain to which they belong, and by which they are influenced and commanded, is correspondingly large. " Inasmuch, then, as, ofher things being equal, size gives power to everything else, we are not only justified in believing, on grounds of analogy we are compelled to believe, that the same is true of the organs contained in the cranium, the thorax, and the abdomen. When they are in a sound and natural condition, their size is also the measure of their power. Were not this the case, they would be either altogether abnormal, or subject to laws that govern no other kind of matter, whether organic or inorganic, of which we have any knowledge. But the position I am contending for is not to be regarded as a mere inference in a process of rea- soning. It will appear hereafter that it is a positive fact, which observation has discovered, and continues to confirm. I have alleged that the size of the three groups of ruling organs may be ascertained by that of the cases in which they are contain- ed. Nor do I perceive on what ground any one, who is even mod- erately acquainted with the structure of the human body, can con- trovert the belief, or cherish the slightest doubt on the subject of it. In healthy persons (and my remarks relate only to such) the size of the brain is necessarily known by that of the head. As the viscus completely fills the cranium, the case cannot be otherwise. Although the bones of the head and the soft parts that cover them are thicker in some individuals than in others, the difference is so small as not materially to affect the result. The chest is filled by the lungs, heart, and large bloodvessels. Its measure, therefore, cannot fail to be the measure of them. Any deviation from exact, ness in this, that may be produced by varieties in the thickness of the skin, muscles, and other parts, is of no moment. Of the chylo- poetic viscera the same is true. They also fill exactly the cavity APPENDIX. 377 prepared for them. The size of the abdomen, therefore, affords a knowledge of their size sufficiently accurate for all practical pur- poses. By a mere inspection of the person of man, then, the abso- lute measure of the groups of organs I am considering, as well as their magnitude in relation to each other, can be fairly ascertained. And it will appear on examination, as already stated, that the pre- dominance in size and energy of any one or two of them, always imparts a corresponding diversity to the human character. Does the brain predominate ? the individual to whom it belongs is more remarkable for the vigor of his intellect or feeling, or both, than for any other constitutional quality. These modes of mental mani- festation constitute the natural functions of the brain ; and when of an order unusually high, they give a peculiarity of charac- ter to the whole system. The person thus endowed feels more keenly, thinks more strongly, is more eager in pursuit of knowl- edge, and attains it with more facility. His relish for pleasure is also inordinately keen, and he pursues it at times with burning ar- dor. Such was the constitutional character of Mr. Fox, and also of our distinguished countryman the late Mr. Bayard. I need scarcely add, that this predominance of sensibility and mental ac- tion must necessarily modify the diseases the individual may sus- tain. But of this I shall speak hereafter. Do the lungs, heart, and bloodvessels predominate ? A larger volume of highly arterialized blood is formed, and thrown more forcibly and in greater quanti- ties throughout the system. From the abundance of that fluid, and the superior size of the vessels conveying it, those parts of the body nourished by the red blood will be comparatively most copi- ously supplied. But it is more especially the muscles that are thus nourished. They will be therefore large and powerful. Hence persons with broad and full chests have well-developed and vigorous muscles. In proportion to their size their animal strength is neces- sarily great. Nor can such constitutional peculiarities fail to be pro- ductive of peculiarities in disease ? Do the chylopoetic viscera pre- dominate ? The amount of chyle formed is very large in propor- tion to the quantity of food eaten. But the lungs, heart, and blood- vessels being comparatively small, neither is sanguification abun- dant and perfect nor circulation vigorous. The blood is not either highly arterialized or animalized. Its amount of red globules is small, and it circulates feebly through vessels of a limited size. The consequence is, that the muscles receive less red blood, and are less fully nourished ; the system at large is not so highly en- dued with life, and the soft parts generally have a lower tone. The 32* 378 APPENDIX. individual thus marked is less robust and vigorous than one whose system is supplied abundantly with highly arterialized blood, and less intellectual and sprightly than those whose brain predomi- nates. It is almost needless to say, that, under such circumstan- ces, disease must be modified in conformity to the constitution. " From the preceding views it clearly appears, that the compara- tive standing of individual man, as relates to his race, is graduated by the predominance of his leading organs. Do his abdominal vis- cera preponderate ? He has much of the animal in him, and his grade is low. Are his thoracic viscera most highly developed ? His qualities are of a superior order; but he still partakes too much of the animal. Does his cerebral system predominate ; and is it well developed in all its parts? He rises above the sphere of animal nature, and stands high in that of humanity. He is formed for an intellectual and moral being, with no more of auimality in his constitution, than is necessary to give him practical energy of character. " This subject may be farther illustrated by a reference to some of the animals below us. The worm commonly denominated a grub is but little else than a mass of abdominal matter. It is there- fore one of the humblest and grossest of worms. The insect has also a large abdomen, with a very small chest, and a smaller head. Hence, though superior to the grub, it is low in the scale of animal nature. Reptiles and fish are more elevated, because their ab- dominal viscera preponderate less. But still they do preponderate ; and therefore the rank of the animals is humble. In the hog the abdominal viscera are most strongly developed, and hence his standing among quadrupeds is low. The same is true of the bear and the ox, and also of the sheep and the goat, but in an inferior degree. The horse, especially the barb and the racehorse, furnish no bad specimens of the mixed or balanced temperament. When the latter is undergoing preparation for the course, the object of his keeper is to make the thoracic temperament preponderate as much as possible, for the time, in order to increase his vigor and endurance ; in the language of the turf, to give him more strength and 'better bottom.' The warhorse approaches the thoracic tem- perament. In the can-ine race, more especially in the greyhound, the thoracic viscera hold the ascendency. Hence the muscular .power of the dog is greater, and his grade among quadrupeds higher than those of most of the preceding animals. The same is true of the wolf, the panther, and the tiger. In some dogs there is a considerable cerebral development, but it is never large enough APPENDIX. 379 to counterbalance the thoracic. Of all animals, the lion affords the most finished specimen of thoracic preponderance. In propor- tion to his size, his lungs and heart, especially the latter, are im- mensely large. And his muscular power corresponds to them. The magnitude of his heart is generally considered the cause of his boldness. Hence a very courageous man is said- to have a great heart, or to be lion-hearted. All this is popular error. The heart is but a muscle ; and, in man, has no 'more connexion with courage than the gastrocnemii muscles ; nor, in the lion, than the muscles that move his tail. Courage is exclusively a cerebral attribute, and has its seat in an organ specifically appropriated to it. In none of the inferior animals does the brain preponderate. That prepon- derance belongs to humanity, and, as already mentioned, indicates its highest grade. Of all the beings below us, some of the. ape tribe have the highest cerebral development. And they approach nearest to man in their degree of intellect. This is farther proof, that, other things being alike, the brain gives the measure of men- tal power. I have lately seen a publication, in which it is gravely asserted, that the large orang-outang catches crabs with a stick, and makes a rude basket of osiers to contain them. Notwithstand- ing the well-known sagacity of that animal, this statement savors strongly of the ' tale of a traveller.' " " Considered in relation to these principles, temperament may be divided into seven varieties. 1. the mixed or balanced, in which the ruling organs are in fair proportion to each other ; 2, the ence- phalic ; 3, the thoracic ; 4, the abdominal ; 5, the enccphalo-thora- cic ; 6, the encephalo-abdominal ; and 7, the thoracico-abdominal." " 1. The mixed or balanced variety. In this the name explains the temperament. The external marks of it are plain. They con- sist in a well-adjusted proportion between the sizes of the head, thorax, and abdomen. If the limbs are in harmony, the symmetry of the entire person is complete. Although individuals, in whom this temperament prevails, are usually above the middle height, and well-formed, they are not necessarily so. They may be of any stature, and any shape, straight or crooked, provided the three great cavities and their contents be accurately balanced. This is not the temperament of either early life or old age. It commences with manhood, and continues until the fortieth or forty-fifth year, and then passes into somewhat of the abdominal. The Apollo Belvidere, by Phidias, is an exquisite specimen of it. But some modern artists have violated it, in painting that statue, by making the chest and the head too large. Although the manifestation of 380 APPENDIX. strength, majesty, and intellect, is heightened by this, the beauty of the youthful god is marred. The figure, though more imposing, has lost its charm." "2. The encephalic. In this variety the head is relatively large, but is not always equally developed in every part, a circumstance which varies greatly, as will presently appear, the characters of those who possess the temperament. The development of the thorax and abdomen is moderate, the person lean, and the counte- nance expressive of intense feeling and deep passion. In some in- dividuals, however, the countenance beams with intelligence, with- out much passion, while, in others, manifestations of powerful in- tellect and passion are united. The thoracic and abdominal ac- tivity is never high ; yet in many instances the personal hardihood and endurance are invincible. It is men of this temperament alone that can immortalize themselves by great achievements, good or bad All history and observation testify to this. Is the develop- ment very large in the moral and intellectual regions of the brain, and so moderate in the animal as to be held fully in check? The individual will distinguish himself by a dignified purity of deport- ment, and by the performance of great and good deeds." " Are the animal and mere knowing compartments largely de- veloped, and the moral and reflecting very slightly ? As relates to vice and profligacy in their foulest shapes, this is the worst of all temperaments. Nothing more prone to depravity can be ima- gined. The person possessed of it delights in some sort of animali- ty alone ; and if he ever engages in anything higher or purer, it is for a sinister purpose, that he may return to his chosen indulgen- ces in more security, or on a broader scale." " Is the development very large, and equally so in all the de- partments of the brain, animal, moral, and intellectual, giving to the head unusual size ? The individual possessing it has a lofty and powerful character, is capable of attaining the highest renown, and making an impression, not to be erased, on the age and coun- try in which he lives. His career may be occasionally stained by irregularities and checkered with clouds, but will be brilliant in the main. His designs are vast, because he feels his power, the in- struments with which he works are men, and he wields them in masses. The term little has no place in his vocabulary, nor its prototype in his thoughts. His aim is greatness of some kind high achievement or deep catastrophe." "3. The thoracic. Under this variety the head is small, usually round, and covered with thick curling hair, the abdomen of limited APPENDIX. 381 dimensions, the chest spacious and powerful, and the muscles swelling and firm. Whether fair and ruddy or otherwise, the com- plexion is strong. Respiration is full and deep, and the action of the heart regular and vigorous ; and the pulse has great volume. Like the result, in every other kind of inordinate vital action, the animal temperature is high. This temperament, in which neither feeling nor intellect prevails, begins to show itself about puberty, and continues until the decline of life, when it undergoes a change. The Farnesian Hercules is the beau ideal of it. This shows that it was known to the ancient Greeks, who were probably indebted for their acquaintance with it to observations made on the persons of their wrestlers. In modem times it is strongly developed in box- ers and porters, and sufficiently so in bakers, wood-choppers, op- erative agriculturists, and others who have been habituated to la- bor from their boyhood. I have observed no little of it among the London boatmen, the occupation of whose life is to ply the oar, a mode of exercise well calculated to develop the chest, together with the muscles of the upper extremities. I have seen good speci- mens of it also in the African race." "4. The abdominal. This temperament is easily recognised by the character it imparts to the person and intellect. The pelvis is broad in proportion to the shoulders and thorax, the abdomen large and prominent, and the adipose matter abundant, filling up the interstices of the muscles, and often forming a layer between them and the skin, in consequence of which the limbs are round and smooth and soft to the touch. In such constitutions, ecchy- mosis succeeds with unusual readiness, to slight contusions. Cir- culation in the skin being feeble, the complexion may be fair and delicate, but never very ruddy or strong. The size of the head is limited, "the intellectual moderate, the eye deficient in lustre and the countenance in expression, and the movements heavy and sel- dom graceful. The abdominal viscera seem to draw everything into the vortex of their action. The amount of vitality is evidently below its common measure in the human system, and, in some in- stances, the flesh seems to hang as a load on the spirit." " 5. The encepkalo-thoracic. This temperament is a type of power both bodily and mental. Its compound name expresses fully the external appearances that mark it, as well as the attributes that always accompany them. With an abdomen of moderate dimensions, the head of the individual who possesses it is large and vigorous to conceive and direct, and his chest and muscles powerful to executej and hardy to endure. It is the temperament 382 APPENDIX. of masculine and comprehensive thought and strong propensity, united to energetic action, rather than of seclusion and profound meditation. As in all other eases, the character is varied in it ac- cording to the portion of the brain that is most largely developed. He to whom it belongs feels himself in his proper sphere when he is among men, and is well fitted to act his part iu times of tumult and scenes of difficulty. Is his brain large in each of its compart- ments? If an occasion present itself, he not only mingles in the moral storm, but aspires to direct it. In case of his becoming a warrior, his genius and sword are alike formidable. In battle, pre- viously to the invention of fire-arms, such a man was the terror of his enemies and the hope of his friends. Ulysses, as sketched by Homer, is as fairly the beau ideal of this temperament, as Hercules is of the thoracic. That chieftain was alike wise to counsel, in- trepid to dare, and powerful to perform. Plato, so called from the uncommon breadth of his chest, who had also a very large head, is another excellent model of the same. Even in times of peace the corporeal attributes of a man of this description add to his in- fluence. Jupiter, the emblem of wisdom and power, as represented by the ancient statuaries, with an immense head and trunk, and arms of matchless strength, is as finished a specimen of the ence- phalo-thoracic temperament, as Apollo is of the mixed." ''6. The encephalo-abdominal. Here again the name bespeaks sufficiently the development, form, and character of those who possess the temperament. The head and abdomen are compara- tively large, the thorax small, and the shoulders narrow. Hence the sensibility is keen, and the intellect, if not powerful, active and respectable. For the reasons given, when the abdominal tempera- ment was considered, the limbs and person, under the present one, are round and smooth, and the flesh is soft ; but, owing to the in- fluence of a well-developed brain, and nerves that correspond to it, the movements are sprightly and the air graceful. Though rarely powerful, the character is attractive. This is the temperament of childhood and woman, much more than of adult life and man. Fine genius, but elegant and playful, rather than strong and bril- liant, is often connected with it. It is females, in whom the ence- phalic development is larger than usual, that possess minds truly masculine." " 7. The thoracico-abdominal. In this temperament the head is comparatively small, and the thorax and abdomen large, with a corresponding size of the muscles and bones, and much adipose substance. It is the temperament of mere animal strength and APPENDIX. 383 patient endurance, without any of the elevated, sprightly, or at- tractive qualities of human nature. It forms good laborers and fatigue-men, but is entirely unfit for those whose province is to meditate, plan, and direct. It comports well enough with the character of soldiers of a certain description, but is altogether out of harmony with that of an officer. It is, I think, more favorable to health than any of the other temperaments, except perhaps the mixed. If those who possess it have weak intellects, their pas- sions are usually moderate, and rarely hurry them into pernicious excesses. The tenor of their lives is but little interrupted by either irregularity or disease. Hence they retain their vigor uncommonly well, and are often day-laborers and industrious husbandmen at an advanced age. True, their appetite for food is strong ; but they are not prone to an excessive indulgence of it ; I mean at a single meal. Like those possessed of the abdominal temperament, they eat often rather than superabundantly at once. Besides, such is the strength of their chylopoetic viscera, that they subdue and digest without sustaining any injury, as much food as would produce dis- ease in those of different constitutions. Nor are they so much en- dangered by vascular fulness as persons of the simple abdominal temperament. The reason of this is plain. Their bloodvessels are larger, and their excretions more copious, especially those by the skin and the organ of respiration. From the warmth of their con- stitutions, owing to an abundance of well-arterialized blood, and a concomitant vigorous circulation, they perspire freely, and secrete and exhale copiously from the lungs. This temperament is rarely found among women, and is not very common among men." Dr. C. maintains that at certain periods of life, one temperament passes into another, as the result of the natural changes which take place, in the progress of the growth and decay of the human body ; and that every one, who attains longevity, partakes, in the progress of growth and decline, of five temperaments ; the purely abdominal, which prevails before birth ; the encephalo-abdominal, which exists at birth, and for some years afterward ; the encephalo- thoracic ; the mixed ; and the abdominal of real senility. Thus passes the circle of life, beginning with the abdominal tempera- ment of the foetal state, and terminating in that of extreme old age. That there is an intimate connexion between temperament and personal beauty, will be manifest from the above view of the sub- ject. Our limits, however, forbid an application of Dr. Caldwell's views in illustration of Mr. Walker's theory ; thes", however, 384? APPENDIX. have been given so much in detail, that the reader will be able to make tbe application for himself. G. There is hardly any habit relating to female dress more destruc- tive of grace and beauty, at least of deportment, than that of compressing the foot in a shoe of one half the proper size. It would seem that our ladies were trying to ape the fashion of the Chinese, in this respect, and though they do not at present carry it to the same extent, yet they carry it sufficiently far to destroy their comfort. We look in vain for the sprightly, light, and elas- tic step, where the feet are bound tight, and cramped up in dis- proportionately tight shoes ; and it would be strange in such a case, if we did not find an unhappy, and distressed expression of countenance the muscles of the face sympathizing with the dis- torted and painful feet. Such a custom, also, interferes materially with taking that measure of exercise which is necessary to health. Mrs. Walker, in her work on Female Beauty, remarks as follows : " Ladies are very apt to torture their feet to make them appear small. This i-s exceedingly ridiculous : a very small foot is a deformity. True beauty of each part consists in the proportion it bears to the rest of the body. A tight or ill-made shoe, not only destroys the shape of the foot, it produces corns and bunions ; and it tends to impede the circulation of the blood. Besides, the foct then swells, and appears larger than it is, and the ankles become thick and clumsy." The pernicious effect of tight or ill-made shoes, is evident also in the stiff and tottering gait of these victims of a foolish preju- dice ; they can neither stand upright,' walk straight, nor enter a room properly. To be too short, is one of the greatest defects a shoe can have ; because it takes away all chance of yielding in that direction, and without offering any compensation for tightness in others, and in itself, it not only causes pain, and spoils the shape of the foot, by turning down the toes, and swelling of the instep, but is the cause of bad gait and carriage. Many diseases arise solely from the use of shoes of very thin materials in wet weather ; but no female who has the slightest regard for her health, or indeed for the pres- ervation of her beauty, will object to wear shoes thicker than are usually worn, if the pavement is at any time wet or damp. APPENDIX. 385 H. The effect of alcoholic drinks upon beauty, has not been over- estimated by Mr. Walker, though he is doubtless mistaken in sup- posing that none but those who reside amid the artificial customs of city life, experience the deleterious influence of such beverages. Not only alcoholic stimulants, but tea and coffee, and especially opium, which has of late come into very extensive use as a substi- tute for the former, tend to produce an unhealthy action of the skin, from their influence upon the secerent system, causing blotches, pimples, and discolorations, in a greater or less degree. Where used moderately, they produce either an unnatural pale- ness, deadness, or duskiness of complexion, or a bloated appear- ance, far removed from the fresh roseate hue of health. Such is the effect of wine, cordials, and malt liquors, which are exten- sively employed by ladies, particularly in cities, during the period of nursing, under a mistaken impression that they cause a greater flow of milk, and tend to invigorate the system. Whoever desires to attain health, strength, and beauty, should not seek them through the agency of bitters, tonics, and cordials, or distilled, or fermented liquors, which only inflame the blood, but from free exercise in the open air, regular occupations, tranquillity of mind, a mild diet, and a proper allotment of time for sleep. It has been remarked that the lower classes of females in cities, consume as much, and probably more intoxicating drinks, than men of the same class, and this is no doubt true. But to the honor of our countrywomen, a great change has been brought about within last few years, with respect to the use of alcoholic liquors, not only in this, but in other countries, with a correspond- ing improvement in health, happiness, and beauty. In advancing this blessed reform, the ladies have borne a conspicuous part as they have in every other philanthropic work and their combined influence is only needed, to banish such drinks entirely from civilized society. THE FACIAL LINE OF CAMPER. In order to determine the cerebral mass, and, consequently, the intellectual faculties, Camper draws a base line from the roots 33 386 APPENDIX. of the upper incisors, to the external auditory passage ; theu another straight line, from the upper incisors to the most elevated point of the forehead : according to him, the intellectual faculties of the man or animal, are in direct proportion to the magnitude of the angle, made by those two lines. Lavater, with this idea for a basis, constructed a scale of perfection from the frog to the Apollo Belvidere. As nature really furnishes many proofs in support of this opinion, it has been generally received, even by anatomists and physiologists ; and, notwithstanding the arguments by which it is victoriously opposed, the learned cannot resolve to abandon it. Cuvier himself furnishes a list of men and animals, in support of this doctrine ; few naturalists oppose it, but almost all give it their support.* Camper's attempt necessarily failed ; for his manner of drawing the lines and measuring the facial angle, enabled him to take into consideration the anterior parts only of the brain situated near the forehead : he entirely neglects the posterior, lateral, and inferior cerebral parts. This method, then, at most, could decide upon those faculties only, whose organs are placed near the forehead. Cuvier estimates the facial angle of the new-born infant at ninety degrees ; that of the adult, at eighty-five ; that of decrepit old age, at fifty. From this statement it appears, that, at different ages, changes take place in the form, either of the brain or the cranium ; here- after I shall prove that such changes really occur. The forehead of the newborn infant is flattened ; on the con- trary, that of a child some months old, and until the age of eight or ten years, especially in the case of boys possessed of superior talents, it is projecting, and forms, notwithstanding the approxi- mation to the age of puberty, a larger facial angle than in the adult ; this angle, therefore, does not diminish in the inverse ratio of the age. In like manner we find decrepit old men, whose facial angle is as great as it was in the vigor of manhood ; for, although in decrepitude the brain is subject to atrophy, there are old men, the exterior contour of whose crania undergoes no change. The angle, as stated by Cuvier, for different ages, were measured upon different individuals ; if it were estimated upon the same persons at different epochs of his life, the result would be entirely dif- ferent. In general, the proportion between the forehead and the face, is * This doctrine is revived, Diet, des Sciences med. Delpit and Reydellet. APPENDIX. 387 different in different individuals. No conclusion can be drawn from the proportions, which exist in one person, relative to those of another ; among a hundred individuals of the same sex and age, no two can be found, in whom the same proportion exists be- tween the forehead and the face ; it necessarily follows, then, that no two will have the same facial angle. Physiologists seem to admit, that the proportion between the brain and the bones of the face, is different in different species of animals : but they appear to think that, in all the individuals of the same species, all the young, all the adults, all the old, there exists a constant propor- tion between the cerebral mass and the face. The researches of Blumenbach show that threefourths of the animals known, have nearly the same facial angle ; and yet what a disparity between their instincts and faculties ! What informa- tion, then, do we derive from Camper's facial angle ? Moreover, as Cuvier himself observes, the cerebral mass is by no means placed in all animals, immediately behind or beneath what is called the forehead. In a great many species of animals, on the contrary, the external table of the frontal is at a consider- able distance from the internal, and this distance increases with the age of the animal. The brain of the swine is placed an inch lower than the frontal bones seem to indicate ; that of the ox, in some parts three inches ; that of the elephant, from six to thir- teen. In other animals, the measurement is generally com- menced at the frontal sinus instead of the cerebrum. From these considerations, Cuvier was induced to draw a tangent to the inter- nal instead of the external surface of the cranium. The cerebrum of the wolf and many species of dogs, especially when the indi- viduals are very old, is placed directly behind the frontal sinuses. In the wolf, especially the large and most ferocious variety, it is depressed as in the hyena ; in the dog it is situated higher or lower, according to the species ; but, notwithstanding this differ- ence in the situation of the brain, the facial angle, as it is com- monly measured, must be the same ; from this the inference would be, that the dog, the wolf, and the hyena, have the same qualities, and each in the same degree. In the greater part of the rodentia, the morse, &c., the brain is so depressed and so placed behind the frontal sinuses, that the facial line cannot be drawn. The facial line of the cetacea, on account of the singular conformation of the head, would lead to results absolutely false. I know many negroes, who, with very prominent jaws, are quite distinguished for their intellectual faculties ; yet the projection ot 388 APPENDIX. the jaws renders the facial angle much more acute, than it would be with the usual conformation of Europeans. In order that the same angle should exist in a European, the forehead must be flat- tened and retreating. But the foreheads of the negroes in ques- tion, on the contrary, are very projecting. Who, under these cir- cumstances, would expect to find the same amount of intellect corresponding to the same facial angle ? The facial line cannot be applied to birds, as many naturalists have already observed. From what has been said, we should expect that naturalists would at length renounce the facial angle of Camper ; but the most ignorant are generally the most conceited. In spite of this complete refutation of Camper's facial line, Delpit extols it in the following terms : " If ever a relation of this kind presented characters of generality and fixedness, adequate to excite a reasonable confidence in mat- ters belonging to the domain of empiricism, rather than that of science, it is the relation or proportion of magnitude, which Camper first perceived and revealed, by comparing the brain of man with that of the different species of animals. We here see a successive decrease of intelligence, proportionate to the acuteness of the facial angle and the consequent diminution of the cerebral cavity. This affords a constant and fixed relation. It can be appreciated with a sufficient degree of exactness by the direct light of com* parative anatomy, and by observation of the habits and intelligence of the dififerent classes of animals ; it can also be verified by the comparison of men very unequally endowed with intellectual faculties, in whom the contraction of the cerebral cavity and the magnitude of the facial angle exhibit the most remarkable diversi- ties. Here the physiognomical sign has, if I may be allowed the expression, a wide extent of acceptation ; it rests upon a broad basis, upon a definite division, and one of easy comprehension and verification ; for, if there is some discrepancy of opinion, in regard to the number and nomenclature of the faculties of the mind, the sentiments of the soul, the modifications or shades of character which give birth to particular passions, moral dispositions, habits, whether virtuous or vicious ; if these classifications are, in a great measure, arbitrary, and the language used somewhat vague ; if, in short, the greater part of these nominal faculties are mere abstrac- tions of the mind, purely imaginary existences, and therefore can- not be actually located in any part of the brain ; the case is quite different, when we merely seek to establish a general relation be APPENDIX. 389 tween a constant sign manifested in the organization, and the de- gree of reason, mind, or intellect, attributed to different men, or the degrees of sagacity attributed to different species of animals. Here, no one is at a loss, because there is ample latitude for com- paring and judging; in the system of Gall, on the contrary, the comparisons rest upon minute points, which are subject to discus- sion, exceptions, a thousand uncertainties in the signs and various applications."* If the reader will review what I have said against Camper's facial line, he will find a refutation of all this reasoning of Delpit ; a proof that he defends it merely because it is in vogue. It is this very generality and fixedness, which render it, in almost all cases, inapplicable ; this is the inherent defect in the supposed impor- tance of Camper's facial angle. It is implicitly supposed, that no difference but that of degree, exists between the capacities of the different species and individuals of the human race, and the dif- ferent species and individuals of the animal kingdom. Thus the intelligence of men and other animals would always be propor- tioned to the magnitude of the facial angle. This being premised, I ask, which, out or two, three, four, &c., has the most intelli- gence, the dog, ape, beaver, the ant, or the bee? Ants and bees live in an admirable republic, and form astonishing constructions, which they know how to modify according to circumstances. The beaver and penduline build with equally marvellous skill, and with a foresight which seldom errs ; the dog and the ape have very little foresight, and are incapable of the most insignificant con- struction. Which has the greater intelligence, Voltaire or Des- cartes? Could the former have been a mathematician and the latter a poet ? Which has the higher degree of intellect, Mozart or Lessing, who, with all his genius, detested music? In short, which has the most intelligence, my dog who retraces his steps through the most complicated routes, or myself, who am always going astray? Measure now the facial angle of the ant, bee, beaver, penduline, ape, my dog, and of myself, and estimate the result. Acknowledge, then, that your division, so definite, so easy to be apprehended, is absolutely useless, and that you are obliged to advert to divers instincts, propensities, faculties, and their different degrees of energy, to which your facial angle is wholly inapplicable. Your intelligence, instinct, address, are in * Dictionnaire des Sciences Med. t. xxxviii. p. 263. 33* 390 APPENDIX reality mere abstractions, imaginary existences. Do you consider the propensity to procreation, the love of offspring, the carnivorous instinct, the talent for music, poetry, &c., as imaginary existences? You see, then, that it is more convenient to tread the beaten path, than to verify observations. Gall on the Functions of the Brain, page 195. IMPORTANT NEW WORKS JUST PUBLISHED BY J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 57 CHATHAM STREET. I. M. DE TOCdUEVILLES NEW WORK IN ONE VOLUME OCTAVO. THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY, Being the second part of " Democracy in America," by ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 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