Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

BEAUTY;
ILLUSTRATED CHIEFLY BY AN
ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION
OF
BEAUTY IN WOMAN,

BY ALEXANDER WALKER,
AUTHOR OF “INTERMARRIAGE,” “WOMAN,” “PHYSIOGNOMY FOUNDED
ON PHYSIOLOGY,” “THE NERVOUS SYSTEM,” ETC.

EDITED BY AN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN

NEW YORK:
HENRY G. LANGLEY, 8 ASTOR-HOUSE.
1845.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840,
By J. & H. G. LANGLEY,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New
York
STEREOTYPED BY J. S. REDFIELD,
13 Chambers Street, New York

DEDICATION.

TO

GEORGE BIRBECK, M.D., F.G.S.,
PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION, &c., &c., &c.

A department of science, which in many respects must be regarded as new, cannot so properly be dedicated to any one as to the inventor of the best mode of diffusing scientific knowledge among the most meritorious and most oppressed classes of society.

When the enemies of freedom, in order effectually to blind the victims of their spoliation, imposed a tax upon knowledge, you rendered the acquirement of science easy by the establishment of mechanics’ institutions—you gave the first and greatest impulse to that diffusion of knowledge which will render the repetition of such a conspiracy against humanity impossible.

You more than once also wrested a reluctant concession, in behalf of untaxed knowledge, from the men who had evidently succeeded, in some degree, to the spirit, as well as to the office, of the original conspirators, and who unwisely hesitated between the bad interest which is soon felt by all participators in expensive government, and their dread of the new and triumphant power of public opinion, before which they know and feel that they are but as the chaff before the whirlwind.

For these services, accept this respectful dedication, as the expression of a homage, in which I am sure that I am joined by thousands of Britons.

Nor, in writing this, on a subject of which your extensive knowledge enables you so well to judge, am I without a peculiar and personal motive.

I gratefully acknowledge that, in one of the most earnest and strenuous mental efforts I ever made, in my work on “The Nervous System,” I owed to your cautions as to logical reasoning and careful induction, an anxiety at least, and a zeal in these respects, which, whatever success may have attended them, could not well be exceeded.

I have endeavored to act conformably with the same cautions in the present work. He must be weak-minded, indeed, who can seek for aught in philosophy but the discovery of truth; and he must be a coward who, believing he has discovered it, has any scruple to announce it.

ALEXANDER WALKER.

April 10, 1836.

AMERICAN ADVERTISEMENT.

The present volume completes the series of Mr. Walker’s anthropological works. To say that they have met with a favorable reception from the American public, would be but a very inadequate expression of the unprecedented success which has attended their publication. “Intermarriage,” the first of the series, passed through six large editions within eighteen months, and “Woman,” has met with a sale scarcely less extensive. The numerous calls for the present work, have compelled the publishers to issue it sooner than they had contemplated; and, it is believed, that it will be found not less worthy of attention than the preceding.

All must acknowledge the interesting nature of the subject treated in the present work, as well as its intimate connexion with those which have already passed under discussion. The analysis of beauty on philosophical principles, is attended with numerous difficulties, not the least of which arises from the want of any fixed and acknowledged standard. The term Beauty is, indeed, generally considered as a vague generality, varying according to national, and even individual taste and judgment.

Mr. Walker claims, in his advertisement, numerous points of originality, some of which, on examination, may perhaps prove to have been proposed previously by other writers. Enough, however, will remain to entitle him to the credit of great ingenuity and acuteness. As treated by him, the subject assumes an aspect very different from that exhibited in any other publication. To trace the connexion of beauty with, and its dependance on, anatomical structure and physiological laws—to show how it may be modified by causes within our control—to describe its different forms and modifications, and defects, as indicated by certain physical signs—to analyze its elements, with a view to its influence on individuals and society, in connexion with its perpetration in posterity—all these were novel topics of vast and exciting interest, and well adapted to the genius, taste, and research of our author.

In preparing the present edition, it has been thought expedient to make some verbal alterations, and omit a few paragraphs, to which a refined taste might perhaps object, and to bring together in the Appendix such collateral matter, as might serve to correct, extend, or illustrate the views presented in the text. With these explanations, the work is confidently commended to the popular as well as philosophical reader, as worthy of studious examination.

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY,

BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

It maybe set down, we suppose, as a matter sufficiently settled to become a principle, that men are moved by nothing more generally and certainly than by the power of Beauty—particularly Beauty in Woman. That it has an influence upon all of one sex, like that which Master Shakspeare has given picture of in the lines we have set upon our front, we would not pretend to say: but that the wild bard was no freshman in his knowledge of humanity so far as heart and mind matters were concerned, we feel safe to assert—and feel confident that the passionate language of Romeo trespasses no bounds, and is but a faithful declaration of a power that rules with a milder or a mightier sway in the bosoms of all who answer to the distinctive name of Man.

This may seem a wide assertion. But it is no less true. The reason of the slow belief in this universality is, that men are not always subject to the influence, while the principle of it is always a tenant within them. There is a time—and with the time comes the development. The mind, as it unfolds, becomes acquainted with nothing so calculated to excite its wonder, as its own properties and capabilities—its new perceptions—its new affections. Till progress brings with it this knowledge of ourselves, we remain ignorant of half that is within us to affect us like a spell, and within whose reach we have been unconsciously passing onward and upward, by a Providential ordering, from our childhood at least, if not from our cradles.

Keeping this in view, let us consider for a moment something of the elements of Beauty, and their influence, as a principle, upon the principles of our nature.—And first it must be admitted that they are good—of a good origin—and tend to a good result. They are good elements, we believe, for we find them almost ever associated with what is pleasing, improving, and satisfactory to us. Indeed, in this connexion, we find them a source of consolation and delight, where all else has failed to minister or even suggest them. They are of a good origin—for, if they were not, no such effect would be wrought upon a system so sadly prone to evil and villanous principles, and so little open to pure, and elevating, and comforting ones, that they may be said to come about it, most emphatically, like “angel-visits.” They are elements, again, that tend to a good result, in their operation, for their consequences are almost ever, to make men better satisfied with their condition—where they come in, as an influence upon it, at all—better satisfied with almost everything about them, so long as they are conscious they are creatures of proportions and proprieties, and affected intrinsically by them.

If what we here set down respecting the elements of Beauty be true, it is certainly of an interesting importance in view of the influence of that quality upon the principles of our nature. We call it quality. Perhaps this is not name enough for something so peculiar and powerful in its connexion with the total of our spirits. We will term it such, however, for want of a wider language—and leave men to feel out such definition as they may deem more good and grateful.

Implanted, then, so deeply as Beauty is in the human heart—so universal, that millions bow to it as something to fear while they worship—so certain, as a principle, that scarcely a human being can be said to walk without the sphere of its influence—it would be needless as well as unphilosophical to deny that the great object of its fixture—its enthronement upon its high place, should be one of no common character, or of a tendency and effect within us, which it would be wrong and inexcusable to overlook.

What then is the design of this singular and mysterious power, in connexion with this sad and unaccountable nature—so often the theme of eulogy and lament—of lofty, long, and desperate satire, among men? The best answer, we think, is rendered in the influence, where operation is open to every one who thinks, observes, reasons, acts, among his fellows.—To enter into particular definitions here, would be needless as well as wearisome. The general effect upon man, as a sentient and moral being, must be the point to which our simple remarks and reasons must be confined.

We have somewhere seen it observed—and have little doubt in the publicity and good sense of the thought—that there was perhaps no one thing which tended so materially to awaken lofty and good sentiments among the people—to qualify the rough outline of character—and soften and harmonize the untaught elements of their nature, as the frequent, unrestrained, and encouraged contemplation of the perfect statuary, which their master sculptors were continually erecting in their temples. This freedom was a perpetual lesson to a nation. The principle was developed, and the power of Beauty had a new, and forming, and mastering sway. A people were coming into the light of better feeling—better society—better government, under the gradual but no less certain operation of a living principle, brought into great and beautiful action, under the commanding hand of Genius, that seemed to pass at once from the sky, whose perfect things it presented to the sons of earth!—It is not singular, we think, that such a leading forth of Beauty to the contemplation of awakened man, should produce effects like those to which we have adverted. It strikes us that it would have been strange had this consequence not been generated, and noble sculpture thus have stood before a world as cold as the marble from which it was stricken. We believe that Beauty saw a renovating power in the wonder of the Venus—and it would be a sad thing to feel that it had ever ceased in its progress where woman or the chisel were doing such things to advance it. Nor has it ceased. History presents too many instances of the monarch power of Beauty in woman, to permit us to doubt upon this subject. It has passed upon the spirit of Man like a thing of necromance—winning him to its command, and bowing him to its will, until royalty itself has stood powerless in its presence, and the poor mass of mortals, stricken and panting like cornered deer before the inexorable hunter. It has been the salvation and ruin of nations, as well as families and individuals—for queens have obeyed its supremacy as well as maidens, and kings squared their mandates, and regulated their course, by the “line of beauty.” All this is matter of record. Sacred and profane story abounds with instances which admit of no denial, while they excite our wonder. But the wonder ceases, notwithstanding, when we turn from record to our own experience, and see the effect, on others and ourselves, of what we once read about in the curious annals of our species. We now see the finished sculpture that delighted and softened the people of an age, gazed on and admired by every being whom we are accustomed to regard as rational. No one pretends to question, much less to deny the beauty of the lovely statue, in which the perfection of woman is portrayed in the finished feature or the swelling form. Insensibility here would properly be regarded as a thing to be ashamed of—as little better than a moral paralysis, which might well exclude the questionable man from the circle of reasonable, enlightened, and rising people, as a sad fellow, and a poor pilgrim on the earth. You will rarely find the roughest nature with a cuticle that will not confess some sensibility in a presence such as this—and I think we may set it down as a thing well ascertained, that the picture or chiselling of a beautiful woman will command the tribute of delight—the acknowledgment—and loud one too—of a whole and hearty worship from the tar, as well as the amateur. The galleries of our artists, in which the principle of Beauty is made to speak and command, sufficiently prove that there is no passing away of this power which has moved, ruled, and regulated, to a degree almost incredible, the world of Man, from the time he came to this school, and this trial of the passions and affections. Let the question be asked of any one, whose spirit is in healthful action, if his experience before the work of art, imbodying the Beauty we speak of, is not of a humanizing—and we will add civilizing, as well as elevating character, and we are willing to abide the issue of his answer, in full support of the position we have taken. Such is our belief on the universality of this influence or element. We have heard it denied, it is certain—but it was even by those who have never tested the power by an application of it to themselves, or a surrender to its mysteries, by an approach to the real presence—and who, like bachelors upon the fearful subject of matrimony, only betray a silliness just in proportion to their ignorance. These are the men who have not yet unfolded. They are in the chrysalis condition—and to be pitied accordingly. They may depend upon it, when they pass from the slough, they will be ready to confess they are, alas! too deep in that other “Slough of Despond,” which is too well represented by a sad sensitiveness to the magic of Beauty, and as sad a consciousness that there is no approach for them, which can be crowned by a capture of the citadel, or the least enjoyment of the glorious delights it encloses. When we hear men deteriorating this power, or thanking the gods they never bent knee or uttered vow at its shrine, we are ever ready to believe they have either bowed all their days to far other and sadder principles, and made oath to idols of bad material and worse sculpture, or that they are as much beyond the reach of any good, and proper, and beautiful influence, as the clod of the valley to which they are hastening. They may take pride in denial of such influence—but what is there to boast of in insensibility of any kind, where the very betrayal of admiration is the best evidence of a good taste—a good feeling—a good faith—a good principle? It cannot have escaped common observation, we presume, that a love of Beauty—or, at least, any peculiar sensitiveness to that quality in the female sex, has been held—and by sensible men, too—as a weakness, or an index only of a weak mind, or a feminine spirit. This is certainly very foolish—and a lamentable mistake. But it is easily accounted for. It will be observed that the doctrine is never held save by men who see beauty in things which other persons would hold abhorrent. They are men who are in love with metaphysics, or glory in a mathematical existence. They like, beyond all, the features of a problem, and think only of the good face of a speculation. They see, as they profess, at least, no proportions, save in some cold system of an absurd philosophy, and are only fit for judgment in things either too abstract for the mass of men, or too decidedly “earthy” to be worthy the attention of beings made for a better sphere, and capable of seeing something in much that is around us, which intimates the order and beauty by which that sphere is distinguished. This is enough to put an end to this objection, in reference to the subtle element of which we are venturing our humble, but we believe, orthodox sentiments. For ourselves, we know of no more sad or senseless mental condition in which we could be placed—we mean in the social relation—than this one of such ungraceful stupidity, as this of which a boast is made by such weary fellows as we have adverted to. If Beauty is an outside principle, which they argue is of no utility, and quite unworthy of one who should look beyond the mere coating of this existence for his reward or his satisfaction, then we say that even an outside of loveliness and grace, is better than an interior of deformity, uselessness, indefiniteness, chaos—even though it pretend to be all spiritual, while it suggests little but nonsense, and is quite certain to end in nothing.

There is another thought in connexion with this element of Beauty in Woman, which certainly deserves consideration. We believe the philosophy which it intimates is founded in very good sense, and withal, in propriety. Insensibility to the power, we have observed, is no index of anything virtuous or elevated. It is rather, in all cases, a bad omen. Men look upon it—and that very rationally—as indicative of something unhealthy in the moral system. It seems to tell of a hardness—bad propensities—a crustaceous nature. In short, man regards his fellow, who is dead to this influence, as rather to be suspected at all times, than to be trusted at any. But this is not his saddest trial—or what should be regarded as such, if he can sign himself a man, with any conscience whatever. His estimation by woman is unqualified and unquestioned. He is set down by her as a creature as unworthy of regard by the sisterhood, as he is devoid of warmth or wit in anything that has to do with the social relations, and, above all, with the mysteries of the passions and affections. He is marked by them with a timble brand. He is set apart as a poor thing, who knows nothing of what he was made for, and whose ideas of the graceful and lovely in life are about as defined and worthy as those of the brutes that perish. He is run upon and laughed at by the playful, and satirised and scathed by the witty. In the circle he is treated—not pitied—as a piece of circulating insensibility; in the street he is pointed at as one who might be well set up as a mark at its corners. And this is right. It is well he should be visited by rebuke from her who presents so continually around him the elements of that power he is foolish to resist, and unable, after all, to depreciate. Woman’s opinion, here, is a part of the great system which the influence she defends is meant to support—and we truly hope that she will maintain it aloud as long as she can utter it. Of the power of Beauty, both the world of fact, and the world of fancy, are abounding in instances. The records of ancient story present us with their Helens and their Cleopatras, who wrought upon nations by the magic of their faces. Later times show us the wonder of the power in Mary of Scotland, and many a page might be adverted to, full of the adventures which marked the love passages of kings as well as clowns, originating in this mysterious influence, as developed in the graces and glories of woman.

The power of Beauty operates widely, and everywhere. It takes the good man captive as well as the miscellaneous one, who has no definite rule to guide him on his wanderings. It bows the masters and teachers of men at its shrine, as well as the scholars and children of life. It draws the merchant from his desk—the philosopher from his chair. It gives new utterance to the poet, while it wins the statesman to confess that there is some virtue in the outside of the world, after all, and some attraction apart from the chaos of cabinets and broad seals.

There is a beautiful exemplification of this power given by Florian, in his story of a Theban sculptor. He is a wandering orphan in the streets of his native city, and his first entrance into the workshop of the celebrated Praxitiles well proves the truth of what we have set down in the foregoing pages.—“He is suddenly transported on beholding so many masterpieces of art! He gazes upon them—he is lost in admiration! and turning to Praxitiles with an air of grace and juvenile freedom, “Father,” cried he, “give me the chisel, and teach me to become as great as thou art.” Praxitiles stared at the boy, astonished at the fire of enthusiasm which kindled in his eyes, and embracing him with affection, “Yes!” said he, “remain with me; I will now be your master, but my hope shall be that you may soon be mine.”

The pupil soon becomes worthy of his teacher. He becomes the heir of his fortune, and removes to Miletus. There, the daughter of the governor visits his statuary, and from the time of that visit, his destiny is sealed. Love usurps the place of every other passion, and the chisel is cast aside in silence, under that supremacy. The Venus of marble that adorned his study, was no longer a Venus before that living one which filled his eye and his bosom. He felt that he must tell his love, or die. He declares it, in a hurried letter—a slave betrays him—and the indignant father accuses him before the council. He is banished from the city—and embarks in a Cretan vessel.

At this time pirates surprise the city, and pillage the temple of Venus. The statue of that goddess is torn from its pedestal. It was the Palladium of the island, and on its possession hung the happiness of the Milesians. The oracle of Delphos was consulted, and it was answered that Miletus would not be safe till a new statue of Venus, beautiful as the Goddess herself, should replace that ravished by the pirates. The inhabitants were in despair. They accused the governor of unjustly banishing the only man who might now save the city. He is seized, and hurried in chains to a dungeon. Now came the trial of the daughter, whose beauty had brought on this fearful crisis. She equips her vessel, and with treasures about her, determines to go in person to Athens—Corinth—Thebes—to find some artist who should emancipate her father. Tempted to land on a delicious island, she there comes suddenly upon her lover, whom she had been taught to believe had been long laid under the waters that lashed the heights of Naxos.

The story is soon told. In the humble cabin of his solitude he had prepared a statue which he said would meet the demand of the sybil. But he claimed to have it placed veiled upon the pedestal in the temple of Miletus, before she should even look upon the marble. She consents—and they embark for that island. The artist is received with shoutings and joy. The statue is borne to its trial on the altar of Venus. It stands erect. He fears nothing—and it is unveiled. The features are not mistaken—and the people utter cries of joy as they behold the image of his mistress! The enamored sculptor had made her, in his loneliness, the model of his Venus!—He is called on to claim his reward. “Release him you have imprisoned,” he cried—“release her father—and I ask no more.”—It is done—and the father gives up the daughter to his preserver, at the foot of her statue.

Can the power of Beauty be better illustrated than in this simple tale? We are not shown simply its effect upon an uneducated, artless individual—upon a mind in its singleness, and just awakened to its own capabilities of suffering and joy—but we see it operating in a wide and unquestioned influence, upon the spirit of a whole people. It was not demanded by fate that there should be merely a replacing of the piece of marble upon the pedestal from which it had been torn—it was required that the statue should be as royal in its Beauty as that was whose place it should supply. Beauty was the spirit-word of the destiny of Miletus. It was Beauty which had been guardian of the city—and it was Beauty which must now restore it, by her return to her temple.

But we will not dwell upon this story, though it so beautifully exemplifies the position we maintain. There are many instances of frequent occurrence in the world, which tell as strong a tale, of the influence of Grace and Beauty, as is here presented in the Grecian record. We may not witness them—but the power is working ever like fate in the mingled material of our life; and it only requires a sober faith, together with a moderate observation, to convince all men that they are the creatures of Beauty, as much as they are of destiny and dust.

But there is another consideration connected with this subject—an important one, too—and for that reason we have reserved it to the last.

We are settled in our conviction that there is something in Personal Beauty, of a representative and correspondent character. It represents a spiritual beauty—corresponds with a moral symmetry. Though we call it an outward property, still it must be a picture of the internal. It would seem impossible that there can be a speaking expression of grace and loveliness, upon a face that is but a telegraph of an inward deformity and ugliness. Perhaps all this may seem somewhat ideal in its philosophy—and, perhaps, almost transcendental. But we hold it to be true. It certainly appears to us reasonable that the minor should reflect the reality, as well in this heaven-made humanity, as amid the earthy art of our drawing-rooms. That the spirit should speak out in the language of the countenance, is to us as excellent sense as that it should tell its story in protuberances and indentations. Who can deny this—and where will the argument fail? We pause for a reply.

Let us be understood, however. We have no idea of going beyond reason in a theory, which, though it may appear more than plausible to us, may seem far this side of plausible to others. Yet we think we are borne out by example. We do not maintain, it will be remembered, that beauty of person must necessarily be the representative of moral beauty, according to the best and highest definition of that term. That definition, we presume, would include the virtuous and the heavenly. That these traits are unfailing accompaniments of noble features—the beautiful countenance—the finished form—it would be hazardous and foolish to assert. What we intend to say is this—that we believe external beauty is the representation of an internal and spiritual quality of the same nature. That Beauty may be spiritual, though it may not be moral—the Beauty of Virtue. It may be the beauty of superior and surpassing powers—the Beauty of Genius. It may be the beauty of a mind, uncommon in its attractions, and in its proportions beyond fault or question. It may be the beauty of intellectual symmetry—and this may find its speaking resemblance in the chiseled face and figure, as certainly as the moral loveliness of the heaven-inspired—the emphatically good man. Of what more perfect mental proportions could the human countenance have been indicative, than the countenance of Napoleon? The symmetry of Genius spake there, if it was true—as it certainly was—that moral beauty had no telegraph in that splendid sculpture of the man.

But we have said as much as we can afford to—though the more particular subject of our remarks—or what in good faith should have been, if it has not—Beauty in Woman, would seem to be one on which it would not be deemed unknightly to give way to a pretty expression. We must, however, leave all considerations of gallantry on this score, to others who can amplify better than we can, when we have got to the end of our chapter.

ADVERTISEMENT.

There is perhaps no subject more universally or more deeply interesting than that which is the chief subject of the present work. Yet no book, even pretending to science or accuracy, has hitherto appeared upon it. The forms and proportions of animals—as of the horse and the dog—have been examined in a hundred volumes: not one has been devoted to woman, on whose physical and moral qualities the happiness of individuals, and the perpetual improvement of the human race, are dependant.

The cause of this has been, probably, the neglect on the part of individuals, to combine anatomical and physiological knowledge with the critical observation of the external forms of woman; and, perhaps, some repugnance to anthropological knowledge on the part of the public. The last obstacle, if ever it existed, is now gone by, as many circumstances show; and it will be the business of the author, in this work, to endeavor to obviate the former.

The present work, beside giving new views of the theory of beauty, and of its application to the arts, presents an analysis and classification of beauty in woman. A subsequent work will apply the principles here established to intermarriages and crossings among mankind, and will explain their results in relation to the happiness of individuals, and to the beauty and the freedom from insanity of their offspring. A final work will examine the relations of woman in society, will expose the extravagant hypothesis of writers on this subject who have been ignorant of anthropology, and will describe the reforms which the common interests of mankind demand in this respect.

It is now to be seen, whether a branch of science which is strictly founded on anatomy and physiology—one which entangles the reader in no mystical and delusive hypothesis, and presents to him only indisputable facts—one which is applicable to the subject most universally and deeply interesting to mankind, the critical judgment of female beauty, as founded on necessary functions—and one which unravels the greater difficulties which that subject presents—may not excite and permanently command a great degree of public interest.

A preliminary view of the importance of this subject is given in the first chapter; the urgency of its discussion, in relation to the interests of decency and morality, is established in the second; and some useful cautions as to youth are offered in the third.

In regard to the importance of the subject, I may, even here, avail myself of the highest authorities.

Thomas More, speaking of the people of his commonwealth, says: “They do greatly wonder at the folly of all other nations, which, in buying a colt (whereas, a little money is in hazard), be so chary and circumspect, that, though he be almost all bare, yet they will not buy him, unless the saddle and all the harness be taken off—lest, under those coverings, be hid some gall or sore. And yet, in choosing a wife, which shall be either pleasure or displeasure to them all their life after, they be so reckless, that, all the residue of the woman’s body being covered with clothes, they esteem her scarcely by one hand-breadth (for they can see no more but her face), and so to join her to them, not without great jeopardy of evil agreeing together—if anything in her body afterward should chance to offend and mislike them.”[1]

Francis Bacon is of similar opinion.

Happily, the advancement of anthropological science in modern times, may, as is here shown, be so applied as to render quite unnecessary the objectionable methods proposed by both these philosophers, in order to carry their doctrines into practice.

Shall I be blamed, because I avail myself of the progress of knowledge to render all that these great men desired on this subject of easy attainment and inoffensive to woman? Shall I be blamed, because I first facilitate that which the still farther advancement of knowledge will inevitably render an everyday occurrence, and the guide of the most important act of human life?—I care not.

In the details as to female beauty, it will be seen how incorrectly Winckelmann says: “In female figures, the forms of beauty are not so different, nor the gradations so various, as in those of males; and therefore in general they present no other difference than that which is dependant upon age.... Hence, in treating of female beauty, few observations occur as necessary to be made, and the study of the artist is more limited and more easy.... It is to be observed, that, in speaking of the resemblance of nude female figures, I speak solely of the body, without concluding from it that they also resemble each other in the distinctive characters of the head, which are particularly marked in each, whether goddess or heroine.”—The differences, even in the bodies of females, are here shown to be both numerous and capable of distinct classification.

It is right to observe, that this work has nothing to do with an early production of the writer, a consciousness of the small value of which prevented his attaching his name to it, which he now knows to be utterly worthless, and which has since been vamped up with things which are more worthless still.

The most valuable features of the present work are entirely new and original. Others are such as the writer thought not unworthy of preservation from earlier essays. He has also, throughout this work, adopted from other writers, with no other alteration than accuracy required, every view, opinion, or remark, which he thought applicable to a department of science, of which all the great features are new.

Such being the case, he thinks it just, at once to himself and others, to indicate here the only points on which he can himself lay any claim to originality. These are as follows:—

The more complete establishment of the truth that, in relation to man and woman in particular, beauty is the external sign of goodness in organization and function, and thence its importance.—Chapter I., and the work generally.

The showing that the discussion of this subject, though involving the examination of the naked figure, is urgent in relation to decency (the theory of which is discussed), morality, and happy intermarriage.—Chapter II.

The showing that the ancient religion was the cause of the perfection of the fine arts in Greece, by its personification of simple attributes or virtues, as objects of adoration.—Chapter II.

The exposition of the nature, the kinds, and the characteristics of beauty; and of some errors of Burke, Knight, &c., on this subject.—Chapter IV.

The showing that there are elements of beauty invariable in their nature and effect, and that these are modified and complicated in advancing from simple to complex beings, and the arts relating to them.—Chapter VI.

The pointing out these elements of beauty, and their mode of operation in inanimate beings; and the errors of Knight and Allison on this subject.—Sect. I., Chapter VI.

The pointing out these elements, and others which are superadded, in living beings; and the errors of Allison on this subject.—Sect. II., Chapter VI.

The pointing out these elements, and others which are farther superadded, in thinking beings; and the errors of Burke and Knight on this subject.—Sect. III., Chapter VI.

The exposition of these elements, as differing, or variously modified, in the useful, ornamental, and intellectual arts, respectively; and some remarks on ornament in architecture, and in female dress.—Sect. IV., Chapter VI.

The explanation of the nature of the picturesque, after the failure of Knight and Price in this respect.—Sect. I., Appendix to preceding chapters.

The vindication of the doctrine of Hobbes, as to the cause of laughter; and exposition of the errors of Campbell and Beattie on this subject.—Sect. II., Appendix.

The explanation of the cause of the pleasure received from representations exciting pity; and of the errors of Burke, &c., on that subject.—Sect. III., Appendix.

The arrangement of anatomy and physiology, and the application of the principles of these sciences to the distinguishing and judging of beauty.—Chapter VII.

The explanation of the difference in the beauty of the two sexes even in the same country.—Chapter IX.

Various arguments establishing the standard of beauty in woman; and exposure of the sophistry of Knight, on this subject.—Chapter X.

The showing, by the preceding arrangements, that the ancient temperaments are partial or complex views of anthropological phenomena.—Chapter XI., et seq.

The description of the first species of beauty, or that of the locomotive system, and of its varieties, as founded on examination of structure.—Chapter XII.

The description of the second species of beauty, or that of the nutritive system, and of its varieties, as founded on examination of structure.—Chapter XIII.

The description of the third species of beauty, or that of the thinking system, and of its varieties, as founded on examination of structure.—Chapter XIV.

The explanation of the cause of the deformity produced by the obliquely placed eyes of the Chinese, &c.—Chapter XV.

The explanation of the mode in which the action of the muscles of the face becomes physiognomically expressive.—Ibid.

The explanation of the physiognomical character of the different kinds of the hair.—Ibid.

The explanation of the cause of the different effects of the same face, even in a state of repose.—Ibid.

The indication of the faulty feature, and its gradual increase, even in beautiful faces.—Ibid.

The exposition of the different organization of Greek and Roman heads.—Ibid.

The explanation of the combinations and transitions of beauty.—Chapter XVI.

The explanation of the numerical, geometrical, and harmonic methods of proportion, employed by the ancient Greeks.—Chapter XVII.

Some remarks on character, expression, and detail in art.—Ibid.

Some observations on the Greek forehead, actual as well as ideal.—Chapter XVIII.

The explanation of the reason of the Greek ideal rule, as to the proportion between the forehead and the other parts of the face.—Ibid.

The explanation of the reason of the Greek ideal rule, as to the profile of the forehead and nose, or as to the direction of the mesial line which they form, and the exposition of Winckelmann’s blunder respecting it.—Ibid.

The explanation of the reason why the Greeks suppressed all great degrees of impassioned expression.—Ibid.

The mere indication of the Greek idealizations as applied to the nutritive and locomotive systems, and the explanation of the latter in the Apollo.—Ibid.

The replies to the objections of Burke and Alison, as to ideal beauty.—Ibid.

The enunciation of the ideal in attitude.—Ibid.

Various views as to the Venus de Medici, the conformation of the nose, and the connexion of odor with love, in animals and plants.—Chapter XIX.

Some remarks on the Venus de Medici.—Ibid.

The pointing out and explanation of various defects in beauty.—Chapter XX.

The pointing out and explanation of various external indications of figure, beauty, mind, habits, and age.—Chapter XXI.

The writer may possibly be mistaken as to the originality of one or two of these points; but, leaving the critical reader to deduct as many of these as it is in his power to do, enough of novelty would remain for the writer’s ambition, in this respect, if he had done no more than exposed the errors of Burke, Knight, Alison, &c., and established the true doctrine of beauty, in the first chapters—given an analysis and classification of beauty in woman, in the chapters which follow—and applied this to the fine arts, and solved the difficulty of Leonardo da Vinci, &c., in the last chapters.

ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION
OF
BEAUTY IN WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.

It is observed by Home, in his “Elements of Criticism,” that a perception of beauty in external objects is requisite to attach us to them; that it greatly promotes industry, by promoting a desire to possess things that are beautiful; and that it farther joins with utility, in prompting us to embellish our houses and enrich our fields. “These, however,” he says, “are but slight effects, compared with the connexions which are formed among individuals in society by means of this singular mechanism: the qualifications of the head and heart are undoubtedly the most solid and most permanent foundations of such connexions; but as external beauty lies more in view, and is more obvious to the bulk of mankind, than the qualities now mentioned, the sense of beauty possesses the more universal influence in forming these connexions; at any rate, it concurs in an eminent degree, with mental qualifications, to produce social intercourse, mutual good-will, and, consequently, mutual aid and support, which are the life of society.”

Dr. Pritchard similarly observes, that “the perception of beauty is the chief principle in every country which directs men in their marriages.”

Advancing a step farther, Sir Anthony Carlisle thinks a taste for beauty worthy of being cultivated. “Man,” he observes, “dwells with felicity even on ideal female attributes, and in imagination discovers beauties and perfections which solace his wearied hours, far beyond any other resource within the scope of human life. It cannot, then, be unwise to cultivate and refine this natural tendency, and to enhance, if possible, these charms of life. We increase and heighten all our pleasures by awakening and cultivating reflections which do not exist in a state of ignorance. Thus, the botanist perceives elegances in plants and flowers unknown and unfelt by the vulgar, and the landscape-painter revels in natural or imaginary scenery, with feelings which are unknown to the multitude. It would be absurd to pretend that the more exquisite and more deeply attractive beauty of woman is not worthy of more profound, as well as more universal cultivation.”

Such are the observations of philosophical anthropologists, who, nevertheless, in these remarks, consider mere physical beauty independent of its connexion with corresponding functions or moral qualities.

If, however, the external beauty of woman, calculated as it is to flatter the most experienced eye, limited its effect to a local impression, to an optical enjoyment, the sentiment of beauty would be far from having all its extent and value. Happily, ideas of goodness, of suitableness, of sympathy, of progressive perfection, and of mutual happiness, are, by an intimate and inevitable association, connected with the first impression made by the sight of beauty.

The foundation of this feeling is well expressed by Dr. Pritchard, in his observation that “the idea of beauty of person is synonymous with that of health and perfect organization.”

Hence, it has been observed, the great ideal models of beauty please us, not merely because their forms are disposed and combined so as to affect agreeably the organ of sight, but because their exterior appears to correspond to admirable qualities, and to announce an elevation in the condition of humanity. Such do the Greek monuments appear to physiologists and philosophical artists, whose minds pass rapidly from the beauty of forms to that locomotive, vital, or mental excellence which it compels them to suppose.

Goodness and beauty in woman will accordingly be found to bear a strict relation to each other; and the latter will be seen always to be the external sign of the former.

There are, however (slightly to anticipate what must afterward be explained), different kinds, both of beauty and of goodness, which are confounded by vulgar observers; or rather there are beauty and goodness belonging to different systems of which the body is composed, and which ought never to be confounded with each other.

Where, consequently, one of these kinds of beauty and of goodness is wanting, even in a remarkable degree, others may be found; and, as the vulgar do not distinguish, it is this which leads to the gross error that these qualities have no strict relations to their signs.

Want of beauty, then, in any one of the systems of which the body is composed, indicates want of goodness only in that system; but it is not less a truth, and scarcely of less importance, on that account.—I will now illustrate this by brief examples.

There may, in any individual, exist deformity of limbs; and this will assuredly indicate want of goodness in the locomotive system, of that or general motion. There may exist coarseness of skin, or paleness of complexion; and either of these will as certainly indicate want of goodness in the vital system, or that of nutrition. There may exist a malformation of the brain, externally evident; and this no less certainly will indicate want of goodness in the mental system, or that of thought.

It follows that even the different kinds and combinations of beauty, which are the objects of taste to different persons, are founded upon the same general principle of organic superiority. Nay, even the preferences which, in beauty, appear to depend most on fancy, depend in reality on that cause; and the impression which every degree and modification of beauty makes on mankind, has as a fundamental rule only their sentiment, more or less delicate and just, of physical advantage in relation to each individual. Such is the foundation of all our sentiments of admiration and of love.

The existence or non-existence of these advantages, and the power of determining this, or the judgment of beauty, are therefore of transcendent importance to individuals and to families. Such judgment can be attained by analysis and classification alone. Nothing, therefore, can more nearly affect all human interests than that analysis and classification of beauty which are here proposed.

To place beyond a doubt, and to illustrate more minutely, the extraordinary importance of this subject, as regards advantages real to the species, I may anticipate some of the more minute applications of my doctrine.

If, in the locomotive system of the female, much of the delicacy of form, and the ease and grace of her movements, depend upon the more perfect development of the muscles of the pelvis, and its easily adapting itself to great and remarkable changes, how important must be the ability to determine, even by walk or gesture, the existence of this condition!

If, in the vital system, the elasticity and freshness of the skin are the characteristics of health, and their absence warns us that the condition of woman is unfavorable to the plan of nature relatively to the maintenance of the species—or, if the capacity of the pelvis, and the consequent breadth of the haunches, are necessary to all those functions which are most essentially feminine, impregnation, gestation, and parturition, without danger either to parent or to child—of what extreme importance must be the ability to determine this with certainty and ease!

If, in the mental system, the capacity and delicacy of the organs of sense, and the softness and mobility of the nervous system, are necessary to the vivid and varying sensibility of woman—if it is in consequence of this, that woman is enabled to act on man by the continual observation of all that can captivate his imagination or secure his affection, and by the irresistible seduction of her manners—if it is these qualities which enable her to accommodate herself to his taste, to yield, without constraint, even to the caprice of the moment, and to seize the time when observations, made as it were accidentally, may produce the effect which she desires—if it is by these means that she fulfils her first duty, namely, to please him to whom she has united her days, and to attach him to her and to home by rendering both delightful—if all this is the case, of what inexpressible importance must be the ability to determine, in each individual, the possession of the power and the will to produce such effects!

If (descending to still more minute inquiries) external indications as to figure are required as to parts concealed by drapery—if such indications would obviate deception even with regard to those parts of the figure which are more exposed to observation by the closer adaptation of dress—if, even when the face is seen, the deception as to the degree of beauty, is such that a correct estimate of it is perhaps never formed—if indications as to mind may be derived from many external circumstances—if external indications as to the personal habits of women are both numerous and interesting—if such indications even of age and health are sometimes essential—if all this be the case, let the reader say what other object of human inquiry exceeds this in importance.

Let us not then deceive ourselves respecting the source of those impressions which one sex experiences from the sight of the other. It is evidently nothing else than the more or less delicate and just perception of a certain conformity of means with a want which has been created by nature, and which must be satisfied.

“It is very obvious,” says Dr. Pritchard, “that this peculiarity in the constitution of man must have considerable effects on the physical character of the race, and that it must act as a constant principle of improvement, supplying the place in our own kind of the beneficial control [in the crossing of races] which we exercise over the brute creation.” And he adds: “This is probably the final cause for which the instinctive perception of human beauty was implanted by Providence in our nature.”

We need not wonder, then, that the Greeks should have preferred beauty to all other advantages, should have placed it immediately after virtue in the order of their affections, or should have made it an object of worship.

Even the practical application of this principle to the improvement of the human race is not a matter of conjecture. We have seen both families and nations ameliorated by the means which it affords. Of this, the Turks are a striking example. Nothing, therefore, can better deserve the researches of the physiologist, or the exertions of the philanthropist, than the fact that there are laws, of which we have yet only a glimpse, according to which we may influence the amelioration of the human race in a manner the most extensive and profound, by acting according to a uniform and uninterrupted system.

Well might Cabanis exclaim: “After having occupied ourselves so curiously with the means of rendering more beautiful and better the races of animals or of plants which are useful or agreeable—after having remodelled a hundred times that of horses and dogs—after having transplanted, grafted, cultivated, in all manners, fruits and flowers—how shameful is it to have totally neglected the race of man! As if it affected us less nearly! as if it were more essential to have large and strong oxen than vigorous and healthy men, highly odorous peaches or finely striped tulips, than wise and good citizens!”

I actually know a man who is so deeply interested in the doctrine of crossing, that every hour of his life is devoted to the improvement of a race of bantam fowls and curious pigeons, and who yet married a mad woman, whom he confines in a garret, and by whom he has some insane progeny.

Let it not be imagined that the discovery of the precise laws of crossing or intermarriage, and the best direction of physical living forces, in relation both to the vital faculties and to those of the mind, upon which knowledge and skill may operate for the improvement of our race, is a matter of difficulty.

It will be shown in this work, that there exist not only an influence of beauty and defects on offspring, but peculiar laws regulating the resemblance of progeny to parents—laws which regard the mode in which the organization of parents affects that of children, or regulates the organs which each parent respectively bestows.

It will accordingly be shown, that, as, on the size, form, and proportion, of the various organs, depend their functions, the importance of such laws is indescribable—whether we regard intermarriages, and that immunity from mental or bodily disease which, when well directed, they may ensure, or the determination of the parentage of a child—or the education of children, in conformity with their faculties—or the employment of men in society.

I conclude this brief view in the words of the writer just quoted: “It is assuredly time for us to attempt to do for ourselves that which we have done so successfully for several of our companions in existence, to review and correct this work of nature—a noble enterprise, which truly merits all our cares, and which nature itself appears to have especially recommended to us by the sympathies and the powers which it has given us.”

CHAPTER II.

URGENCY OF THE DISCUSSION OF THIS SUBJECT IN RELATION TO THE INTERESTS OF DECENCY AND MORALITY.

It has now been seen that beauty results from the perfection, chiefly of external forms, and the correspondence of that perfection with superiority of internal functions; on the more or less perfect perception of which, love, intermarriage, and the condition of our race, are dependant.

This mode of considering the elements, the nature, and the consequences of beauty, is equally applicable to the two sexes; but, in woman, the form of the species presents peculiar modifications.

In this work, it is the form of woman which is chosen for examination, because it will be found, by the contrast which is perpetually necessary, to involve a knowledge of the form of man, because it is best calculated to ensure attention from men, and because it is men who, exercising the power of selection, have alone the ability thus to ensure individual happiness, and to ameliorate the species; which are the objects of this work.

Let it not be imagined that the views now taken are less favorable to woman than to man. Whatever ensures the happiness of one ensures that of the other; and as the variety of forms and functions in man requires as many varieties in woman, it is not to exclusion or rejection with regard to woman that this work tends, but to a reasoned guidance in man’s choice, to the greater suitableness of all intermarriages, and to the greater happiness of woman as well as man, both in herself and in her progeny.

But notwithstanding the importance of any work which is in any degree calculated to promote such an object, some will tell us that the analysis of female beauty, on which it can alone be founded, is indelicate.—I shall, on the contrary, show that decency demands this analysis; that the interests of nature, of truth, of the arts, and of morality, demand it.

Our present notions of sexual decency belong more to art than to nature, and may be divided into artificial and artful decencies.

Artificial decencies are illustrated in the habits of various nations. They have their origin in cold countries, where clothing is necessary, and where a deviation from the degree or mode of clothing constitutes indecency. They could not exist in hot climates, where clothing is scarcely possible.

In hot climates, natural decency can alone exist; and there is not, I believe, one traveller in such countries whose works do not prove that natural decency there exists as much as in cold countries. In exemplification of this, I make a single quotation: it would be easy to make thousands. Burchell, speaking of the Bushmen Hottentots, says: “The natural bashful reserve of youth and innocence is to be seen as much among these savages, as in more polished nations; and the young girls, though wanting but little of being perfectly naked, evinced as just a sense of modesty as the most rigid and careful education could have given them.”

In mild climates, the half-clothed or slightly-clothed people appear to be somewhat at a loss what to do. Fond of decorations, like all savage or half-civilized people, they seem to be divided between the tatooing and painting of hot climates, and the clothing of cold ones; and when they adopt the latter, they do not rightly know what to conceal.

The works of all travellers afford the same illustrations of this fact. I quote one. Kotzebue describes the custom among the Tartar women of Kasan, of flying or of concealing their countenance from the sight of a stranger. The necessity of conforming to this custom threw into great embarrassment a young woman who was obliged to pass several times before the German traveller. She at first concealed her face with her hands; but, soon embarrassed by that attitude, she removed the veil which covered her bosom, and threw it over her face. “That,” adds Kotzebue, “was, as we say, uncovering Paul to cover Jacques: the bosom remained naked. To cover that, she next showed what should have been concealed; and if anything escaped from her hands, she stooped, and then,” says Kotzebue, “I saw both one and the other.”

In colder or more uncertain climates, the greatest degree of covering constitutes the greatest degree of artificial decency: fashion and decency are confounded. Among old-fashioned people, of whom a good example may be found in old countrywomen of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of being seen in that condition; and if intruded on at such a time, she shrieks with terror and flies to conceal herself. In the equally polished dandy of the metropolis, it is indecent to be seen without gloves. Which of these respectable creatures is the most enlightened, I do not take upon me to say; but I believe that the majority of suffrages would be in favor of the old woman.

So entirely are these decencies artificial, that any number of them may easily be created, not merely with regard to man or woman, but even with regard to domesticated animals. If it should please some persons partially to clothe horses, cows, or dogs, it would ere long be felt that their appearing in the streets without trowsers or aprons was grossly indecent. We might thus create a real feeling of indecency, the perception of a new impurity, which would take the place of the former absence of all impure thought, and once established, the evil would be as real as our whims have made it in other respects.

Moral feeling is deeply injured by this substitution of impure thoughts, however fancifully founded, for pure ones, or rather for the entire absence of thought about worthless things. Artificial crimes are thus made, which are not the less real because artificial; for if aught of this kind is believed to be right, there is weakness or wrong in its violation. But violated it must be, if it were but accidentally.

To corrupt minds, this very violation of artificial decency in the case of woman affords the zest for the sake of which many of these decencies seem to have been instituted; and thus are created the artful decencies.

The purpose and the zest of artful decency are well illustrated by coquetry. Coquetry adopts a general concealment, which it well knows can alone give a sensual and seductive power to momentary exposure. Coquetry eschews permanent exposure as the bane of sensuality and seduction; and where these are great, as among the women of Spain, the concealment of dress is increased, even in warm climates. Nothing can throw greater light than this does on the nature of these decencies.

That coquetry has well calculated her procedure, does not admit of a doubt. She appeals to imagination, which she knows will spread charms over even ugly forms; she seeks the concealment under which sensuality and lust are engendered; and, in marriage, she at last lifts the veil which gratifies, only to disgust, and repays a sensual hallucination by years of misery.

Ought religion to claim the right of saying grace to such unveiling of concealment and the nuptial rites that follow it? Ought religion to profit by the impurities of sexual association? Marriage is a civil ceremony in other countries, even in Scotland. Such profane and profitable sanctions have nothing to do with primitive Christianity: they are abhorrent to its letter as well as to its spirit. But worldly and profitable religion is connected in business with government, under the firm of Church and State, and drives a thriving trade, in which the junior partner is contented with the profit arising from the common acts of life, while the senior one draws much of his living from other rites.[2]

What is said here, is no argument for living nudity: that, our climate and our customs forbid; and, in so doing, we can only regret that they are unfavorable to natural purity; while perfect familiarity with the figure ensures that feeling in the highest degree.

A distinguished artist informs me that greater modesty is nowhere to be seen than at the Life academy; and it was an observation of the great Flaxman, that “the students, in entering the academy, seemed to hang up their passions with their hats.” I can, from personal experience, give the same testimony in behalf of medical students at the dissecting-rooms. The familiarity of both these classes with natural beauty leads them only to seek to inform their minds and to purify their taste.[3]

Sinibaldi observes, that “nothing is more injurious to morals and to health, than the incitements of the women who in such numbers walk our streets,” and that “the laws as to offences against morals ought certainly to affect them the moment their language or actions can be deemed offensive.” But it is not to those who are critically conversant with the highest beauty of the human figure, that defective forms, ill-painted skins, rude manners, and contagious diseases, are at all seductive.

Nothing, then, can be more favorable to virtue than the decoration of every house with the beautiful copies of the glorious works of ancient Greece; and it is only humiliating to think that what has been so extensively done in this respect in the best houses, is less owing to our own taste than to the poor wanderers from Lucca or Barga. Experiment on this subject is peculiarly easy in London: let any one spend an hour in the shop of the very able Mr. Sarti, of Dean street, where he will meet the most liberal attention, and let him ask himself, in coming out, whether his moral feeling, as well as his taste, is not improved.

Those who cannot make this experiment, will perhaps be satisfied with the assurance of Hogarth, who says: “The rest of the body, not having advantages in common with the face, would soon satiate the eye, were it to be as constantly exposed, nor would it have more effect than a marble statue.” Surely this is decisive enough in its way! Now let them mark what follows. “But,” he continues, “when it is artfully clothed and decorated, the mind at every turn resumes its imaginary pursuits concerning it. Thus, if I may be allowed a simile, the angler chooses not to see the fish he angles for, until it is fairly caught.” He meant of course—“the fish chooses not to see the angler, until it is fairly caught!”

Be it known then to all, even the most aristocratic as to sexual association—I say the most aristocratic, and not the most religious, because religion is in some countries made the pander to aristocracy—be it known that the critical judgment and pure taste for beauty are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.

Home observes that “the sense of beauty does not tend to advance the interests of society, but when in a due mean with respect to strength. Love in particular arising from a sense of beauty, loses, when excessive, its sociable character: the appetite for gratification, prevailing over affection for the beloved object, is ungovernable, and tends violently to its end, regardless of the misery that must follow. Love in this state is no longer a sweet agreeable passion: it becomes painful, like hunger or thirst, and produces no happiness but in the instant of fruition. This discovery suggests a most important lesson, that moderation in our desires and appetites, which fits us for doing our duty, contributes at the same time the most to happiness: even social passions, when moderate, are more pleasant than when they swell beyond proper bounds.” Payne Knight says: “When, at the age of puberty, animal desire obtrudes itself on a mind already qualified to feel and enjoy the charms of intellectual merit, the imagination immediately begins to form pictures of perfection, by exaggerating and combining in one hypothetic object every excellence that can possibly belong to the whole sex; and the first individual that meets the eye, with any exterior signs of any of these ideal excellences, is immediately decorated with them all, by the creative magic of a vigorous and fertile fancy. Hence, she instantaneously becomes the object of the most fervent affection, which is as instantaneously cooled by possession: for, as it was not the object herself, but a false idea of her raised in heated imagination, that called forth all the lover’s raptures, all immediately vanish at the detection of his delusion; and a degree of disgust proportioned to the disappointment, of which it is the inevitable consequence, instantly succeeds. Thus it happens that what are called love-matches are seldom or ever happy.”

Now, nothing can more effectually prevent even the existence of the mania described by these two philosophers than a critical judgment and a pure taste for beauty, which again therefore are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.

A just sense of this truth will give high encouragement to sculpture and painting—arts which may everywhere be looked upon as the best tests, as well as the best records, of civilization. Such encouragement they need in truth; for the monstrous monopoly of landed property and the accumulation of wealth in few hands—the great aim of our political economy—renders art poor, indeed.

I am aware that the vulgar among artists think otherwise; from the few rich they obtain employment; and, like the dog with his master, they look not beyond the hand that doles out their pittance. But the rich are few; and their palaces are already filled. A diffusion of wealth alone can give encouragement to art; nor can this ever be while British industry is crushed under the weight of enormous taxation.

Having removed some objections to art, I would add a few words to artists on the cause of the fine arts in Greece, from a paper I, two years ago, contributed to a monthly periodical.[4]

That the mythology of Greece had an influence over its arts, is generally granted; but I am not aware, that it has either been shown to be exclusively their cause, or that its mode of operation has ever been explained.

Religion, I may observe, is as natural to man as his weakness and helplessness. There is not one of its systems, not even the vilest, which has not afforded him consolation. Of its higher and better systems, some are equally admirable for the grandeur and the beauty of the truths on which they are founded, the simplicity and the elegance of their ostensible forms, the power and applicability of their symbols, and their sympathy with, and control over, the affections and the imagination.

These high characteristics peculiarly distinguished the religion of ancient Greece.

By bigots, we are indeed told, that, though Homer is our model in epic, Anacreon in lyric, and Æschylus in dramatic poetry—though the music of Greece doubtless corresponded to its poetry in beauty, pathos, and grandeur—though the mere wreck of her sculpture is never overlooked in modern war and negotiation—though the mere sight of her ruined Parthenon is more than a reward for the fatigue or the peril of a journey to the Eternal city—though these products of art are the test of the highest civilization which the world has witnessed—though to these chiefly Rome owed the little civilization of which she was capable, and we ourselves the circumstance that, at this hour, we are not, like our ancestors, covered only with blue paint or the skins of brutes—though all this is true as to the arts of Greece, we are told that, by the strangest exception, the religion of Greece was a base superstition.

That religion, however, was the creator of these arts. They not only could not have existed without it, but they probably could never have been called into existence by any other religion.

The personification of simple Beauty, Valor, Wisdom, or Omnipotence, in Venus, Mars, Minerva, or Jupiter, respectively, was essential to the purity and the power of expression of these attributes in the worship of the deities to whom they respectively belonged. The union of absolute beauty and valor in one being, is not more impossible than their union in one expression of homage and admiration. Delicacy, elegance, and grace, were as characteristic of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the goddess of beauty, as attributes nearly opposite to these were of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the god of war. Thus, were the fine arts in Greece created by the personification of simple attributes or virtues as objects of adoration; and thus is excellence in these fine arts incapable of being elicited by any system of religion in which more than one attribute is ascribed to the god.

They must be ignorant, indeed, of the wonderful people of whom I now speak, who allege, that the Greeks worshipped the mere statue of the god and not the personified virtue. Even the history of their religion proves the reverse. It was the tomb which became the altar, and retained nearly its form. It was the expression of love, of regret, and of veneration for departed virtue, which became divine adoration; and, as individual acts and even individual names were ultimately lost in one transcendent attribute, so were individual forms and features, in its purified and ideal representation. Here, then, instead of finding the worship of men or of their representations, we discover a gradual advance from beings to attributes—from mortal man to eternal virtue—and a corresponding and suitable advance from simple veneration to divine adoration.

When, in great emergencies of the state, the sages and the soldiers of Athens, in solemn procession repaired to the temple of Minerva, turned their faces toward the statue of the goddess, and prostrated themselves in spirit before her—let the beautiful history of Grecian science tell, whether in the statue they worshipped the mere marble structure, or, in its forms and attributes, beheld and adored a personification of eternal truth and wisdom, and so prepared the mind for deeds which have rendered Greece for ever illustrious. Or, when returning from a Marathon, or a Salamis, the warriors of Athens, followed by trains of maidens, and matrons, and old men, returned thanks to the god of victories—let the immortal record of the long series of glorious achievements which succeeded these, tell, whether gratitude to their heroes was not there identified with homage to the spirit or the divinity that inspired them.

True it is, that, whenever physical or moral principles are personified, the ignorant may be led to mistake the sign for that which is signified; but one of the most admirable characteristics of the Grecian religion is, that, with little effort, every external form may be traced to the spirit which it represents, and every fable may be resolved into a beautiful illustration of physical or moral truth. So that when mystic influences, with increasing knowledge, ceased to sway the imagination, all-powerful truths directed the reason.

The natural and poetical religion of Greece, therefore, differed from false and vulgar religions in this, that it was calculated to hold equal empire over the minds of the ignorant and the wise; and the initiations of Eleusis were apparently the solemn acts by which the youths and maidens of Greece passed from ignorance and blind obedience to knowledge and enlightened zeal. Thus, in that happy region, neither were the priests knaves, nor the people their dupes.[5]

And what has been the result of this fundamental excellence?—that no interpolated fooleries have been able to destroy it;—that the religion of Greece exists, and must ever exist, the religion of nature, genius, and taste;—and that neither poetry nor the arts can have being without it. Schiller has well expressed this truth in the following lines:—

“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountains,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms, and watery depths—all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason;
But still the heart doth need a language; still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names;
* * And even, at this day,
’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great,
And Venus who brings everything that’s fair.”

CHAPTER III.

CAUTIONS AS TO YOUTH.

In relation to early sexual association, it cannot be doubted, that, when the instinct of reproduction begins to be developed, the reserve which parents, relatives, and instructers, adopt on this subject, is often the means of producing injurious effects; because, a system of concealment on this subject, as observed in the preceding chapter, is quite impracticable. Discoveries made by young persons in obscene books, the unguarded language or shameless conduct of grown-up persons, even the wild flights of an imagination which is then easily excited, will have the most fatal consequences.

Parents or instructers ought, therefore, at that critical period, to give rational explanations as to the nature and the object of the propensity, the mechanism of reproduction in various vegetable and animal beings, and the fatal consequences to which this propensity may lead. Such procedure, if well conducted, cannot but have the most beneficial results; because, in order that a sane person should avoid any danger, it is only necessary that he should see it distinctly.

The advantage, it has been observed, which the parent, relative, or instructer, derives, from himself in forming the adolescent in the new faculty which is developed in him, is to prevent his choosing, among corrupt servants or ignorant youths of his own age, the confidants of his passion. The parent or instructer, moreover, is then justly entitled to, and has gratefully given to him, the entire confidence of the adolescent; and he is thereby enabled exactly to appreciate the degree of power of the propensity which he desires to divert or to guide.

Such being the case, it is the business of the parent to present a true picture of the effects of too early association of this kind, on the stature, the various development of the figure, the muscular power, the quality of the voice, the health, the moral sense, and especially on the acuteness, the power, the dignity, and the courage, of the mind.

In doing this, it would be as stupid as injurious to employ the slightest degree of false representation, of unjust reprimand, or too much of what is called moralizing, which is often only the contemptible cant of a being who cannot reason, especially when it takes the place of a simple and powerful statement of facts. All of these would only render the young man a dissembler, and would compel him to choose another confidant.

Among other considerations, varying according to the circumstances of the case, those stated below may with advantage be presented.

At a certain period in the life both of plants and animals, varying according to their kind and the climate they live in, they are fit for and disposed to the reproduction of their species. The sexes in both are then attracted to each other. In plants, the powder termed pollen, in animals a peculiar liquid which, deriving its name by analogy from the seeds of plants, is termed seminal, is secreted by the male plant or animal, and, by organs differently formed in each kind, is cast upon ova or eggs either contained within, or deposited by, the female. The details of this process are among the most beautiful and interesting of the living economy. In mankind, the attainment of this period is termed puberty.

It is with this critical period, and his conduct during it, that all that the youth deems most valuable, all that can decide his fortunes and his happiness in the world, his stature, figure, strength, voice, health, and mental powers, are most intimately connected.

In regard to stature, the body appears to complete its increase in height chiefly at the age of puberty, and during the first years which succeed that age. To be assured of the powerful influence of his own conduct, at this period, upon his stature, the youth has only to compare the tall men and women of the country as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the Scottish borders, where they have not been overworked, with the stunted and dwarfed creatures of the metropolis, where a stranger, when he first enters it, is apt to think he sees so many ugly boys and girls, whereas, they are full-grown London men and women. Half the population of the metropolis is affected in this way; and it is the obvious consequence of the acceleration of puberty by confinement, stimulating food, indecent plays, and sexual association.

In regard to the perfect development and beauty of the figure, the youth is probably aware that the most beautiful races of horses and dogs rapidly deteriorate, if men do not carefully maintain them by continence as well as by crossing. The too early employment, the depraved abuses, the injury, or the removal, of the sexual organs, are all of them causes still more certain of deformity. The latter of these causes acts, of course, most obviously; and it is evidenced in the almost universal malformation of eunuchs, geldings, &c.

That, in regard to bodily strength, sexual continence adds energy to the muscular fibre, is clearly seen by observing the most ardent quadrupeds previous to the time of the union of their sexes. But, this being past, precisely in the same proportion does the act of reproduction debilitate and break down the strongest animal. Many male animals even fall almost exhausted by a single act of union with the opposite sex.

Every classical student has read the beautiful allegory of Hercules, who, having spun at the knees of Omphale (ομφαλὸς the navel, here put for the most essential part of the female generative organ), thereby lost his strength: this beautifully expresses the abasement of power amid the indulgences of love. Euripides also depicts the terrible Achilles as timid before women, and respectful with Clytemnestra and Iphigenia. Hence, when a foolish lord reproached the poet Dryden with having given too much timidity toward women to a personage in one of his tragedies, and added that he knew better how to employ his time with the ladies, the poet answered: “You now acknowledge that you are no hero, which I intended that personage to be.”

As to voice, which depends on the muscles of respiration, and more immediately on those of the mouth and throat, as general strength does on the muscles of the whole body, both merely affording expressions of the mind, the influence of the sexual union upon it is prodigious. How entirely it is altered by the removal of the testes in eunuchs is known to every one: in corresponding proportion, is it altered by every act of the generative organs, but especially by sexual indulgence during puberty. The horrible voice of early libertines and prostitutes presents an alarming example of this. To those who value voice in conversation, in the delightful and humanizing exercise of music, or in the grander efforts of public speaking, nothing more need be said.

As to health, the less we are prodigal of life, the longer we preserve it. Every one capable of observing may see that the stag loses his horns and his hair after procreation; that birds fall into moulting and sadness; and that male insects even perish after this effort, as if they yielded their individual life to their progeny. Indeed, everything perishes so much the more readily, as it has thus transmitted life to its descendants, or has cast it away in vain pleasures.

In mankind, as in other animals, to procreate is in effect to die to one’s self, and to leave one’s life to posterity; especially, if this takes place in early life. It is then that man becomes bald and bent; and that the charms of woman fade. Even in advanced age, epicures are so well aware of this, that they are known to abstain from amorous excess, as the acknowledged cause of premature death.

In relation to mind—as the generative power is the source of several characteristics of genius, the exhaustion of that power at an early age must take away these characteristics. Genius as surely languishes and is extinguished amid early sexual indulgence, as do the faculties of voice and locomotion, which are merely its signs and expressions.

It is thus with all our faculties, locomotive, vital, mental, at an early age. They are strengthened by all that they do not dissipate; and that which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately from their own power, and mediately from that of the other organs, but it ensures the permanent debility of the whole.

It is true that the strong passions which are modified or characterized by the sexual impulse, excite the imagination and impel the mind to sublime exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserving such impulsion is, to shun the indulgence of pleasure in early life, and its waste at later periods.

It has accordingly been observed, that the passion of love appears to be most excessive in animals which least excel in mental faculties. Thus the beasts which are the most lascivious, the ass, the boar, &c., are also the most stupid; and idiots and cretins display a sensuality which brutifies them still more. Hence, the Homeric fable that Circe transformed men into beasts.

It would also appear that the most stupid animals, swine, rabbits, &c., in general produce the greatest number of young; while men of genius have engendered the fewest. It is remarked that none of the greatest men of antiquity were much given to sexual pleasure.

It is, then, of the greatest importance to young men who are ambitious of excellence, to mark well this truth, that the most powerful and distinguished in mental faculties, other things being equal, will be he who wastes them least in early life by sexual indulgence—who most economizes the vital stimulant, in order to excite the mental powers on great occasions. By such means may a man surely surpass others, if he have received from his parents proportional mental energy.

Beside the means already indicated, there is one proposed by an able writer, as serving to divert the instinct of propagation when too early and excessive, and consequently dangerous: that is, the sentiment of love. To employ this means, he observes, “it is necessary to search early, after knowing the character of the adolescent whom it is wished to direct, for a young woman whose beauty and good qualities may inspire him with attachment. This means will serve, more than can easily be imagined, to preserve the adolescent both from the grosser attractions of libertinism and the disease it entails, and from the more dangerous snares of coquetry. It is,” he adds, “a virtuous young woman and a solid attachment that are here spoken of.”—At some future period I shall probably show how wise this recommendation is, as well as the necessity and the advantages of early marriages, under favorable circumstances.

Having now shown the evils of early sexual association, I may briefly notice those of later libertinism.

If, even in more advanced life, and when the constitution is stronger, the instinct of propagation be not restrained within just limits, it degenerates into inordinate lewdness or real mania: “Repperit obscænas veneres vitiosa libido.” By such depravation, nobleness of character is utterly destroyed.

This scarcely evitable consequence of great fortune and of the facility of indulgence, it has been justly observed, will ever be the ruin of the rich, and a mode of enervating the most vigorous branches of the most powerful house.

The libertine, then, owing to exhaustion, by sexual indulgence, is characterized by physical and moral impotence, or has a brain as incapable of thinking, as his muscles are of acting.

As libertines are enfeebled by indulgence, it follows that they are proportionally distinguished by fear and cowardice. Nothing, indeed, destroys courage more than sexual abuses.

But, from cowardice, spring cunning, duplicity, lying, and perfidy. These common results of cowardice are uniformly found in eunuchs, slaves, courtiers, and sycophants; while boldness, frankness, and generosity, belong to virtuous, free, and magnanimous men.

Again, cowardice, artifice, falsehood, and perfidy, are the usual elements of cruelty. Men feel more wounded in self-love, as they are conscious of being more contemptible; and they avenge themselves with more malignity upon their enemy, as they find themselves more weak and worthless, and as they consequently dread him more.

These are the causes of that malignant revenge which princes have often shown, as, in ancient times, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, &c. In later times, Catharine de Medici solicited the massacre of the Protestants; Paul, Constantine, and Nicholas, of Russia, were happy only when they wallowed in blood; Charles X., equally effeminate and bigoted, perpetrated the massacre of the Parisians; Don Miguel covered Portugal with his assassinations; and nearly all the sovereigns and sycophants in Europe upheld or palliated his atrocities.[7]

The strong and brave man, on the contrary, scarcely feels hurt, and scorns revenge.

It is not cruelty only with which we may reproach these effeminate individuals: it is every vice which springs from baseness of character.

Libertinism, moreover, is not hurtful only to the health and welfare of these individuals: it is so also to those of their posterity.

Finally, the results of libertinism have constantly marked, not merely the ruin of families, but the degeneration of races, and the decay of empires. The delights of Capua caused the ruin of Hannibal; and the Roman, once so proud before kings, finally transformed himself into the wretched slave of monsters degraded far below the rank of humanity.

So little, however, do men look to remote consequences that perhaps the most frightful punishments of libertinism are the diseases which it inflicts. Man may, then, be said to meet only death on the path of life.

The dangers of promiscuous love are, indeed, far beyond what young men will easily believe. I do not exaggerate when I state, that, out of every three women, and those the least common of the promiscuous, two at least are certainly in a state of disease capable of the most destructive infection. A surgeon in the habit of receiving foul patients at a public hospital tells me, I might safely say that nine out of every ten are in this state.[8]

While writing this, Sir Anthony Carlisle observes to me, that, “the special disease which appears to be a punishment for sexual profligacy, is not only malignant, painful, and hideous, in every stage of it, but the only remedy known for its cure, mercury, is a poison which generally leaves its own evils for the venom which it destroys. This frightful disease has no natural termination but in a disgusting disgraceful death, after disfiguring the countenance, by causing blindness, loss of the nose, the palate and teeth, and by the spoliation of the sinning organs. The miserables, who thus perish in public hospitals, are so offensive to the more respectable patients, that they are confined to appointed rooms, termed foul wards, where they linger and die in the bloom of life, either of the penalty inflicted by their profligacy, of the poison administered to them, or of incurable consequent diseases, such as consumption, palsy, or madness.”

Hence, it has been observed, that, if we have to deal with a young man incapable of guidance by the nobler motives, of feeling contempt for vice, and horror for debauchery, there yet remain means to be employed. Let him be conducted to the hospital, where he will find collected the poor victims of debauchery—the unhappy women whom, even the day before, he may have seen in the streets, with faces dressed in smiles, amid the torments, the corrosion, and the contagion of disease. This may leave an impression sufficiently deep. But let him also know that these unhappy creatures are a thousand times more pitiable than the libertine who destroys them, and who forfeits the only good we cannot refuse to other wretches, compassion for the misery he endures.[9]

CHAPTER IV.

NATURE OF BEAUTY.

In this chapter, my aim is to show that there is more than one kind of beauty, and that much confusion has arisen among writers, from not clearly distinguishing the characteristics of these kinds.

An essential condition, then, of all excitement and action in animal bodies, is a greater or less degree of novelty in the objects impressing them—even if this novelty should arise only from a previous cessation of excitement.

Now, objects of greater or less novelty are the causes of excitement, pleasurable or painful, by means of their various relations.

The lowest degree of bodily pleasure (though, owing to its constancy, immense in its total amount) is that which arises, during health, from those relations of bodies and that excitement which cause the mere local exercise of the organs—a source of pleasure which is seldom the object of our voluntary attention, but which seems to me to be the chief cause of attachment to life amid its more definite and conspicuous evils.

All higher mental emotions consist of pleasure or pain superadded to more or less definite ideas. Pleasurable emotions arise from the agreeable relations of things; painful emotions, from the disagreeable ones.

The term by which we express the influence which objects, by means of their relations, possess of exciting emotions of pleasure in the mind, is BEAUTY.

Beauty, when founded on the relations of objects, or of the parts of objects, to each other, forms a first class, and may be termed intrinsic beauty.

When beauty is farther considered in relation to ourselves, it forms a second class, and may be termed extrinsic beauty.

We are next led (hitherto this has apparently been done without analyzing or defining the operation) to a division of the latter into two genera; namely, the minor beauty, of which prettiness, delicacy, &c., are modifications, and that which is called grandeur or sublimity.

The characters of the minor beauty or prettiness, with relation to ourselves, are smallness, subordination, and subjection. Hence female beauty, in relation to the male.

The characters of grandeur or sublimity, with relation to ourselves, are greatness, superordination, and power. Hence male beauty, in relation to the female.

By the preceding brief train of analysis and definition, is, I believe, answered the question—“whether the emotion of grandeur make a branch of the emotion of beauty, or be entirely distinct from it.”

Having, by this concise statement of my own views on these subjects, made the reader acquainted with some of the materials of future consideration here employed, I may now examine the opinions of some philosophers, in order to see how far they accord with these first principles, and what answer can be given to them where they differ.

That beauty, generally considered, has nothing to do with particular size, is very well shown by Payne Knight, who, though he argues incorrectly about it in many other respects, here truly says: “All degrees of magnitude contribute to beauty in proportion as they show objects to be perfect in their kind. The dimensions of a beautiful horse are very different from those of a beautiful lapdog; and those of a beautiful oak from those of a beautiful myrtle; because, nature has formed these different kinds of animals and vegetables upon different scales.

“The notion of objects being rendered beautiful by being gradually diminished, or tapered, is equally unfounded; for the same object, which is small by degrees, and beautifully less, when seen in one direction, is large by degrees, and beautifully bigger, when seen in another. The stems of trees are tapered upward; and the columns of Grecian architecture, having been taken from them, and therefore retaining a degree of analogy with them, were tapered upward too: but the legs of animals are tapered downward, and the inverted obelisks, upon which busts were placed, having a similar analogy to them, were tapered downward also; while pilasters, which had no analogy with either, but were mere square posts terminating a wall, never tapered at all.”

Speaking of beauty generally, and without seeing the distinctions I have made above, Burke, on the contrary, states the first quality of beauty to be comparative smallness, and says: “In ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love;” and “in most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets.”

This is evidently true only of the objects of minor or subordinate beauty, which Burke confusedly thought the only kind of it, though he elsewhere grants, that beauty may be connected with sublimity! It shows, however, that relative littleness is essential to that first kind of beauty.

With greater knowledge of facts than Burke possessed, and with as feeble reasoning powers, but with less taste, and with a perverse whimsicality which was all his own, Payne Knight similarly, making no distinction in beauty, considered smallness as an accidental association, failed to see that it characterized a kind of beauty, and argued, that “if we join the diminutive to a term which precludes all such affection, or does not even, in some degree, express it, it immediately converts it into a term of contempt and reproach: thus, a bantling, a fondling, a darling, &c., are terms of endearment; but a witling, a changeling, a lordling, &c., are invariably terms of scorn: so in French, ‘mon petit enfant,’ is an expression of endearment; but ‘mon petit monsieur,’ is an expression of the most pointed reproach and contempt.”

Now, this chatter of grammatical termination and French phrase, though meant to look vastly clever, is merely a blunder. There is no analogy in the cases compared: a “darling” or little dear unites dear, an expression of love, with little, implying that dependance which enhances love; while “witling” or little wit unites wit, an expression of talent, with little, meaning the small quantity or absence of the talent alluded to; and it is because the latter term means, not physical littleness, which well associates with love, but moral littleness and mental degradation, that it becomes a term of contempt.

Even from the little already said, it seems evident that much of the confusion on this subject has arisen from not distinguishing the two genera of beauty, and not seeing that “the emotion of grandeur” is merely “a branch of the emotion of beauty.”

The other genus of beauty, grand or sublime beauty, is well described by the names given to it, grandeur or sublimity. Some have considered sublimity as expressing grandeur in the highest degree: it would perhaps be as well to express the cause of the emotion by grandeur, and the emotion itself by sublimity.

Nothing is sublime that is not vast or powerful, or that does not make him who feels it sensible of its physical or moral superiority.

The simplest cause of sublimity is presented by all objects of vast magnitude or extent—a seemingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c.; and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion—height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active.

Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in asserting comparative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty.

Hence, in one place, Burke says: “As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities that constitute beauty may possibly be united to things of greater dimensions [that is, littleness may be united with bigness!]; when they are so united they constitute a species something different both from the sublime and beautiful, which I have before called, Fine.”

So also he says: “Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror.”

Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other writers, when they say that “exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime.” It is a fact, that exactly in proportion as ugliness is substituted for beauty in vast objects, is sublimity taken away, until at last it is utterly lost in the terrible.

Even Blair shows that sublimity may exist without terror or pain. “The proper sensation of sublimity appears,” he observes, “to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral dispositions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, is exceedingly terrible, but is destitute of all claim whatever to sublimity.”

Payne Knight shows that terror is even opposed to sublimity: “All the great and terrible convulsions of nature; such as storms, tempests, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, &c., excite sublime ideas, and impress sublime sentiments by the prodigious exertions of energy and power which they seem to display: for though these objects are, in their nature, terrible, and generally known to be so, it is not this attribute of terror that contributes, in the smallest degree to render them sublime.... Timid women fly to a cellar, or a darkened room, to avoid the sublime effects of a thunder-storm; because to them they are not sublime, but terrible. To those only are they sublime, ‘qui formidine nulla imbuti spectant,’ who behold them without any fear at all; and to whom, therefore, they are in no degree terrible.”

This farther confirms the distinction which I made of beauty into minor or subordinate, and grand or sublime beauty, although Knight adopted other principles, if principles they may be called, and neglected such distinction.

There is but one other error on this subject which I need to notice. Burke says: “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger.... Those despotic governments which are founded on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark.”

From what has already been said, it is evident that all this contributes to terror, not to sublimity; and that the same error is made by Blair when he says, “As obscurity, so disorder, too, is very compatible with grandeur, nay, frequently heightens it.”

To expose the weakness and to destroy the authority of some writers on this subject, can only set the mind free for the investigation of truth. I may, therefore, conclude this chapter by quoting the shrewd remarks of Knight on some of the principles of Burke. I shall afterward be forced critically to examine the notions of Knight in their turn.

Burke states that the highest degree of sublime sensation is astonishment; and the subordinate degrees, awe, reverence, and respect; all which he considers as modes of terror. And Knight observes that this graduated scale of the sublime, from respect to astonishment, cannot, perhaps be better illustrated than by applying it to his own character.

“He was certainly,” says Knight, “a very respectable man, and reverenced by all who knew him intimately. At one period of his life, too, when he became the disinterested patron of remote and injured nations, who had none to help them, his character was truly sublime; but, unless upon those whom he so ably and eloquently arraigned, I do not believe that it impressed any awe.... If, during this period, he had suddenly appeared among the managers in Westminster Hall without his wig and coat, or had walked up St. James’s street without his breeches, it would have occasioned great and universal astonishment; and if he had, at the same time, carried a loaded blunderbuss in his hands, the astonishment would have been mixed with no small portion of terror: but I do not believe that the united effects of these two powerful passions would have produced any sentiment or sensation approaching to sublime, even in the breasts of those who had the strongest sense of self-preservation and the quickest sensibility of danger.”

Thus, I believe, it now appears that novelty[10] is the exciting cause of pleasurable emotion, and of the consequent perception of beauty in the relations of things, and that the two genera of beauty—the minor or subordinate beauty, and grandeur or sublimity—have distinct characteristics, the confounding of which by writers has led to the obscurity of this part of the subject.

CHAPTER V.

STANDARD OF TASTE IN BEAUTY.

The expression, “standard of taste,” is used to signify the basis or foundation of our judgments respecting beauty and deformity, and their consequent certainty.

Setting aside such objection as might be raised to a standard of taste on the doctrine of Berkeley (which I refuted in 1809, and which I need not enter into here), this matter was long ago settled by David Hume; and I have nothing new to say upon the subject (there is probably enough of novelty in other chapters, whatever its worth may be), except that Burke appears to have borrowed all he knew about it from that incomparably more profound philosopher.

As I ought not, however, to omit here a view of the subject, I cannot do better than transcribe the words of Hume and Burke respectively. While this will put the reader in possession of all that I think necessary upon this subject, it will farther tend to show in what Burke’s ability as a philosopher consisted.

I must first, however, observe that the word “taste,” as expressing our judgment of beauty, is a metaphor whimsically borrowed from the lowest of our senses, and is applied to our exercise of that faculty, as regards both natural objects, and the fine arts which imitate these.

It is not wonderful that the variety and inconstancy of tastes respecting the attributes and the characters of beauty, should have led many philosophers to deny that there exist any certain combinations of forms and of effects to which the term beauty ought to be invariably attached.

In his “Philosophical Dictionary,” Voltaire, after quoting some nonsense from the crazy dreamer who did so much injury to Greek philosophy, says: “I am willing to believe that nothing can be more beautiful than this discourse of Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of the beautiful. Ask of a toad what is beauty, pure beauty, the το καλον; he will answer you that it is his female, with two large round eyes projecting from her little head, a large and flat throat, a yellow belly, and a brown back. Ask the devil, and he will tell you that the beautiful is a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Consult, lastly, the philosophers, and they will answer you by rigmarole: they want something conformable to the archetype of the beautiful in essence, to the το καλον.” This is wit, not reason: let us look for that to a deeper thinker—as proposed above.

David Hume says: “It appears that, amid all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities from the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease.... If they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in the organ.

“In each creature there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like manner as the appearance of objects in daylight, to the eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and real color.”

To the same purpose writes Burke, after some preliminary observations:—

“All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses, the imagination, and the judgment.

“First, with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that, as the conformations of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference.

“As there will be little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, while it operates naturally, simply, and by its proper powers only.

“Custom, and some other causes, have made many deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last.

“There is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it.

“Suppose one who had so vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points.”

In the same manner, Payne Knight observes that “things, naturally the most nauseous, become most grateful; and things, naturally most grateful, most insipid.

“This extreme effect, however, only takes place where the palate has become morbid and vitiated by continued, and even forced gratification; and even when the metaphors taken from this sense, and employed to express intellectual qualities, show that it is always felt and considered as a corruption, even by those who are most corrupted: for though there are many who prefer port wine to malmsey, and tobacco to sugar, yet no one ever spoke of a sour or bitter temper as pleasant, or of a sweet one as unpleasant.” By this concession, Knight answers several of his own objections.

“When it is said,” farther observes Burke, very properly, “taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find from the taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but we may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we must draw our conclusions from those.”

Hume proceeds to a second point, by observing that “one obvious cause, why many feel not the proper sentiment of beauty, is the want of that delicacy of imagination which is requisite to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions.

“Where the organs are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape them, and at the same time so exact, as to perceive every ingredient in the composition; this we call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the literal or metaphorical sense.”

Burke enlarges on this, after preliminary observing that “the power of the imagination is incapable of producing anything absolutely new; it can only vary the disposition of those ideas which it has received from the senses. Now, the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with them.

“Since the imagination is only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men.

“There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives. Upon such persons, the most striking objects make but a faint and obscure impression. There are others so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of honors and distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these happen to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness, or with these qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the same principle.”

On a third point, Hume says: “But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends farther to increase and improve this talent, than practice in a particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty.