On the Beautiful in the Grecian Statues. 413 
éxperience, it is the necessary consequence of 
every moment’s impression from the objects pres 
sented to our view; and if our minds were not 
insensibly led to this result by being committed 
to the field around us, yet, as the means to the 
énd, it might in this very way be accomplished 
by our deliberate act, by experiments similar to 
what I have supposed, in collecting the standard 
of national female beauty at the age of twenty 
one. 
It might be expected therefore, that the standard 
6f beauty would be one and the same to all; and 
s0 it is, as far as one and the same rule and judg~ 
ment on any subject can be expected in the vast 
range and diversity of human beings. It has 
already been observed that the greater is the 
variety and number of the objects that have been 
viewed, and attentively viewed by any individual, 
the nearer will the standard of beauty in his mind 
conform to the mean character of the species, 
which has been submitted to his view, and 
probably therefore to the truth of nature. 
To a perfect uniformity in the judgment of 
beauty it is requisite that the field of observation 
be equal to every one, that the mind of each 
observer be equally directed and equally attens 
tive to the subject, that the circumstances which 
