PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN ANIMALS.
That proportion has but a small share in the formation of beauty is full
as evident among animals. Here the greatest variety of shapes and
dispositions of parts are well fitted to excite this idea. The swan,
confessedly a beautiful bird, has a neck longer than the rest of his
body, and but a very short tail: is this a beautiful proportion? We must
allow that it is. But then what shall we say to the peacock, who has
comparatively but a short neck, with a tail longer than the neck and the
rest of the body taken together? How many birds are there that vary
infinitely from each of these standards, and from every other which you
can fix; with proportions different, and often directly opposite to each
other! and yet many of these birds are extremely beautiful; when upon
considering them we find nothing in any one part that might determine
us, _à priori_, to say what the others ought to be, nor indeed to guess
anything about them, but what experience might show to be full of
disappointment and mistake. And with regard to the colors either of
birds or flowers, for there is something similar in the coloring of
both, whether they are considered in their extension or gradation, there
is nothing of proportion to be observed. Some are of but one single
color; others have all the colors of the rainbow; some are of the
primary colors, others are of the mixed; in short, an attentive observer
may soon conclude that there is as little of proportion in the coloring
as in the shapes of these objects. Turn next to beasts; examine the head
of a beautiful horse; find what proportion that bears to his body, and
to his limbs, and what relation these have to each other; and when you
have settled these proportions as a standard of beauty, then take a dog
or cat, or any other animal, and examine how far the same proportions
between their heads and their necks, between those and the body, and so
on, are found to hold; I think we may safely say, that they differ in
every species, yet that there are individuals, found in a great many
species so differing, that have a very striking beauty. Now, if it be
allowed that very different, and even contrary forms and dispositions
are consistent with beauty, it amounts I believe to a concession, that
no certain measures, operating from a natural principle, are necessary
to produce it; at least so far as the brute species is concerned.