AMERICAN ADVERTISEMENT.
The present volume completes the series of Mr. Walker’s anthropological works. To say that they have met with a favorable reception from the American public, would be but a very inadequate expression of the unprecedented success which has attended their publication. “Intermarriage,” the first of the series, passed through six large editions within eighteen months, and “Woman,” has met with a sale scarcely less extensive. The numerous calls for the present work, have compelled the publishers to issue it sooner than they had contemplated; and, it is believed, that it will be found not less worthy of attention than the preceding.
All must acknowledge the interesting nature of the subject treated in the present work, as well as its intimate connexion with those which have already passed under discussion. The analysis of beauty on philosophical principles, is attended with numerous difficulties, not the least of which arises from the want of any fixed and acknowledged standard. The term Beauty is, indeed, generally considered as a vague generality, varying according to national, and even individual taste and judgment.
Mr. Walker claims, in his advertisement, numerous points of originality, some of which, on examination, may perhaps prove to have been proposed previously by other writers. Enough, however, will remain to entitle him to the credit of great ingenuity and acuteness. As treated by him, the subject assumes an aspect very different from that exhibited in any other publication. To trace the connexion of beauty with, and its dependance on, anatomical structure and physiological laws—to show how it may be modified by causes within our control—to describe its different forms and modifications, and defects, as indicated by certain physical signs—to analyze its elements, with a view to its influence on individuals and society, in connexion with its perpetration in posterity—all these were novel topics of vast and exciting interest, and well adapted to the genius, taste, and research of our author.
In preparing the present edition, it has been thought expedient to make some verbal alterations, and omit a few paragraphs, to which a refined taste might perhaps object, and to bring together in the Appendix such collateral matter, as might serve to correct, extend, or illustrate the views presented in the text. With these explanations, the work is confidently commended to the popular as well as philosophical reader, as worthy of studious examination.
CONTENTS.
| Preliminary Essay | Page [ix] |
| English Advertisement | [1] |
| CHAPTER I.—Importance of the Subject | [11] |
| CHAPTER II.—Urgency of the Discussion of this Subject in relation to the Interests of Decency and Morality | [21] |
| CHAPTER III.—Cautions to Youth | [35] |
| CHAPTER IV.—Nature of Beauty | [46] |
| CHAPTER V.—Standard of Taste in Beauty | [56] |
| CHAPTER VI.—The Elements of Beauty | [72] |
| Section I.—Elements of Beauty in Inanimate Beings | [74] |
| Section II.—Elements of Beauty in Living Beings | [88] |
| Section III.—Elements of Beauty in Thinking Beings | [93] |
| Section IV.—Elements of Beauty as employed in Objects of Art | [103] |
| Beauty of Useful Objects | [104] |
| Beauty of Ornamental Objects | [108] |
| Beauty of Intellectual Objects | [113] |
| Summary of this Chapter | [120] |
| Appendix to the Preceding Chapters | [123] |
| Section I.—Nature of the Picturesque | [123] |
| Section II.—Cause of Laughter | [125] |
| Section III.—Cause of the Pleasure received from Representations exciting Pity | [131] |
| CHAPTER VII.—Anatomical and Physiological Principles | [139] |
| CHAPTER VIII.—Of the Ages of Women in relation to Beauty | [152] |
| CHAPTER IX.—Of the Causes of Beauty in Woman | [166] |
| CHAPTER X.—Of the Standard of Beauty in Woman | [171] |
| CHAPTER XI.—Of the Three Species of Female Beauty generally viewed | [185] |
| CHAPTER XII.—First Species of Beauty: Beauty of the Locomotive System | [189] |
| First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [191] |
| Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [197] |
| Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [198] |
| CHAPTER XIII.—Second Species of Beauty: Beauty of the Nutritive System | [203] |
| First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [208] |
| Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [210] |
| Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [212] |
| CHAPTER XIV.—Third Species of Beauty: Beauty of the Thinking System | [225] |
| First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [226] |
| Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [227] |
| Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty | [229] |
| CHAPTER XV.—Beauty of the Face in particular | [238] |
| CHAPTER XVI.—Combinations and Transitions of the Three Species of Female Beauty | [254] |
| CHAPTER XVII.—Proportion, Character, Expression, &c. | [259] |
| CHAPTER XVIII.—The Greek Ideal Beauty | [280] |
| CHAPTER XIX.—The Ideal of Female Beauty | [307] |
| CHAPTER XX.—Defects of Beauty | [320] |
| Defects of the Locomotive System | [320] |
| Defects of the Vital System | [323] |
| Defects of the Mental System | [327] |
| CHAPTER XXI.—External Indications, or Art of Determining the precise Figure, the degree of Beauty, the Mind, the Habits, and the Age of Women, notwithstanding the Aids and Disguises of Dress | [329] |
| External Indications of Figure | [329] |
| External Indications of Beauty | [332] |
| External Indications of Mind | [335] |
| External Indications of Habits | [337] |
| External Indications of Age | [339] |
| Appendix | [343] |