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by sight than by smell; yet the eyes are capable of much greater beauty than the nose. The mouth, again, is more valuable than the nose; it is indeed absolutely indispensable to existence; and, moreover, we are less often deceived by taste than by smell; yet the nose is capable of greater beauty than the mouth; and so on.

We have now examined beauty in several of its phases and departments-animal, vegetable, topographical; that conferred by Nature upon flowers and fruits, birds and insects, plants and trees, and that supplied by art to ornaments, vessels, and utensils of various kinds. We have also touched on decorative beauty as it appears in the different sorts of vehicles, shops, and buildings; the amount presented by the details of different kinds of architecture, and that expressed by scenes, places, and localities. We have also endeavoured to examine the comparative æsthetic value of the different professions, trades, and literary pursuits; and, lastly, we have inspected the beauty exhibited by human beings of different sexes, different ages, and different mental characteristics, and by the different parts of the human body; and it does seem in all these cases as if the amount of beauty were regulated by the amount of utility, and that the two quantities coexist in inverse proportions.

Many exceptions and objections might perhaps be urged against the principle herein put forward. It might be said, for instance, that a stable is less decorated than a mansion, and also less useful. In answer to this it may be remarked, that stables are generally in the rear of premises and out of sight, intended neither for the public to behold nor for visitors to gaze on; but in other respects the objection is probably superficial. Stables may be less useful than mansions to society, but a stable is not less useful to the horse than the mansion to its master; on the contrary, it is far more useful. The master has his halls, his landings, his staircases, his parlour, library, morningroom, dining-room, drawing-room, bed-rooms, kitchen, pan

tries, &c., all in separate apartments; the horse has all these in one. The mansion, to be relatively as useful to the master as the stable to the horse, should have but a single room instead of a suite to select from. "A man's house is his castle." Consider all that this means where the house is small, humble, and fully utilised, compared with what it signifies where the house is really a castle or something better. In the former case it teems with suggestions, in the latter it means nothing; it is a mere truism.

Again, it might be objected that among dogs, sheep-dogs are about the most useful and also the most beautiful. Here again the objection is unsubstantial. To whom are sheep-dogs most useful? To country-people. To whom are they most beautiful? To towns-people. Sheep-dogs are beautiful to those who have no occasion to experience their utility to city-folk, to seafaring men, to all persons, in short, who have often heard of the valuable sagacity of these animals, but have seldom seen it in operation. Farmers, shepherds, and drovers see no particular beauty in their sheep-dogs. I have known peasants to express great admiration at the sight of a very common-looking retriever, while they were completely indifferent to the charms of their own colley; for it is almost impossible to see much beauty in that which is very useful. Other objections of a like nature will, I think, be found similarly amenable to analysis.

There is one department of beauty left unnoticed, and we must put it also to the test to ascertain if it likewise be regulated by the inverse ratio principle. I refer to the beauty or grace of movement. There are useful movements and movements which are of but little use. Let us first consider human locomotion. The act of walking will hardly be denied to be one of the most useful movements a man can perform, and the act of dancing to be one of the least useful; but to the latter belongs by general consent a great deal of grace and elegance, while

to the former is accorded admiration at zero, or negative admiration. Sitting and lying down are the positions in which the greatest part of our existence is passed, and which everyone would probably choose in preference to any other for a continuance, were we obliged to make a selection. Neither of these postures, however, is as graceful as standing erect, which is, therefore, the attitude in which most statues are represented. Acts of useful locomotion are usually performed, when practicable, in a straight line, that being the shortest distance between any two points; while fanciful but less serviceable movements are usually performed in curved lines. When a man wants to catch a train or a vehicle, to overtake a friend, to keep an appointment, or to arrest a thief, he runs forward so far as he can in a right line. A man on the ice, shod with skates for purposes of amusement and recreation, winds and curves, and sways, and turns, glides away, now to this side and now to that, and performs all sorts of marvellous evolutions; and there can, I think, be as little question about the beauty of such movements as about their inutility. Similarly the movements of a man on crutches may be compared with those of a man on horseback-the first moving about from necessity, the latter for amusement. Ploughing is an extremely useful action, but not nearly so graceful as swimming, which in almost all cases is but a pleasurable pastime. Mowing is likewise an operation of great utility, but its movements do not secure the applause which skilful rowing calls forth. Scavenging and scraping the streets is a useful activity, but its movements cannot be compared with vaulting, an exercise but seldom turned to practical account. Compare, moreover, the movements. of a tinker's fingers as he mends his kettle with those of a painter's hands as he coats the window; yet it is much more desirable to have our kettles sound than our windows painted. Compare the action of a man digging in a field with that of a girl skipping with a rope; compare the action of a smith at his anvil with that of an athlete at

his clubs; compare the sawing of a tree into planks with 'the waving of the branches by the wind; compare the motion of a railway train with that of a steamer; compare the movements of a man thrashing corn, pumping water, or churning milk with those of a bather diving into the sea; compare a butcher cutting up his meat with a harpist playing on his instrument; compare a man sweeping a crossing with the bicyclist who passes over it; compare a woman washing or mangling clothes with a young lady playing lawn-tennis,—and I think that in all these cases, as well as in others that might be mentioned, the inverse proportion of coexistent beauty and utility will be found to assert itself.

CHAPTER VII.

UGLINESS.

1. Ugliness attaches only to inutility.

2. Ugliness varies directly with suggested inutility.

UGLINESS is the antithesis of beauty, and as admiration is the appropriate emotion for the latter, so disgust is the appropriate emotion for the former. Ugliness, like beauty, is a relative term, and implies two things: first, an objective quality of matter; and, secondly, a subjective affection of mind, the former being the suggestion of inutility and the latter disgust. Of course, when I speak of objective, external, or innate qualities, no more is meant, as was before observed, than such innateness, externality, or objectivity as the mind itself endows the material object with. The metaphysical difference then between innate and suggested qualities is one of degree only; the quality of heat in the fire, of beauty in a flower, or of meaning in a word may, for all we know to the contrary, stand upon the same footing as regards necessity; and the man who attaches to fire the idea of heat, to the flower, beauty, and to a word, meaning, acts in each case under precisely the same psychological law. He may think it impossible for him to regard the object otherwise than as endowed with its respective quality, though for all that the fire may be as destitute of necessary heat and the flower of necessary beauty as the word is confessedly destitute of necessary signification. Nevertheless, though it is maintainable that we ourselves are the real and sole possessors of all material qualities, it

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