The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-05-28
Beauty and Women.

Quackenbos says Oil the subject of the
beautiful: Frequent attempts have been
mad, to discover in what the beautiful con-
sists; what quality it is which is the founda-
ton of the agreeable sensations it produces.
Yet no theory has been advanced ON the sub
ject which is not liable to objection, and it
would therefore seem as if the various OBJ
jects so denominated are beautiful by virtue,
not by any one principle common 10 them
all, but of several different qualities. The
same agreeable emotion is produced by them
all. and they are therefore designated by the
common appellation beautiful; but this emo
ton seems to spring from sources radically
different
Now if it is difficult, not to say impossible,
to define beauty in the abstract, il is still
more difficult to form a definite and clear
idea OF beauty in concrete; yet we shall
make the attempt to solve this task.
Not many decades ago French philoso-
pher maintained that outward beauty was
something conventional, and that the ideal
of female beauty changed in the course of
centuries according to the same laws OF
change to which religious, philosophical and
social ideas were subject, only less radically,
and not attracting attention in the same de-
gree. OF this theory, so much is true that
different tribes entertain opposite notions of
female beauty; Hottentot beauty enjoying
her reputation for causes that would make
her to other tribes an object of disgust and
horror. 1t may also be true that the ideas
of female beauty held by savages and bar
barians are subject to radical changes, but as
far as civilized nations are concerned, the
two questions indicated seem to be altogether
.untenable.
In opposition to this fippant theory,
Schappenhauer, German philosopher, has
shown, and we think cOnclusively, that the
idea of beauty is not determined by major
ity vote of civilized nations, but has an OBJ
jective reality, being founded in the nature Of
the human organism. He defines beauty as
the highest degree of adaptness or fitness to
purposes or ends. The better the human
body performs its functions the more beauti-
full it is; and what is true of the whole or.
ganism is equally true of every individual
member of that organism.
That here and there man falls in love
with a female that is anything rather than
beautiful, while he is Indifferent toward really
beautiful women, does not prove the falsity
of the position here taken, the choice being
founded in that case in the abnormal organ
ization of thesman. 1fevefy man were an
ideal of human beauty, he would love an
ideal woman only; but nature has taken care
that the imperfectioDs of the one side be
counterpoised by imperfections of the other
side, so that grotesque, abnormal individuals
are strongly attracted by such as are equally
grotesque and abnormal in an opposite di-
rection. An enthusiastic admirer of an AL
pine landscape may, for special reasons, pre-
fer to live in lOwlands, so the choice of a
partner by man may be influenced by other
considerations than those of beauty.
Schappenhauer has taken the pains to ex-
anime female beauty in its details, and he
has succeeded in establishing, in every point,
the principle OF adaptness. He claims as in
tregal parts OF beauty, youth and health.
Youth and adaptnesS are manifeStly identi-
cal here, for the human organism performs
its functions more fully in the time Of its
bloom, which we call youth, and the highest
degree those normal functions we cal
health.
Having established this general PROPOSE.
ton, Schappenhauer examines the individual
orders that contribute to beauty. Why, il
may be asked, do we admire taultless teeth
We answer, because they are best adapted t.
lnasticate food properly, ON which function
life and health largely depend. Why hav,
expressive, soulful eyes been held at al
times as constituent facts of human beauty
Because they are intimately connected will
the physical qualities of the individual, ant
indicate, therefore, a normal condition of tn,
brain. Again, we attach great importanc
to those organs which characterize the typ
| of the genus. OF this kind is a fully deyeI
| oped chin, which is an essential feature q
human physiology in distinction from the an
| imal. The more chin an individual has
says Lavater, "the more human he is.''
| II we compare male with feamale beauty
we find the same radical difference or Opinion
among philosophers. The French author
whose view that female beauty is altogethe
conventional we have rejected, is inconsisten
enough to maintain that, in the bare sense .
The world, we can speak of beauty IN woinal
only-not in man-as if different metaphys
ical moments characterized the Two sexes
In order to prove his theory, ne refers 70 tn
! in which the ideal of beauty is represented a