Fitness not the Cause of Beauty IT is said that the idea of utility, or of a part’s being well
adapted to answer its end, is the cause of beauty, or indeed beauty itself.
If it were not for this opinion, it had been impossible for the doctrine
of proportion to have held its ground very long; the world would be soon
weary of hearing of measures which related to nothing, either of a natural
principle, or of a fitness to answer some end; the idea which mankind
most commonly conceive of proportion, is the suitableness of means to
certain ends, and, where this is not the question, very seldom trouble
themselves about the effect of different measures of things. Therefore
it was necessary for this theory to insist, that not only artificial
but natural objects took their beauty from the fitness of the parts for
their several purposes. But in framing this theory, I am apprehensive
that experience was not sufficiently consulted. For, on that principle,
the wedge-like snout of a swine, with its tough cartilage at the end,
the little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so well adapted
to its offices of digging and rooting, would be extremely beautiful.
The great bag hanging to the bill of a pelican, a thing highly useful
to this animal, would be likewise as beautiful in our eyes. The hedge-hog,
so well secured against all assaults by his prickly hide, and the porcupine
with his missile quills, would be then considered as creatures of no
small elegance. There are few animals whose parts are better contrived
than those of the monkey; he has the hands of a man, joined to the springy
limbs of a beast; he is admirably calculated for running, leaping, grappling,
and climbing; and yet there are few animals which seem to have less beauty
in the eyes of all mankind. I need say little on the trunk of the elephant,
of such various usefulness, and which is so far from contributing to
his beauty. How well fitted is the wolf for running and leaping! how
admirably is the lion armed for battle! but will any one therefore call
the elephant, the wolf, and the lion, beautiful animals? I believe nobody
will think the form of a man’s leg so well adapted to running,
as those of a horse, a dog, a deer, and several other creatures; at least
they have not that appearance: yet, I believe, a well-fashioned human
leg will be allowed to far exceed all these in beauty. If the fitness
of parts was what constituted the loveliness of their form, the actual
employment of them would undoubtedly much augment it; but this, though
it is sometimes so upon another principle, is far from being always the
case. A bird on the wing is not so beautiful as when it is perched; nay,
there are several of the domestic fowls which are seldom seen to fly,
and which are nothing the less beautiful on that account; yet birds are
so extremely different in their form from the beast and human kinds,
that you cannot, on the principle of fitness, allow them anything agreeable,
but in consideration of their parts being designed for quite other purposes.
I never in my life chanced to see a peacock fly; and yet before, very
long before, I considered any aptitude in his form for the aërial
life, I was struck with the extreme beauty which raises that bird above
many of the best flying fowls in the world; though, for anything I saw,
his way of living was much like that of the swine, which fed in the farm-yard
along with him. The same may be said of cocks, hens, and the like; they
are of the flying kind in figure; in their manner of moving not very
different from men and beasts. To leave these foreign examples; if beauty
in our own species was annexed to use, men would be much more lovely
than women; and strength and agility would be considered as the only
beauties. But to call strength by the name of beauty, to have but one
denomination for the qualities of a Venus and Hercules, so totally different
in almost all respects, is surely a strange confusion of ideas, or abuse
of words. The cause of this confusion, I imagine, proceeds from our frequently
perceiving the parts of the human and other animal bodies to be at once
very beautiful, and very well adapted to their purposes; and we are deceived
by a sophism, which makes us take that for a cause which is only a concomitant:
this is the sophism of the fly, who imagined he raised a great dust,
because he stood upon the chariot that really raised it. The stomach,
the lungs, the liver, as well as other parts, are incomparably well adapted
to their purposes; yet they are far from having any beauty. Again, many
things are very beautiful, in which it is impossible to discern any idea
of use. And I appeal to the first and most natural feelings of mankind,
whether on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fashioned mouth, or a
well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for seeing, eating,
or running, ever present themselves. What idea of use is it that flowers
excite, the most beautiful part of the vegetable world? It is true, that
the infinitely wise and good Creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined
beauty to those things which he has made useful to us: but this does
not prove that an idea of use and beauty are the same thing, or that
they are any way dependent on each other. |
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