I intend to examine this point under each of these heads in their order.But before I proceed further,I hope it will not be thought amiss,if I lay down the rules which governed me in this inquiry,and which have misled me in it,if I have gone astray.1.If two bodies produce the same or a similar effect on the mind,and on examination they are found to agree in some of their properties,and to differ in others;the common effect is to be attributed to the properties in which they agree,and not to those in which they differ.2.Not to account for the effect of a natural object from the effect of an artificial object.3.Not to account for the effect of any natural object from a conclusion of our reason concerning its uses,if a natural cause may be assigned.4.Not to admit any determinate quantity,or any relation of quantity,as the cause of a certain effect,if the effect is produced by different or opposite measures and relations;or if these measures and relations may exist,and yet the effect may not be produced.These are the rules which I have chiefly followed,whilst I examined into the power of proportion considered as a natural cause;and these,if he thinks them just,I request the reader to carry with him throughout the following discussion;whilst we inquire in the first place,in what things we find this quality of beauty;next,to see whether in these we can find any assignable proportions,in such a manner as ought to convince us that our idea of beauty results from them.We shall consider this pleasing power,as it appears in vegetables,in the inferior animals,and in man.Turning our eyes to the vegetable creation,we find nothing there so beautiful as flowers;
but flowers are almost of every sort of shape,and of every sort of disposition;they are turned and fashioned into an infinite variety of forms;and from these forms botanists have given them their names,which are almost as various.
What proportion do we discover between the stalks and the leaves of flowers,or between the leaves and the pistils?How does the slender stalk of the rose agree with the bulky head under which it bends?But the rose is a beautiful flower;and can we undertake to say that it does not owe a great deal of its beauty even to that disproportion:the rose is a large flower,yet it grows upon a small shrub;the flower of the apple is very small,and grows upon a large tree;yet the rose and the apple blossom are both beautiful,and the plants that bear them are most engagingly attired,notwithstanding this disproportion.What by general consent is allowed to be a more beautiful object than an orange-tree,flourishing at once with its leaves,its blossoms,and its fruit?but it is in vain that we search here for any proportion between the height,the breadth,or anything else concerning the dimensions of the whole,or concerning the relation of the particular parts to each other.
I grant that we may observe,in many flowers,something of a regular figure,and of a methodical disposition of the leaves.The rose has such a figure and such a disposition of its petals;but in an oblique view,when this figure is in a good measure lost,and the order of the leaves confounded,it yet retains its beauty;the rose is even more beautiful before it is full blown;in the bud,before this exact figure is formed;and this is not the only instance wherein method and exactness,the soul of proportion,are found rather prejudicial than serviceable to the cause of beauty.
III
Proportion Not The Cause Of Beauty In Animals That proportion has but a small share in the formation of beauty,is full as evident among animals.Here the greatest variety of shapes and dispositions of parts are well fitted to excite this idea.The swan,confessedly a beautiful bird,has a neck longer than the rest of his body,and but a very short tail:is this a beautiful proportion?We must allow that it is.But then what shall we say to the peacock,who has comparatively but a short neck,with a tail longer than the neck and the rest of the body taken together?How many birds are there that vary infinitely from each of these standards,and from every other which you can fix;with proportions different,and often directly opposite to each other!and yet many of these birds are extremely beautiful;when upon considering them we find nothing in any one part that might determine us,a priori,to say what the others ought to be,nor indeed to guess anything about them,but what experience might show to be full of disappointment and mistake.And with regard to the colours either of birds or flowers,for there is something similar in the colouring of both,whether they are considered in their extension or gradation,there is nothing of proportion to be observed.
Some are of but one single colour,others have all the colours of the rainbow;some are of the primary colours,others are of the mixt;in short,an attentive observer may soon conclude,that there is as little of proportion in the colouring as in the shapes of these objects.Turn next to beasts;examine the head of a beautiful horse;find what proportion that bears to his body,and to his limbs,and what relations these have to each other;and when you have settled these proportions as a standard of beauty,then take a dog or cat,or any other animal,and examine how far the same proportions between their heads and their necks,between those and the body,and so on,are found to hold.I think we may safely say,that they differ in every species,yet that there are individuals,found in a great many species so differing,that have a very striking beauty.Now,if it be allowed that very different and even contrary forms and dispositions are consistent with beauty,it amounts I believe to a concession,that no certain measures,operating from a natural principle,are necessary to produce it;at least so far as the brute species is concerned.
IV
