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
