344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been exerted or risen into conscious prominence only, it would seem, 

 in the relation of primeval courtship and wedlock. He must have 

 been already endowed with a sense of beauty in form and symmetry, 

 a sense which, in spite of its wide expansion and generalization in 

 subsequent ages, still attaches itself above every other object, even with 

 Hellenic or modern sculptors, to the human face and figure. He must 

 also have been sensible to the beauty of color and luster, rendered 

 faintly conscious in the case of flowers, fruits, and feathers, but prob- 

 ably attaining its fullest measure only in the eyes, hair, teeth, lips, 

 and glossy black complexion of his early mates. And he must have 

 been moved, as Mr. Darwin argues, by musical tones and combina- 

 tions, though chiefly in the form of human song or rhythm alone. In 

 short, the primitive human conception of beauty must, I believe, have 

 been purely anthrojnmstic must have gathered mainly around the 

 personality of man or woman ; and all its subsequent history must be 

 that of an apanthropinization (I aj)ologize for the ugly but convenient 

 word), a gradual regression or concentric widening of aesthetic feeling 

 around this fixed point which remains to the very last its natural cen- 

 ter. By the common consent of poets, painters, sculptors, and the 

 World at large, the standard of beaiity for mankind is still to be found 

 in the features and figure of a lovely woman. 



Probably primitive man admired his pre-glacial Phyllis or Neaera, 

 admired himself, and perhaps also admired his fellow-man. So far as 

 I can learn, there are no savages so low that they do not discriminate 

 between pretty squaws or gins and plain ones, between handsome men 

 and ugly ones. Our own children appear to me to make the distinc- 

 tion among their playmates from a very early age. And, in both 

 cases, I am satisfied that their judgment in the main agrees with our 

 own.* But it does not seem likely that primitive man took much no- 

 tice of scenery, of organic beauty as a whole, or even very largely of 

 beauty in flowers, berries, butterflies, and shells. Yet there was an ob- 

 vious link, a simple stepping-stone, by which nascent aesthetic feeling 

 might easily pass from the one stage to the other. That link is given 

 us in the love for personal decoration. 



Not only does every unsophisticated man wish to find a pretty mate, 

 but he also wishes to look to advantage in her eyes and those of his 

 rivals. Similarly, every woman wishes to look pleasing toward all 

 men. The most naked savages take immense pains with their fantas- 

 tic coiffures. Even birds display their beauty to the best advantage, 

 and sing in emulation with one another till their strength fails them. 

 But birds and mammals generally go no further than this : man can 

 take one step in advance, and add to his natural beauty, or conceal his 



* I noticed ia Jamaica that the negroes fenerally considered as pretty negresses the 

 same women as we should ourselves have selected among them ; and many persons who 

 have traveled among various savage races, and whom I have had an opportunity of ques- 

 tioning, confirm this general conclusion. 



