No, the sense of personal beauty is neither a synonyme for libidinous
desires nor is it based on utilitarian considerations. It is
practically a new sense, born of mental refinement and imagination. It
by no means scorns a slight touch of the voluptuous, so far as it does
not exceed the limits of artistic taste and moral refinement--a
well-rounded figure and "a face voluptuous, yet pure"--but it is an
entirely different thing from the predilection for fat and other
coarse exaggerations of sexuality which inspire lust instead of love.
This new sense is still, as I have said, rare everywhere; and, like
the other results of high and recent culture, it is easily
obliterated. In his treatise on insanity Professor Krafft-Ebing shows
that in degeneration of the brain the esthetic and moral qualities are
among the first to disappear. It is the same with normal man when he
descends into a lower sphere. Zoller relates (III., 68) that when
Europeans arrive in Africa they find the women so ugly they can hardly
look at them without a feeling of repulsion. Gradually they become
habituated to their sight, and finally they are glad to accept them as
companions. Stanley has an eloquent passage on the same topic (_II. I.
F.L_., 265):
"The eye that at first despised the unclassic face of the
black woman of Africa soon loses its regard for fine lines
and mellow pale color; it finds itself ere long lingering
_wantonly_ over the inharmonious and heavy curves of a
negroid form, and looking lovingly on the broad,
unintellectual face, and into jet eyes that never flash with
the dazzling love-light that makes poor humanity beautiful."
The word I have italicized explains it all. The sense of personal
beauty is displaced again by the concupiscence which had held its
place in the early history of mankind.