The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-12-19
CAN one. ] Love ANYBODY
Mr.. Grant Allen Holds That Affection
Is Aroused BY Varying
Qualities
Z Beauty 10 but Skin Deep" 10
Itself but q Skin Deep
Saying.
Physical Attractiyenass no Related to
Mental Observation-Disclosures
tion for Contrasts.

8&fA8 ~Atssr 49, - ASNNASSE#4#M
tlon for Contrasts.
Ii is q truism that we cannot fall In love
with everybody alike. Some of us fall In
love with one person, some with another.
says Grant Allen in the Pittsburg Bull
letin.
This instructive and Represented differen-
tiRl feeling we may regard as the outcome
OF complementary features, mental. moral
Or physical, in the two persons concerned:
and experience shows us that in nine cases
out Of ten 1t il d reciprocal f~eeling-thnt is
to say, in other words, an affection aroused
in unison BY varying qualities in the re-
spectiye individuals.
Of it's eminently conservative and even
upward tendency, very little doubt can be
reasonably entertained. We do fall in
love, taking us in n lump, with the young.
the beautiful, the strong, the gifted and
the healthy; we do not fall in love, taking
Us in a lump, with the old, the ugly. the
feeble and the sickly.
The prohibition Of the church ID scarcely
needed to prevent a man from marrying
bis grandmother. Moralists have always
borne q special grudge TO pretty faces; but
aB Mr.. Herbert Spencer admirably put IT
Qong before the appearance OF Darwin's
selective theory the saying that beauty ia
but skin deep is itself but a skin-deep say
ina.'
In reality, beauty is one OF the best
guides We can possibly have to the desira-
bility, 80 far as race preservation is con-
Ca.noJ re - , #nr INV woman pa a
partner in marriage.
A fine form, a good figure, a beautiful
bust, a round arm and neck, a fresh COM
plexion, a lovely face, are all outward and
visible signs of the physical qualities that,
OIL the whole, conspire to make up q healthy
and vigorous wife and mother; they imply
s%oundness, fertility, a good circulation, a
good digestion.
Conversely, sallowness and paleness are
roughly indicative of dyspepsia and anas-
mia; a fiat chest is a symptom Of deficient
maternity; and what we call a bad figure is
really, in one way or another, an unhealthy
departure from the central normal and
standard Of the race.
Good teeth mean good deglutition; a clear
eye means an active liver. Scrubbishness
and undersizedness means feeble ~virility.
Nor are indications of mental and moral
efficiency by any means wanting in recog-I
nized elements in personal beauty. A good
humored face is in itself almost pretty. AL
pleasant smile half redeems unattraotive
features.
Low, rsceding foreheads strike us unfa-
vcrably. Heavy, stolid, half-idiotic coun-
tenances can never be beautiful, however
regular their lines n contours.
Intelligence and goodness are almost as
necessary as health and vigor, in order to
~, ka nv nm narfnnt idan ~ n haout;ful
human face and figure.
The Apollo Belvidere is nc fool; the mur-
derers in the chamber of horrors at Mime.
Tassuad's are. for the most part, no beau
ties.
What we all fall in love with, then, az a
race, is, in most cases, efficiency and abil-
ity. What W each fall in love with indi-
vidually ie, / believe. our moral, mental
and physical complement.
Not our like, not our counterpart; quite
the contrary; within the healthy limits, our
unlike and our opposite. That it ia 30 has
long been more Or less a commonplace Of
ordinary conversation; that it is scientifi-
caliy true, one time with another, when we
take an extended range OF cases. may, /
think. be almost demonstrated BY sure and
certain warranty OF human nature.
Brothers and sisters have more in COM
mon, mentally and physically. than other
members of the same race can possibly
have with one another. But nobody falls
in love with his sister. Aprofound instinct
has taught even the lower races of men, for
the most part, to avoid such union of the
identical.
In the higher races the idea never 80
much as occurs to us. Even cousins sci
dom fall in love-seldom, that is to say, in
comparison with the frequent opportuni-
ties Of intercourse they enjoy relatively to
the remainder of general society.
When they do, and when they carry out
their perilous choice effectively by mar
riage, natural selection soon avenges ma
ture upon the offspring. In narrow COM
munities, where breeding in-and-in is
almost inevitable natural selection has
similarly to exert itself upon a crowd of
cretins and other helpless incapables.
But in wide and open champaign coun-
tries, where the individual choice has free
room for exercise, men and women, MS a
rule CIT not constrained by parents and
moralists), marry for love, and marry, on
the whole, their natural c~omplements.
They prefer outsiders. fresh blood, some-
body from beyond the community, to the
people of their own immediate surround
ings.
In many men the dislike to marrying
among the folk with whom they have been
brought up amounts almost to a positive
instinct; they feel it as impossible to fall in
love with a fellow-toWnswoman as to fall
in love with their W first cousins.
Among exogamous tribes such an in
stlnct (aided.s Of course, by other extra
neons %causes), has hardened into custom;
and there is no reason to believe (from the
universal traces among the higher civiliza-
tions Of marriage by capture) that all the
Leading races Of the world are ultimately
derived from exogamous ancestors poss ess-
ing this healthy and excellent sentiment.
In minor matters il is. OF course, univsr-
sally admitted that short men AZ a rule pre-
fer tall women, while tail men prefer little
women. Dark pairs by preference with
fair; the commonplace often runs after the
original.
People have long noticed that this attrac-
tion toward ones opposite tends to keep
true the standard of the race; they have
not, perhaps, 80 generally observed that it
also indicates roughly the existence in
either individual a desire for its own nat
nral complement.
II is difficult here to give definite exam
pies. but everybody knows how, in the
subtle psychology Of falling in love, there
are involved innumerable minor clements.
physical and mental, which strike us ex-
actly because Of their absolute adaptation
a ~ -- .L tAtA L