7 8 Beauty in the Eyes of an Evolutionist . [February, 
That this theory must be true as regards every important 
point can hardly, I think, be doubted by anyone who believes 
in Evolution by Natural and Sexual Selection. For, sup- 
posing that there were any such thing existing as perfect 
unconditioned self-beauty, the human mind would surely be 
unable to detedt it, unless such beauty is in correlatiqn to 
the human qualities adapted to the surroundings. Let us 
take bodily proportion as an illustration of this fadt. Say 
that in man the proportion of stature to chest measurement 
should be as 7 to 4, and that an artist with a perfedt eye 
for beauty would admire these and dislike other proportions. 
If they are not also the proportions most likely to lead to 
success in the struggle for existence, it follows that those 
individuals who admire the proportions that are so, and 
mate accordingly , will leave more descendants, inheriting their 
taste, than those who have a better artistic eye, and mate 
accordingly. In the end these latter strains with the corredt 
taste will dwindle in number, generation after generation, 
down to extinction ; for they will not be able to contend with 
those who have the taste which is bad in an aesthetic point 
of view, but good in the purely material one. 
I believe therefore that — at least as regards all those prin- 
cipal points of beauty in a human being which most attract 
the attention of the opposite sex, and the charms of which 
most engage the pen and pencil of artist and poet — a gene- 
ral Law of Beauty may be stated thus : — 
The visible signs of the possession of those qualities of body 
and mind which have tended in the environment of a race 
to the production of the largest number of descendants con- 
stitute Beauty among that race. 
So that in an unaltered environment it might safely be 
affirmed of one hundred persons, of whom it could be fore- 
told that they would have one million descendants after a 
given lapse of time, that they have a higher average of 
beauty (in the eyes of the same race) than one hundred 
other persons who would have one thousand descendants only 
within the same time ; and that the latter are more beautiful 
than those from whom eventually few or none will derive 
descent. This law is limited to the beauty of humanity, as 
perceived by each race, and to the beauty (in the eye of its 
own species or variety) of such animals as have had Sexual 
Selection working amongst them. 
If there had never been any Sexual Selection, but men 
and women had always been joined together on some other 
system, — say, in order of birth, — the theory would have had 
