508 On the Beautiful in the Grecian Statues. 
plation of the artist must be the standard of what 
is the most perfect of the species, and as far as 
the form is concerned, of what is the most 
beautiful in the form. The mind of the artist 
may then be investigated im his work, and it might 
seem to be no very difficult thing to collect a 
tolerably accurate idea of what answers to the 
_more perfect idea of the artist, by omitting what is 
incidental and peculiar to every individual of the 
species, and retaining what is universal, And 
perhaps by a standard thus collected, though 
insensibly, and without any deliberate purpose, 
“every one does judge of what he deems to be 
beautiful in the form of his own kind, and in 
every form whatever. We find therefore that, 
in the estimation of the beautiful in the human 
form, there is 4 general agreement as to the 
contour or outline of the whole and of the parts, 
the comparative magnitude of each part, the pro- 
portion that each bears to each other and tothe 
whole, and the order and degree in which each 
swells and falls. Whatever is remarkably exces» 
sive or defective, whatever strikingly offends 
against the general character and proportion of 
the parts, whatever beyond the general rule is 
abrupt and extravagant in the swell or fall, is 
almost universally rejected as not beautiful; 
