species, and become in some
sort monstrous: however, no species is so strictly confined to any
certain proportions, that there is not a considerable variation amongst
the individuals; and as it has been shown of the human, so it may be
shown of the brute kinds, that beauty is found indifferently in all the
proportions which each kind can admit, without quitting its common form;
and it is this idea of a common form that makes the proportion of parts
at all regarded, and not the operation of any natural cause: indeed a
little consideration will make it appear, that it is not measure, but
manner, that creates all the beauty which belongs to shape. What light
do we borrow from these boasted proportions, when we study ornamental
design? It seems amazing to me, that artists, if they were as well
convinced as they pretend to be, that proportion is a principal cause of
beauty, have not by them at all times accurate measurements of all sorts
of beautiful animals to help them to proper proportions, when they would
contrive anything elegant; especially as they frequently assert that it
is from an observation of the beautiful in nature they direct their
practice. I know that it has been said long since, and echoed backward
and forward from one writer to another a thousand times, that the
proportions of building have been taken from those of the human body. To
make this forced analogy complete, they represent a man with his arms
raised and extended at full length, and then describe a sort of square,
as it is formed by passing lines along the extremities of this strange
figure. But it appears very clearly to me that the human figure never
supplied the architect with any of his ideas. For, in the first place,
men are very rarely seen in this strained posture; it is not natural to
them; neither is it at all becoming. Secondly, the view of the human
figure so disposed, does not naturally suggest the idea of a square, but
rather of a cross; as that large space be tween the arms and the ground
must be filled with something before it can make anybody think of a
square. Thirdly, several buildings are by no means of the form of that
particular square, which are notwithstanding planned by the best
architects, and produce an effect altogether as good, and perhaps a
better. And certainly nothing could he more unaccountably whimsical,
than for an architect to model his performance by the human figure,
since no two things can have less resemblance