62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



whole esthetic field. 4 Parts of the work of Marshall are especially 

 helpful. 5 



The various conceptions of beauty entertained by any man or race 

 of men strictly conform to the grade of general culture of that indi- 

 vidual or that race. Therefore we find the ideals of beauty among d'f- 

 ferent peoples to vary directly with their grade of development in 

 intellect and feeling. Each one of us can trace an evolution of his 

 ideals corresponding with the phases of his mental development. 



It would seem, therefore, that an absolute ideal of beauty, whether 

 in morals, in form, in sound or in vision, is not to be found; that the 

 tom-tom of the savage and the violin of the master of symphony are of 

 equal excellence because each expresses most adequately the emotional 

 activity of its respective player. 



But psychology remained much like a tractless chaos until students 

 bent themselves to the investigation of laws and functions of the ner- 

 vous system; and the rich accessions contributed thereby to the knowl- 

 edge of the mind gives reasonable hope that perception of the beautiful 

 may find in the sense apparatus, which is in general its physical basis, 

 an orderly explanation of facts which otherwise seem without law. If 

 it can be shown that certain esthetic states are de; endent for their de- 

 velopment upon the specific structure and mode of action of the body 

 in its reaction to external stimuli, it is evidence that the resulting con- 

 ceptions of beauty are not ephemeral but are founded on the laws of 

 nature which do not operate by chance. 



The proof that all esthetic pleasure depends upon a certain har- 

 mony between objective stimuli and the structure and operation of the 

 sense apparatus would demand a number of concrete demonstrations 

 correlative with the ideas of beauty. 



Nevertheless our main thesis may be firmly founded on a single 

 group of facts if it can be shown that the esthetic attributes of a sense 

 organ arise out of an anatomical or physiological peculiarity of the 

 apparatus which is not concerned in or is even opposed to its prime 

 utilitarian function. Our knowledge of biology appears to be too 

 meager to support a generalization in this field, but certain known facts 

 as to the reactions of the visual apparatus establish that certain of its 

 idiosyncrasies which would condemn it as an opt'cal instrument lend 

 themselves to the development of ideals of visual beauty. 



The astonishing revelation appears that when in the evolution of 

 our visual organs under operation of the Law of Usefulness the struc- 

 ture has taken on characters which are inherently subversive of its 

 utilitarian functions, nature has, as it were, circumvented the tendency 

 of these defects; and out of them arise interpretations of the external 



4 " Physiological ^Esthetics," 1877. 



6 "Pain, Pleasure and ^Esthetics," 1894. 



