On the Beautiful in the Grecian Staiues. 47 
But there is also a Rational standard, which 
more contemplative and reflecting-minds derive 
from a consideration of the uses to’ which: the 
human form subserves. Beauty, though in itself 
an object of regard distinct from every other 
consideration, must, in the productions of every 
wise artist, be subordinate © to utility; and 
therefore in those works, which we refer to the 
Great Artist, we expect that beauty shall be re- 
conciled with utility. Nor are we disappointed ; 
all that is beautiful in the human form, which we 
contemplate with so much delight, is,as a mean, in 
perfect harmony with the numerousand diversified 
uses for which the human form was designed ed 
its Creator. . 
Beauty could not be a primary object in the 
mind of the original artist, nor are we autho! 
rized perhaps to say that in our sense of beauty 
it was any object at all. ‘When this artist designed 
man, that must to him have appeared to be the 
best form, which was the best fitted to the field 
of action in which man was intended to move, 
and in which it was intended that he should reap 
the conveniences and utilities of his being. If 
man had been designed to be an animal of speed, 
a form similar to that of: the hare, of the grey- 
hound or the antelope might have been asstgned - 
to him; or if not precisely a similar form, yet 
