LXIV INTRODUCTORY 



No writings of Greek authors treating specially of the proportions of the human 

 bodv have come down to us. It is known, from a passage in the works of Diodorus 

 Siculus, that, at a very early period of Grecian art,, a system of proportion, rigorously 

 minute in its details, had been introduced from Egypt. Two sculptors, he informs us,' 

 havino- together agreed upon the size of a proposed statue of the Pythian Apollo, 

 executed each his half of the work at a different city, the one being at Samos and the 

 other at Ephesus. So precise were the rules by which they were guided that, upon 

 adjusting the separate portions, the completed statue proved to be a marvel of symmetry 

 and perfection. 



The celebrated sculptor Polykleitus, who flourished about B. C. 400, is known to 

 have written a treatise on human proportion, which he entitled "TAe Canon" being the 

 same name as that applied to his famous statue. Unfortunately, the work has not sur- 

 vived, but numerous allusions in Greek and Roman writings testify to the high admi- 

 ration felt for the theory of proportion laid down and displayed in the beautiful statue 

 which embodied it. This statue, besides its name of supreme distinction of The 

 Canon, was, from its subject, called Doryphoros, or the Spear-bearer. The figure was 

 youthful, but the proportions those of a full-grown man. Polykleitus and his pupils 

 and admirers believed it to be absolutely perfect in form.^ Neither statue nor copy of 

 it has survived ; but the Roman wi-iter on architecture, Vitruvius, has incidentally 

 given a partial and not altogether intelligible account of its proportions. This descrip- 

 tion has been so often referred to by writers on human proportion, and its statements 

 were so long considered authoritative, that it is of sufficient interest to be quoted entire. 

 He says : 



" The human body, as nature composed it, has this proportion, that the face, which 

 includes the space from the chin to the top of the forehead, where the roots of the hair 

 begin, is a tenth part of the whole height ; it is the same length from the wrist to the 

 tip of the middle finger. The head, from the chin to the top of the skull, is one-eighth 

 part ; the same to the pit of the neck.^ From the top of the chest to the roots of the 

 hair is one-sixth part,^ and to the top of the head one-fourth.^ The third part of the 



coluuin of tbo foregoing table. This was douo b.v estimating it at 52.9 per cent, of tbo length of the npper arm, 

 according to the rule laid down by Carl Vogt, {TorUamigen iiher den mensclini, <fc., 8vo, Giessen, 1863.) 



The earliest record of the comparison of the length of the fore-arm in the two races is to be found, it is believed, 

 in an essay read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, England, in 1795, by Mr. Charles White, 

 and afterward published, (4to, London, 179!),) entitled "An account of the regular gradation in man and in different 

 animals." His opportunities for examination were few, but he points out the peculiarity in question. 



It may be added in this connection that the mean length of foot of the full black, as ascertained during the late 

 war, compared with that of the white soldier, is as 105.39 to 100. 

 , 1 Bibl. hist., lib. i, sect. 98. 



'' G M.Et!, De temperameniis, i, 9; De Sippoc. et Platan., iv, 3; De opt. nostri corp. const., i, 2. Plato, Protagor, p. 311. 

 Xenopiion, Mcmorab., i, 4. Dion. Halicau., De Isocrat., p. 95. Luclan, Dc saltalionc, 75; PkUopseudas, 18 ; De morte 

 Peretir.,8. CiCKiio, Brutus, 18; Dc oratore,\n,7 ; Academ., ii, 47 ; De Jinibus, u, M ; Tuscal.,i,2; Paradoxa, v,2. QuiN- 

 riLlAN, Inst, oral., v, 12 ; xii, 10. Pliny, Bist. nat., xxxiv, 19. Aelian, Var. hist., xiv, 8, IG. 



^Thero is preserved, in the library of the aclideniy at Venice, a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci accompanying a 

 tran.slation into Italian by that artist of the passage front Vitruvius. Mr. Bonomi suggests that Leonardo had access to 

 some copy of Vitruvius which has not come down to us, as there are some changes in his translation which dispel certain 

 obscurities in the ordinary version. (The proportions of the human fii/ure according to the ancient Greek canon of Vitruvius, 

 &c., by JosEi'ii 150M0MI, 8vo, Loudon, 1857.) The latter part of the sentence to which this note refers, viz, " thesamo 

 to the pit of the neck," is omitted in the Italian translation, and with advantage to accuracy. 



■•Leonardo has it one-seventh. 



"■ Leonardo has it, "from the nipples to the top of the head is one-fourth." This would be correct. 



