ones are, as in Australia, the ideals of
beauty, as their poets would make plain to us if it were not known
otherwise. A Sanscrit poet declares proudly that his beloved is so
borne down by the weight of her thighs and breasts that she cannot
walk fast; and in the songs of Hala there are numerous "sentiments"
like that. The Arabian poet Amru declares rapturously that his
favorite beauty has thighs so delightfully exuberant that she can
scarcely enter the tent door. Another Arabian poet apostrophizes "the
maid of Okaib, who has haunches like sand-hills, whence her body rises
like a palm-tree." And regarding the references to personal appearance
in the writings of the ancient Hebrews, Rossbach remarks:

"In all these descriptions human beauty is recognized in the
luxurious fulness of parts, not in their harmony and
proportion. Spiritual expression in the sensual form is not
adverted to" (238).

Thus, from the Australian and the Indian to the Hebrew, the Arab, and
the Hindoo, what pleases the men in women is not their beauty, but
their voluptuous rotundity; they care only for those sensual aspects
which emphasize the difference between the sexes. The object of the
modern wasp waist (in the minds of the class of females who, strange
to say, are allowed by respectable women to set the fashion for them)
is to grossly exaggerate the bust and the hips, and it is for the same
reason that barbarian and Oriental girls are fattened for the marriage
market. The appeal is to the appetite, not to the esthetic sense.

THE CONCUPISCENCE THEORY OF BEAUTY

In writing this I do not ignore the fact that many authors have held
that personal beauty and sensuality are practically identical or
indissolubly associated. The sober philosopher, Bain, gravely advances
the opinion that, on the whole, personal beauty turns, 1, upon
qualities and appearances that heighten the expression of favor or
good-will; and, 2, upon qualities and appearances that suggest the
endearing embrace. Eckstein expresses the same idea more coarsely by
saying that "finding a thing beautiful is simply another way of
expressing the manifestation of the sexual appetite." But it remained
for Mantegazza to give this view the most cynical expression:

"We look at woman through the prism of desire, and she looks
at us in the same way; her beauty appears to us the more
perfect the more it arouses our sexual desires--that is, the
more