mentioned, which men bear so remarkably to their own works and notions;
it arose from false reasonings on the effects of the customary figure of
animals; it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and aptitude. For
which reason, in the next section, I shall consider the effects of
custom in the figure of animals; and afterwards the idea of fitness:
since if proportion does not operate by a natural power attending some
measures, it must be either by custom, or the idea of utility; there is
no other way.

SECTION V.

PROPORTION FURTHER CONSIDERED.

If I am not mistaken, a great deal of the prejudice in favor of
proportion has arisen, not so much from the observation of any certain
measures found in beautiful bodies, as from a wrong idea of the relation
which deformity bears to beauty, to which it has been considered as the
opposite; on this principle it was concluded that where the causes of
deformity were removed, beauty must naturally and necessarily be
introduced. This I believe is a mistake. For _deformity_ is opposed not
to beauty, but to the _complete common form_. If one of the legs of a
man be found shorter than the other, the man is deformed; because there
is something wanting to complete the whole idea we form of a man; and
this has the same effect in natural faults, as maiming and mutilation
produce from accidents. So if the back be humped, the man is deformed;
because his back has an unusual figure, and what carries with it the
idea of some disease or misfortune; So if a man's neck be considerably
longer or shorter than usual, we say he is deformed in that part,
because men are not commonly made in that manner. But surely every
hour's experience may convince us that a man may have his legs of an
equal length, and resembling each other in all respects, and his neck of
a just size, and his back quite straight, without having at the same
time the least perceivable beauty. Indeed beauty is so far from
belonging to the idea of custom, that in reality what affects us in that
manner is extremely rare and uncommon. The beautiful strikes us as much
by its novelty as the deformed itself. It is thus in those species of
animals with which we are acquainted; and if one of a new species were
represented, we should by no means wait until custom had settled an idea
of proportion, before we decided concerning its beauty or ugliness:
which shows that the general idea of beauty can be no more owing to
customary than to na