aed 
On the Beautiful inthe Grecian Statues, 4114 
mass ; from continued observation rejecting some 
from this few; admitting others; till the field of 
observation is exhausted, and we rest in the image 
which is the result of the whole. 
But as the originals which are the subject of 
observation will in some respects vary from the 
influence which climate, occupation, manners, and 
even the cultivation of mind, have on the human 
form, it will follow that a variation in the idea 
of the beautiful is to be expected, and that differ- 
ent circumstances may be so favourable to some, 
as to render their conception of the beautiful more 
approximate to the faultless truth and standard of 
nature. 
_ This secret and imperceptible progress towards 
an ideal standard of beauty may be illustrated by 
the supposition of an experiment, easily to be 
conceived, though not easily to be carried into 
execution. Ifimpressions from the faces of all 
the women in this kingdom at the age of twenty, 
were taken on any plastic substance, as suppose 
plaster of Paris; excluding however those who 
come into the world with obvious excess or defect, 
who have been maimed by injury, or blemished by 
any superinduced cause, as excess of labour or 
rest, intemperance, deficiency of sustenance, orany 
excess or defect of the passions of the mind ; andan 
atlist were to form a face that was the mean of all 
