342 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
and colour, dress is made subservient to the great idea 
of decorating and beautifying the person. 
This decoration is principally seen in colour and form. Nor 
let any one for a moment condemn this natural tendency 
to adornment. Deep in the instincts of our nature is laid the 
admiration of colour, and to meet this feeling, the Creator 
adorns his creation with all the tints of the rainbow. 
In the dark unfathomed caves of ocean, a thousand forms 
of coloured beauties meet the eye, unnumbered insects expand 
their wings, coloured with varied tints, whilst birds and flowers 
vie with each other in presenting the primitive colours of the 
rainbow in all their possible tints to meet the eye of man. 
Surely then, if God has adorned so brilliantly His lower crea- 
tures, it is left for those who have the power of imitating 
their Creator, to deck themselves in a similar manner. This 
subject should have much further study and development than 
it has hitherto received. There is a harmony of colours as of 
sounds, and there is a discord of colours as of sounds. It 
is this discord of colours that often makes dress so offensive, 
and which disguises the form and grace which naturally belong 
to man. 
It is by this natural taste for ornamentation in dress 
that the arts of the dyer and calico-printer have been called 
into existence, and to which we owe the more extensive use of 
bright colours, now so often seen in red petticoats, stockings, 
and other brightly- coloured articles of dress. The desire for 
rich and varied colours in clothing has given an impetus to 
those chemical researches which have resulted in the discovery 
of the glowing tints of Magenta, Mauve, and Solferino. The 
taste for ornamental dress has given many branches to our 
industry, and is an example of those pure and simple tastes 
of the human mind, by which it is led on to cultivate an ad- 
miration for the beautiful colours of nature, and in its 
highest tendencies to admire and imitate the work of the 
landscape-painter. 
The form of dress has also been a worthy object of study. 
Not that modern men or women either have succeeded in this 
respect. But certainly to the other sex must be given a 
greater appreciation of beauty in the form of dress. Even 
the utmost departure from the ordinary conventional rules of 
dress which female attire has recently taken, in the diminutive 
size of the bonnet and the inordinate extension of the skirts, 
can be defended on the ground of their having some shade of 
artistic merit. Even the chisel of a Phidias might not have 
despised the graceful folds of the flowing skirts of a modern 
belle. But when we turn to male attire — whether as a 
soldier, a sailor, an aristocrat, or a plebeian, there is scarcely 
