and compressed the breasts and thus tended to efface the specifically
feminine character of a woman's body. Gradually, however, the bodice was
displaced downward, and its effect, ultimately, was to render the breasts
more prominent instead of effacing them. Not only does the corset render
the breasts more prominent; it has the further effect of displacing the
breathing activity of the lungs in an upward direction, the advantage from
the point of sexual allurement thus gained being that additional attention
is drawn to the bosom from the respiratory movement thus imparted to it.
So marked and so constant is this artificial respiratory effect, under the
influence of the waist compression habitual among civilized women, that
until recent years it was commonly supposed that there is a real and
fundamental difference in breathing between men and women, that women's
breathing is thoracic and men's abdominal. It is now known that under
natural and healthy conditions there is no such difference, but that men
and women breathe in a precisely identical manner. The corset may thus be
regarded as the chief instrument of sexual allurement which the armory of
costume supplies to a woman, for it furnishes her with a method of
heightening at once her two chief sexual secondary characters, the bosom
above, the hips and buttocks below. We cannot be surprised that all the
scientific evidence in the world of the evil of the corset is powerless
not merely to cause its abolition, but even to secure the general adoption
of its comparatively harmless modifications.

Several books have been written on the history of the corset.
Léoty (_Le Corset à travers les Ages_, 1893) accepts Bouvier's
division of the phases through which the corset has passed: (1)
the bands, or fasciæ, of Greek and Roman ladies; (2) period of
transition during greater part of middle ages, classic traditions
still subsisting; (3) end of middle ages and beginning of
Renaissance, when tight bodices were worn; (4) the period of
whalebone bodices, from middle of sixteenth to end of eighteenth
centuries; (5) the period of the modern corset. We hear of
embroidered girdles in Homer. Even in Rome, however, the fasciæ
were not in general use, and were chiefly employed either to
support the breasts or to compress their excessive development,
and then called _mamillare_. The _zona_ was a girdle, worn
usually round the hips, especially by young girls. The modern
corset is a combination of the _fascia_ and the _zona_. It was at
the end of the fourteenth century that Isabeau of Bavaria
introduced the custom of showing the breasts uncovered, and the
word "corset" was then used for the first time.

Stratz, in his _Frauenkleidung_ (pp. 366 et seq.), and in his
_Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapters VIII, X, and XVI,
also deals with the corset, and illustrates the results of
compression on the body. For a summary of the evidence concerning
the difference of respiration in man and woman, its causes and
results, see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition,
1904, pp. 228-244. With reference to the probable influence of
the corset and unsuitable clothing generally during early life in
impeding the development of the mammary glands, causing inability
to suckle properly, and thus increasing infant mortality, see
especially a paper by Professor Bollinger (_Correspondenz-blatt
Deutsch. Gesell. Anthropologie_, October, 1899).

The compression caused by the corset, it must be added, is not
usually realized or known by those who wear it. Thus, Rushton
Parker and Hugh Smith found, in two independent series of
measurements, that the waist measurement was, on the average, two
inches less over the corset than round the naked waist; "the
great majority seemed quite unaware of the fact." In one case the
difference was as much as five inches. (_British Medical
Journal_, September 15 and 22, 1900.)

The breasts and the developed hips are characteristics of women and are
indications of functional effectiveness as well as sexual allurement.
Another prominent sexual character which belongs to man, and is not
obviously an index of function, is furnished by the hair on the face. The
beard may be regarded as purely a sexual adornment, and thus comparable to
the somewhat similar growth on the heads of many male animals. From this
point of view its history is interesting, for it illustrates the tendency
with increase of civilization not merely to dispense with sexual
allurement in the primary sexual organs, but even to disregard those
growths which would appear to have been developed solely to act as sexual
allurements. The cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous
races. Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred and
beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an object to which
the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. Holding such a position,
it must doubtless act as a sexual allurement. "Allah has specially created
an angel in Heaven," it is said in the _Arabian Nights_, "who has no other
occupation than to sing the praises of the Creator for giving a beard to
men and long hair to women." The sexual character of the beard and the
other hirsute appendage is significantly indicated by the fact that the
ascetic spirit in Christianity has always sought to minimize or to hide
the hair. Altogether apart, however, from this religious influence,
civilization tends to be opposed to the growth of hair on the masculine
face and especially to the beard. It is part of the well-marked tendency
with civilization to the abolition of sexual differences. We find this
general tendency among the Greeks and Romans, and, on the whole, with
certain variations and fluctuations of fashion, in modern Europe also.
Schopenhauer frequently referred to this disappearance of the beard as a
mark of civilization, "a barometer of culture."[151] The absence of facial
hair heightens æsthetic beauty of form, and is not felt to remove any
substantial sexual attraction.

That even the Egyptians regarded the beard as a mark of beauty
and an object of veneration is shown by the fact that the priests
wore it long and cut it off in grief (Herodotus, _Euterpe_,
Chapter XXXVI). The respect with which the beard was regarded
among the ancient Hebrews is indicated in the narrative (II
Samuel, Chapter X) which tells how, when David sent his servants
to King Hanun the latter shaved off half their beards; they were
too ashamed to return in this condition, and remained at Jericho
until their beards had grown again. A passage in Ordericus
Vitalis (_Ecclesiastical History_, Book VIII, Chapter X) is
interesting both as regards the fashions of the twelfth century
in England and Normandy and the feeling that prompted Ordericus.
Speaking of the men of his time, he wrote: "The forepart of
their head is bare after the manner of thieves, while at the back
they nourish long hair like harlots. In former times penitents,
captives and pilgrims usually went unshaved and wore long beards,
as an outward mark of their penance or captivity or pilgrimage.
Now almost all the world wear crisped hair and beards, carrying
on their faces the token of their filthy lust like stinking
goats. Their locks are curled with hot irons, and instead of
wearing caps they bind their heads with fillets. A knight seldom
appears in public with his head uncovered, and properly shaved,
according to the apostolic precept (I Corinthians, Chapter XI,
verses 7 and 14)."

We have seen that there is good reason for assuming a certain fundamental
tendency whereby the most various peoples of the world, at all events in
the person of their most intelligent members, recognize and accept a
common ideal of feminine beauty, so that to a certain extent beauty may be
said to have an objectively æsthetic basis. We have further found that
this æsthetic human ideal is modified, and very variously modified in
different countries and even in the same country at different periods, by
a tendency, prompted by a sexual impulse which is not necessarily in
harmony with æsthetic cannons, to emphasize, or even to repress, one or
other of the prominent secondary sexual characters of the body. We now
come to another tendency which is apt to an even greater extent to limit
the cultivation of the purely æsthetic ideal of beauty: the influences of
national or racial type.

To the average man of every race the woman who most completely embodies
the type of his race is usually the most beautiful, and even mutilations
and deformities often have their origin, as Humboldt long since pointed
out, in the effort to accentuate the racial type.[152] Eastern women
possess by nature large and conspicuous eyes, and this characteristic
they seek still further to heighten by art. The Ainu are the hairiest of
races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful as hair. It
is difficult to be sexually attracted to persons who are fundamentally
unlike ourselves in racial constitution.[153]

It frequently happens that this admiration for racial characteristics
leads to the idealization of features which are far removed from æsthetic
beauty. The firm and rounded breast is certainly a feature of beauty, but
among many of the black peoples of Africa the breasts fall at a very early
period, and here we sometimes find that the hanging breast is admired as
beautiful.

The African Baganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe states (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire
hanging breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them
down in order to hasten the arrival of this condition.

"The most remarkable trait of beauty in the East," wrote Sonnini,
"is to have large black eyes, and nature has made this a
characteristic sign of the women of these countries. But, not
content with this, the women of Egypt wish their eyes to be still
larger and blacker. To attain this Mussulmans, Jewesses, and
Christians, rich and poor, all tint their eyelids with galena.
They also blacken the lashes (as Juvenal tells us the Roman
ladies did) and mark the angles of the eye so that the fissure
appears larger." (Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse
Egypte_, 1799, vol. i, p. 290.) Kohl is thus only used by the
women who have what the Arabs call "natural kohl." As Flinders
Petrie has found, the women of the so-called "New Race," between
the sixth and tenth dynasties of ancient Egypt, used galena and
malachite for painting their faces. Jewish women in the days of
the prophets painted their eyes with kohl, as do some Hindu women
to-day.

"The Ainu have a great affection for their beards. They regard
them as a sign of manhood and strength and consider them as
especially handsome. They look upon them, indeed, as a great and
highly prized treasure." (J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their
Folklore_, p. 162.)

A great many theories have been put forward to explain the
Chinese fashion of compressing and deforming the foot. The
Chinese are great admirers of the feminine foot, and show
extreme sexual sensitiveness in regard to it. Chinese women
naturally possess very small feet, and the main reason for
binding them is probably to be found in the desire to make them
still smaller. (See, e.g., Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, 1904, p.
101.)

An interesting question, which in part finds its explanation here and is
of considerable significance from the point of view of sexual selection,
concerns the relative admiration bestowed on blondes and brunettes. The
question is not, indeed, one which is entirely settled by racial
characteristics. There is something to be said on the matter from the
objective standpoint of æsthetic considerations. Stratz, in a chapter on
beauty of coloring in woman, points out that fair hair is more beautiful
because it harmonizes better with the soft outlines of woman, and, one may
add, it is more brilliantly conspicuous; a golden object looks larger than
a black object. The hair of the armpit, also, Stratz considers should be
light. On the other hand, the pubic hair should be dark in order to
emphasize the breadth of the pelvis and the obtusity of the angle between
the mons veneris and the thighs. The eyebrows and eyelashes should also be
dark in order to increase the apparent size of the orbits. Stratz adds
that among many thousand women he has only seen one who, together with an
otherwise perfect form, has also possessed these excellencies in the
highest measure. With an equable and matt complexion she had blonde, very
long, smooth hair, with sparse, blonde, and curly axillary hair; but,
although her eyes were blue, the eyebrows and eyelashes were black, as
also was the not overdeveloped pubic hair.[154]

We may accept it as fairly certain that, so far as any objective standard
of æsthetic beauty is recognizable, that standard involves the supremacy
of the fair type of woman. Such supremacy in beauty has doubtless been
further supported by the fact that in most European countries the ruling
caste, the aristocratic class, whose superior energy has brought it to the
top, is somewhat blonder than the average population.

The main cause, however, in determining the relative amount of admiration
accorded in Europe to blondes and to brunettes is the fact that the
population of Europe must be regarded as predominantly fair, and that our
conception of beauty in feminine coloring is influenced by an instinctive
desire to seek this type in its finest forms. In the north of Europe there
can, of course, be no question concerning the predominant fairness of the
population, but in portions of the centre and especially in the south it
may be considered a question. It must, however, be remembered that the
white population occupying all the shores of the Mediterranean have the
black peoples of Africa immediately to the south of them. They have been
liable to come in contact with the black peoples and in contrast with them
they have tended not only to be more impressed with their own whiteness,
but to appraise still more highly its blondest manifestations as
representing a type the farthest removed from the negro. It must be added
that the northerner who comes into the south is apt to overestimate the
darkness of the southerner because of the extreme fairness of his own
people. The differences are, however, less extreme than we are apt to
suppose; there are more dark people in the north than we commonly assume,
and more fair people in the south. Thus, if we take Italy, we find in its
fairest part, Venetia, according to Raseri, that there are 8 per cent.
communes in which fair hair predominates, 81 per cent. in which brown
predominates, and only 11 per cent. in which black predominates; as we go
farther south black hair becomes more prevalent, but there are in most
provinces a few communes in which fair hair is not only frequent, but even
predominant. It is somewhat the same with light eyes, which are also most
abundant in Venetia and decrease to a slighter extent as we go south. It
is possible that in former days the blondes prevailed to a greater degree
than to-day in the south of Europe. Among the Berbers of the Atlas
Mountains, who are probably allied to the South Europeans, there appears
to be a fairly considerable proportion of blondes,[155] while on the other
hand there is some reason to believe that blondes die out under the
influence of civilization as well as of a hot climate.

However this may be, the European admiration for blondes dates back to
early classic times. Gods and men in Homer would appear to be frequently
described as fair.[156] Venus is nearly always blonde, as was Milton's
Eve. Lucian refers to women who dye their hair. The Greek sculptors gilded
the hair of their statues, and the figurines in many cases show very fair
hair.[157] The Roman custom of dyeing the hair light, as Renier has shown,
was not due to the desire to be like the fair Germans, and when Rome fell
it would appear that the custom of dyeing the hair persisted, and never
died out; it is mentioned by Anselm, who died at the beginning of the
twelfth century.[158]

In the poetry of the people in Italy brunettes, as we should expect,
receive much commendation, though even here the blondes are preferred.
When we turn to the painters and poets of Italy, and the æsthetic writers
on beauty from the Renaissance onward, the admiration for fair hair is
unqualified, though there is no correspondingly unanimous admiration for
blue eyes. Angelico and most of the pre-Raphaelite artists usually painted
their women with flaxen and light-golden hair, which often became brown
with the artists of the Renaissance period. Firenzuola, in his admirable
dialogue on feminine beauty, says that a woman's hair should be like gold
or honey or the rays of the sun. Luigini also, in his _Libro della bella
Donna_, says that hair must be golden. So also thought Petrarch and
Ariosto. There is, however, no corresponding predilection among these
writers for blue eyes. Firenzuola said that the eyes must be dark, though
not black. Luigini said that they must be bright and black. Niphus had
previously said that the eyes should be "black like those of Venus" and
the skin ivory, even a little brown. He mentions that Avicenna had praised
the mixed, or gray eye.

In France and other northern countries the admiration for very fair hair
is just as marked as in Italy, and dates back to the earliest ages of
which we have a record. "Even before the thirteenth century," remarks
Houdoy, in his very interesting study of feminine beauty in northern
France during mediæval times, "and for men as well as for women, fair hair
was an essential condition of beauty; gold is the term of comparison
almost exclusively used."[159] He mentions that in the _Acta Sanctorum_ it
is stated that Saint Godelive of Bruges, though otherwise beautiful, had
black hair and eyebrows and was hence contemptuously called a crow. In the
_Chanson de Roland_ and all the French mediæval poems the eyes are
invariably _vairs_. This epithet is somewhat vague. It comes from
_varius_, and signifies mixed, which Houdoy regards as showing various
irradiations, the same quality which later gave rise to the term _iris_ to
describe the pupillary membrane.[160] _Vair_ would thus describe not so
much the color of the eye as its brilliant and sparkling quality. While
Houdoy may have been correct, it still seems probable that the eye
described as _vair_ was usually assumed to be "various" in color also, of
the kind we commonly call gray, which is usually applied to blue eyes
encircled with a ring of faintly sprinkled brown pigment. Such eyes are
fairly typical of northern France and frequently beautiful. That this was
the case seems to be clearly indicated by the fact that, as Houdoy himself
points out, a few centuries later the _vair_ eye was regarded as _vert_,
and green eyes were celebrated as the most beautiful.[161] The etymology
was false, but a false etymology will hardly suffice to change an ideal.
At the Renaissance Jehan Lemaire, when describing Venus as the type of
beauty, speaks of her green eyes, and Ronsard, a little later, sang:

"Noir je veux l'oeil et brun le teint,
Bien que l'oeil verd toute la France adore."

Early in the sixteenth century Brantôme quotes some lines current in
France, Spain, and Italy according to which a woman should have a white
skin, but black eyes and eyebrows, and adds that personally he agrees with
the Spaniard that "a brunette is sometimes equal to a blonde,"[162] but
there is also a marked admiration for green eyes in Spanish literature;
not only in the typical description of a Spanish beauty in the _Celestina_
(Act. I) are the eyes green, but Cervantes, for example, when referring to
the beautiful eyes of a woman, frequently speaks of them as green.

It would thus appear that in Continental Europe generally, from south to
north, there is a fair uniformity of opinion as regards the pigmentary
type of feminine beauty. Such variation as exists seemingly involves a
somewhat greater degree of darkness for the southern beauty in harmony
with the greater racial darkness of the southerner, but the variations
fluctuate within a narrow range; the extremely dark type is always
excluded, and so it would seem probable is the extremely fair type, for
blue eyes have not, on the whole, been considered to form part of the
admired type.

If we turn to England no serious modification of this conclusion is called
for. Beauty is still fair. Indeed, the very word "fair" in England itself
means beautiful. That in the seventeenth century it was generally held
essential that beauty should be blonde is indicated by a passage in the
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, where Burton argues that "golden hair was ever
in great account," and quotes many examples from classic and more modern
literature.[163] That this remains the case is sufficiently evidenced by
the fact that the ballet and chorus on the English stage wear yellow wigs,
and the heroine of the stage is blonde, while the female villain of
melodrama is a brunette.

While, however, this admiration of fairness as a mark of beauty
unquestionably prevails in England, I do not think it can be said--as it
probably can be said of the neighboring and closely allied country of
France--that the most beautiful women belong to the fairest group of the
community. In most parts of Europe the coarse and unbeautiful plebeian
type tends to be very dark; in England it tends to be very fair. England
is, however, somewhat fairer generally than most parts of Europe; so that,
while it may be said that a very beautiful woman in France or in Spain may
belong to the blondest section of the community, a very beautiful woman in
England, even though of the same degree of blondness as her Continental
sister, will not belong to the extremely blonde section of the English
community. It thus comes about that when we are in northern France we find
that gray eyes, a very fair but yet unfreckled complexion, brown hair,
finely molded features, and highly sensitive facial expression combine to
constitute a type which is more beautiful than any other we meet in
France, and it belongs to the fairest section of the French population.
When we cross over to England, however, unless we go to a so-called
"Celtic" district, it is hopeless to seek among the blondest section of
the community for any such beautiful and refined type. The English
beautiful woman, though she may still be fair, is by no means very fair,
and from the English standpoint she may even sometimes appear somewhat
dark:[164] In determining what I call the index of pigmentation--or degree
of darkness of the eyes and hair--of different groups in the National
Portrait Gallery I found that the "famous beauties" (my own personal
criterion of beauty not being taken into account) was somewhat nearer to
the dark than to the light end of the scale.[165] If we consider, at
random, individual instances of famous English beauties they are not
extremely fair. Lady Venetia Stanley, in the early seventeenth century,
who became the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was somewhat dark, with brown
hair and eyebrows. Mrs. Overall, a little later in the same century, a
Lancashire woman, the wife of the Dean of St. Paul's, was, says Aubrey,
"the greatest beauty in her time in England," though very wanton, with
"the loveliest eyes that were ever seen"; if we may trust a ballad given
by Aubrey she was dark with black hair. The Gunnings, the famous beauties
of the eighteenth century, were not extremely fair, and Lady Hamilton, the
most characteristic type of English beauty, had blue, brown-flecked eyes
and dark chestnut hair. Coloration is only one of the elements of beauty,
though an important one. Other things being equal, the most blonde is most
beautiful; but it so happens that among the races of Great Britain the
other things are very frequently not equal, and that, notwithstanding a
conviction ingrained in the language, with us the fairest of women is not
always the "fairest." So magical, however, is the effect of brilliant
coloring that it serves to keep alive in popular opinion an unqualified
belief in the universal European creed of the beauty of blondness.

We have seen that underlying the conception of beauty, more especially as
it manifests itself in woman to man, are to be found at least three
fundamental elements: First there is the general beauty of the species as
it tends to culminate in the white peoples of European origin; then there
is the beauty due to the full development or even exaggeration of the
sexual and more especially the secondary sexual characters; and last there
is the beauty due to the complete embodiment of the particular racial or
national type. To make the analysis fairly complete must be added at least
one other factor: the influence of individual taste. Every individual, at
all events in civilization, within certain narrow limits, builds up a
feminine ideal of his own, in part on the basis of his own special
organization and its demands, in part on the actual accidental attractions
he has experienced. It is unnecessary to emphasize the existence of this
factor, which has always to be taken into account in every consideration
of sexual selection in civilized man. But its variations are numerous and
in impassioned lovers it may even lead to the idealization of features
which are in reality the reverse of beautiful. It may be said of many a
man, as d'Annunzio says of the hero of his _Trionfo della Morte_ in
relation to the woman he loved, that "he felt himself bound to her by the
real qualities of her body, and not only by those which were most
beautiful, but specially by _those which were least beautiful_" (the
novelist italicizes these words), so that his attention was fixed upon her
defects, and emphasized them, thus arousing within himself an impetuous
state of desire. Without invoking defects, however, there are endless
personal variations which may all be said to come within the limits of
possible beauty or charm. "There are no two women," as Stratz remarks,
"who in exactly the same way stroke back a rebellious lock from their
brows, no two who hold the hand in greeting in exactly the same way, no
two who gather up their skirts as they walk with exactly the same
movement."[166] Among the multitude of minute differences--which yet can
be seen and felt--the beholder is variously attracted or repelled
according to his own individual idiosyncrasy, and the operations of sexual
selection are effected accordingly.

Another factor in the constitution of the ideal of beauty, but one perhaps
exclusively found under civilized conditions, is the love of the unusual,
the remote, the exotic. It is commonly stated that rarity is admired in
beauty. This is not strictly true, except as regards combinations and
characters which vary only in a very slight degree from the generally
admired type. "_Jucundum nihil est quod non reficit variatas_," according
to the saying of Publilius Syrus. The greater nervous restlessness and
sensibility of civilization heightens this tendency, which is not
infrequently found also among men of artistic genius. One may refer, for
instance, to Baudelaire's profound admiration for the mulatto type of
beauty.[167] In every great centre of civilization the national ideal of
beauty tends to be somewhat modified in exotic directions, and foreign
ideals, as well as foreign fashions, become preferred to those that are
native. It is significant of this tendency that when, a few years since,
an enterprising Parisian journal hung in its _salle_ the portraits of one
hundred and thirty-one actresses, etc., and invited the votes of the
public by ballot as to the most beautiful of them, not one of the three
women who came out at the head of the poll was French. A dancer of Belgian
origin (Cléo de Merode) was by far at the head with over 3000 votes,
followed by an American from San Francisco (Sybil Sanderson), and then a
Polish woman.


FOOTNOTES:

[134] Figured in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 174.

[135] As a native of Lukunor said to the traveler Mertens, "It has the
same object as your clothes, to please the women."

[136] "The greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel," as Burton
states (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, Subs. III),
illustrating this proposition with immense learning. Stanley Hall
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, Part III, pp. 365 _et seq._)
has some interesting observations on the various psychic influences of
clothing; cf. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_,
Teil II, pp. 330 et seq.

[137] _History of Human Marriage_, Chapter IX, especially p, 201. We have
a striking and comparatively modern European example of an article of
clothing designed to draw attention to the sexual sphere in the codpiece
(the French _braguette_), familiar to us through fifteenth and sixteenth
century pictures and numerous allusions in Rabelais and in Elizabethan
literature. This was originally a metal box for the protection of the
sexual organs in war, but subsequently gave place to a leather case only
worn by the lower classes, and became finally an elegant article of
fashionable apparel, often made of silk and adorned with ribbons, even
with gold and jewels. (See, e.g., Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 159.)

[138] A correspondent in Ceylon has pointed out to me that in the Indian
statues of Buddha, Vishnu, goddesses, etc., the necklace always covers the
nipples, a sexually attractive adornment being thus at the same time the
guardian of the orifices of the body. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 135)
regards mutilations as in the nature of permanent amulets or charms.

[139] Mantegazza, in his discussion of this point, although an ardent
admirer of feminine beauty, decides that woman's form is not, on the
whole, more beautiful than man's. See Appendix to Cap. IV of _Fisiologia
della Donna_.

[140] For a discussion of the anthropology of the feminine pelvis, see
Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1. Sec. VI.

[141] Ploss and Bartels, loc. cit.; Deniker, _Revue d'Anthropologie_,
January 15, 1889, and _Races of Man_, p. 93.

[142] Darwin.

[143] G.F. Watts, "On Taste in Dress," _Nineteenth Century_, 1883.

[144] From mediæval times onwards there has been a tendency to treat the
gluteal region with contempt, a tendency well marked in speech and custom
among the lowest classes in Europe to-day, but not easily traceable in
classic times. Dühren (_Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. II, pp. 359
et seq.) brings forward quotations from æsthetic writers and others
dealing with the beauty of this part of the body.

[145] Sonnini, _Voyage, etc._, vol. i, p. 308.

[146] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1, Sec. III; Mantegazza,
_Fisiologia della Donna_, Chapter III.

[147] Bloch brings together various interesting quotations concerning the
farthingale and the crinoline. (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia
Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 156.) He states that, like most other feminine
fashions in dress, it was certainly invented by prostitutes.

[148] The racial variations in the form and character of the breasts are
great, and there are considerable variations even among Europeans. Even as
regards the latter our knowledge is, however, still very vague and
incomplete; there is here a fruitful field for the medical anthropologist.
Ploss and Bartels have brought together the existing data (_Das Weib_, bd.
I, Sec. VIII). Stratz also discusses the subject (_Die Schönheit das
Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter X).

[149] _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p.
28.

[150] These devices are dealt with and illustrations given by Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_ (loc. cit.).

[151] See, e.g., _Parerga und Paralipomena_, bd. I, p. 189, and bd. 2, p.
482. Moll has also discussed this point (_Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_, bd. I, pp. 384 et seq.).

[152] Speaking of some South American tribes, he remarks (_Travels_,
English translations, 1814, vol. iii. p. 236) that they "have as great an
antipathy to the beard as the Eastern nations hold it in reverence. This
antipathy is derived from the same source as the predilection for flat
foreheads, which is seen in so singular a manner in the statues of the
Aztec heroes and divinities. Nations attach the idea of beauty to
everything which particularly characterizes their own physical
conformation, their natural physiognomy." See also Westermarck, _History
of Marriage_, p. 261. Ripley (_Races of Europe_, pp. 49, 202) attaches
much importance to the sexual selection founded on a tendency of this
kind.

[153] "Differences of race are irreducible," Abel Hermant remarks
(_Confession d'un Enfant d'Hier_, p. 209), "and between two beings who
love each other they cannot fail to produce exceptional and instructive
reactions. In the first superficial ebullition of love, indeed, nothing
notable may be manifested, but in a fairly short time the two lovers,
innately hostile, in striving to approach each other strike against an
invisible partition which separates them. Their sensibilities are
divergent; everything in each shocks the other; even their anatomical
conformation, even the language of their gestures; all is foreign."

[154] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, fourteenth
edition, Chapter XII.

[155] See, e.g., Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_, pp. 59-75.

[156] Sergi (_The Mediterranean Race_, Chapter 1), by an analysis of
Homer's color epithets, argues that in very few cases do they involve
fairness; but his attempt scarcely seems successful, although most of
these epithets are undoubtedly vague and involve a certain range of
possible color.

[157] Léchat's study of the numerous realistic colored statues recently
discovered in Greece (summarized in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_,
1904, ht. 1, p. 22) shows that with few exceptions the hair is fair.

[158] Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico_, pp. 127 et seq. In another book, _Les
Femmes Blondes selon les Peintres de l'Ecole de Venise_, par deux
Venitiens (one of these "Venetians" being Armand Baschet), is brought
together much information concerning the preference for blondes in
literature, together with a great many of the recipes anciently used for
making the hair fair.

[159] J. Houdoy, _La Beauté des Femmes dans la Littérature et dans l'Art
du XIIe au XVIe Siècle_, 1876, pp. 32 et seq.

[160] Houdoy, op. cit., pp. 41 et seq.

[161] Houdoy, op. cit., p. 83.

[162] Brantôme, _Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II.

[163] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, Subs. II.

[164] It is significant that Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, loc. cit.),
while praising golden hair, also argues that "of all eyes black are moist
amiable," quoting many examples to this effect from classic and later
literature.

[165] "Relative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," _Monthly Review_,
August, 1901; cf. H. Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, p. 215.

[166] Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, p. 217.

[167] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II,
pp. 261 et seq.) brings together some facts bearing on the admiration for
negresses in Paris and elsewhere.




III.

Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision--Movement--The
Mirror--Narcissism--Pygmalionism--Mixoscopy--The Indifference of Women to
Male Beauty--The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength--The
Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible.


Our discussion of the sensory element of vision in human sexual selection
has been mainly an attempt to disentangle the chief elements of beauty in
so far as beauty is a stimulus to the sexual instinct. Beauty by no means
comprehends the whole of the influences which make for sexual allurement
through vision, but it is the point at which all the most powerful and
subtle of these are focussed; it represents a fairly definite complexus,
appealing at once to the sexual and to the æsthetic impulses, to which no
other sense can furnish anything in any degree analogous. It is because
this conception of beauty has arisen upon it that vision properly occupies
the supreme position in man from the point of view which we here occupy.

Beauty is thus the chief, but it is not the sole, element in the sexual
appeal of vision. In all parts of the world this has always been well
understood, and in courtship, in the effort to arouse tumescence, the
appeals to vision have been multiplied and at the same time aided by
appeals to the other senses. Movement, especially in the form of dancing,
is the most important of the secondary appeals to vision. This is so well
recognized that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon it here; it may
suffice to refer to a single typical example. The most decent of
Polynesian dances, according to William Ellis, was the _hura_, which was
danced by the daughters of chiefs in the presence of young men of rank
with the hope of gaining a future husband. "The daughters of the chiefs,
who were the dancers on these occasions, at times amounted to five or six,
though occasionally only one exhibited her symmetry of figure and
gracefulness of action. Their dress was singular, but elegant. The head
was ornamented with a fine and beautiful braid of human hair, wound round
the head in the form of a turban. A triple wreath of scarlet, white, and
yellow flowers adorned the head-dress. A loose vest of spotted cloth
covered the lower part of the bosom. The tihi, of fine white stiffened
cloth frequently edged with a scarlet border, gathered like a large frill,
passed under the arms and reached below the waist; while a handsome fine
cloth, fastened round the waist with a band or sash, covered the feet. The
breasts were ornamented with rainbow-colored mother-of-pearl shells, and a
covering of curiously wrought network and feathers. The music of the hura
was the large and small drum and occasionally the flute. The movements
were generally slow, but always easy and natural, and no exertion on the
part of the performers was wanting to render them graceful and
attractive."[168] We see here, in this very typical example, how the
extraneous visual aids of movement, color, and brilliancy are invoked in
conjunction with music to make the appeal of beauty more convincing in the
process of sexual selection.

It may be in place here to mention, in passing, the considerable
place which vision occupies in normal and abnormal methods of
heightening tumescence under circumstances which exclude definite
selection by beauty. The action of mirrors belongs to this group
of phenomena. Mirrors are present in profusion in high-class
brothels--on the walls and also above the beds. Innocent youths
and girls are also often impelled to contemplate themselves in
mirrors and sometimes thus, produce the first traces of sexual
excitement. I have referred to the developed forms of this kind
of self-contemplation in the Study of Auto-erotism, and in this
connection have alluded to the fable of Narcissus, whence Näcke
has since devised the term Narcissism for this group of
phenomena. It is only necessary to mention the enormous
production of photographs, representing normal and abnormal
sexual actions, specially prepared for the purpose of exciting or
of gratifying sexual appetites, and the frequency with which even
normal photographs of the nude appeal to the same lust of the
eyes.

Pygmalionism, or falling in love with statues, is a rare form of
erotomania founded on the sense of vision and closely related to
the allurement of beauty. (I here use "pygmalionism" as a general
term for the sexual love of statues; it is sometimes restricted
to cases in which a man requires of a prostitute that she shall
assume the part of a statue which gradually comes to life, and
finds sexual gratification in this performance alone; Eulenburg
quotes examples, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 107.) An emotional
interest in statues is by no means uncommon among young men
during adolescence. Heine, in _Florentine Nights_, records the
experiences of a boy who conceived a sentimental love for a
statue, and, as this book appears to be largely autobiographical,
the incident may have been founded on fact. Youths have sometimes
masturbated before statues, and even before the image of the
Virgin; such cases are known to priests and mentioned in manuals
for confessors. Pygmalionism appears to have been not uncommon
among the ancient Greeks, and this has been ascribed to their
æsthetic sense; but the manifestation is due rather to the
absence than to the presence of æsthetic feeling, and we may
observe among ourselves that it is the ignorant and uncultured
who feel the indecency of statues and thus betray their sense of
the sexual appeal of such objects. We have to remember that in
Greece statues played a very prominent part in life, and also
that they were tinted, and thus more lifelike than with us.
Lucian, Athenæus, Ælian, and others refer to cases of men who
fell in love with statues. Tarnowsky (_Sexual Instinct_, English
edition, p. 85) mentions the case of a young man who was arrested
in St. Petersburg for paying moonlight visits to the statue of a
nymph on the terrace of a country house, and Krafft-Ebing quotes
from a French newspaper the case which occurred in Paris during
the spring of 1877 of a gardener who fell in love with a Venus in
one of the parks. (I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 297-305, brings together
various facts bearing on this group of manifestations.)

Necrophily, or a sexual attraction for corpses, is sometimes
regarded as related to pygmalionism. It is, however, a more
profoundly morbid manifestation, and may perhaps he regarded as a
kind of perverted sadism.

Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon,
bordering on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy.
This means the sexual pleasure derived from the spectacle of
other persons engaged in natural or perverse sexual actions.
(Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 308. Moll
considers that in some cases mixoscopy is related to masochism.
There is, however, no necessary connection between the two
phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to accommodate visitors who
merely desire to look on, and for their convenience carefully
contrived peepholes are provided; such visitors are in Paris
termed "_voyeurs_." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at
night in the bushes in the Champs Elysées in the hope of
witnessing such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In
England during a country walk I have come across an elderly man
carefully ensconced behind a bush and intently watching through
his field-glass a couple of lovers reclining on a bank, though
the actions of the latter were not apparently marked by any
excess of indecorum. Such impulses are only slightly abnormal,
whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good
taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate
curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved,
turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They
only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is