872 



D ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON ON 



common use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by artists in their study of 

 the human form. The method is probably much more ancient, and may even be 

 classical; it is fully described and put in practice by Albert Durer in his Geometry, 

 and especially in his Treatise on Proportion* In this latter work, the manner in 

 which the human figure, features, and facial expression are all transformed and modi- 

 fied by slight variations in the relative magnitude of the parts is admirably and 

 copiously illustrated (fig. 13). 



Fig. 13. (After Albert Durer.) 



In a tapir's foot there is a striking difference, and yet at the same time there is 

 an obvious underlying resemblance, between the middle toe and either of its un- 

 symmetrical lateral neighbours. Let us take the median terminal phalanx and 

 inscribe its outline in a net of rectangular equidistant co-ordinates (fig. 14, a). Let 

 us then make a similar network about axes which are no longer at right angles, but 



Fie. 14. 



inclined to one another at an angle of about 50° (fig. 14, b). If into this new net- 

 work we fill in, point for point, an outline precisely corresponding to our original 

 drawing of the middle toe, we shall find that we have already represented the main 

 features of the adjacent lateral one. We shall, however, perceive that our new 

 diagram looks a little too bulky on one side, the inner side, of the lateral toe. ff 

 now we substitute for our equidistant ordinates, ordinates which get gradually closer 

 and closer together as we pass towards the median side of the toe, then we shall 

 obtain a diagram which differs in no essential respect from an actual outline copy of 



* Les guatres livres d'AUiert Diirer de la proportion des parties el, pourtraicts des carps humains, Ainliftiin, 1613, folio 

 (and earlier editions). Cf. also Lavatku, Essays on Physioynomy , 1799, vol. iii, p. 271. 



