he idea of beauty is the same in every breast, savage
and civilized. Every nation's characteristic Form or expression of
beauty will be a representation, or portrait, of their characteristic
virtue, their happiness, their good. Thus, in the opinion of the wild
savage, that face or form will be the most beautiful that assimilates
with his idea of savage virtues, corporeal strength, courage, &c.
_perfections that are placed in bones and nerves_: as that of the most
cultivated nations, witness the Grecians, will indicate or portray the
most refined mental virtues. And hence we may conclude, if there be
any dignity, any truth, any beauty, in virtue, there must be a _real_
difference, _superior_ and _inferior_ characteristic power of pleasing
in the exterior of the human form.

It is cultivation that gives birth to beauty as well as to virtue,
by calling forth the visible object to correspond with the invisible
intellectual object. In the face or form of an idiot, or the lowest
rustic, there is no beauty; and, supposing a nation of idiots, and
that they never could improve in mental beauty, they never could, I
imagine, improve in corporeal, even though their natural form was upon
an equality with the rest of mankind; for, without sentiment, they
could not only be incapable of expressing any sentiment analogous to
beauty, but, wanting the surrounding influence of a moral system, i.e.
of the general influence of education on the exterior, they could not
suppress or veil a semblance incongruous with beauty. What no person
felt no person could teach.

In cultivated nations, every precept for exterior appearance, from the
first rudiments of the dancing-master to the motion of grace, has for
its object _mind_, that is, a desire to impress upon the spectator a
favourable idea of our mental character; but, passed the true point of
cultivation, they lose with the sentiment of mental excellence that of
true beauty; witness the exterior artificial appearance of humanity
in a neighbouring nation, which probably is on a par with the most
uncultivated rustic. The one does not enough for nature, the other
too much. But, as the former has an object before him, to which nature
herself directs him, the other is receding from it; and, as it is more
agreeable, more easy, and more natural, to the human mind, to learn
than to unlearn, I should sooner expect the most uncultivated nation,
the negro excepted, to arrive at taste in true beauty than