We may now apply these anatomical and physiological views to the art of distinguishing and judging of beauty in woman.

It is evidently the locomotive or mechanical system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is precise, striking, and brilliant.

It is evidently the nutritive or vital system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is soft and voluptuous.

It is not less evidently the thinking or mental system which is highly developed in the beauty whose figure is characterized by intellectuality and grace.

Thus can anatomical principles alone at once illustrate and establish the accuracy of the three species of beauty which I have analytically described.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE AGES OF WOMAN IN RELATION TO BEAUTY.

THE variations of the organization of woman do not distinctly mark the seasons of life. Many connected phenomena glide on imperceptibly; and we can distinguish the strong characters of different and distinct ages, only at periods remote from each other. Although, therefore, woman is perpetually changing, it requires some care to discriminate the principal epochs of her life.

The first age of woman extends from birth to the period of puberty.

In beginning the career of life, woman is not yet. truly woman; the characters of her sex are not yet decided; she is an equivocal being, who does not differ from the male of the same age even by the delicacy of the organs; and we observe between them a perfect identity of wants, functions, and movements. Their existence is, then, purely individual; we perceive none of the relations which afterward establish between them a mutual dependance; each lives only for self.

This conformity and independence of the sexes are the more remarkable, the earlier the age and the less advanced the development.

Confining our view to woman alone, it is not only in dimensions that, at this age, her person differs from that in which the growth is terminated: it presents another model. The various parts have not, in relation to each other, the same proportions.

The head is much more voluminous; and this is not a result of the extent of the face, for that is small and contracted, because the apparatus of smell and of mastication are not yet developed. Nor is the head only more voluminous; it is also more active, and forms a centre toward which is directed all the effort of life.

The spine of the back has not either the minuter prominences or the general inflexions which favor the action of the extensor muscles, a circumstance which is opposed to standing perpendicularly during the first months. The infant consequently can only crawl like a quadruped.

Little distinction can then be drawn, and that with difficulty, from the comparative width of the haunches, and magnitude of the pelvis. That part is scarcely more developed in the female than in the male; its general form is the same; and its different diameters have similar relations to each other.

The length of the trunk is great in proportion to the limbs, which are slightly and imperfectly developed.

Owing to the great length of the chest, and the imperfection of the inferior members, the middle of the body then corresponds to the region of the

umbilicus. An infant having other proportions, would appear to be deprived of the characters of its age.

In the locomotive system, the muscles have not yet acted with sufficient power and frequency to modify the direction of the bones, and to bestow a peculiar character upon their combination in the skeleton. The fleshy and other soft parts do not yet appear to differ from those of the male, either as to form or as to relative volume.

The vital functions of digestion, of circulation and respiration, of nutrition, secretion, and excretion, are performed in the same manner. The want of nourishment is unceasingly renewed, and the movements of the pulse, and of inspiration and expiration, are rapidly performed, owing to the extreme irritability of all the organs.

The mental functions present the same resemblance; the ideas, the appetites, the passions, have the greatest analogy; and similar moral dispositions prevail. Little girls, it has been observed, have in some measure the petulance of little boys, and these have in some measure the mobility and the inconstancy of little girls.

Owing to the pelvis not being yet developed, little girls walk nearly like children of the other

sex.

These points of resemblance do not continue during a long period: the female begins to acquire a distinct physiognomy, and traits which are peculiar to her, long before we can discern any of the symptoms of puberty; and although the especial

marks which distinguish her sex do not yet show themselves, the general forms which characterize it may be perceived. These differences, however, are only slight modifications, more easily felt than determined.

The cartilaginous extremities of the bones appear to enlarge; and the mucous substance, which ultimately gives the soft reliefs which distinguish woman, is not yet secreted. She is now perhaps more easily distinguished by the nature of her inclinations and the general character of her mind: while man now seeks to make use of his strength, woman endeavors to acquire agreeable.arts. The movements, the gait, of the little girl begin to change.

These shades are so much the more sensible as the development is more advanced. Still, woman, in advancing toward puberty, appears to remove less than man from her primitive constitution; she always preserves something of the character proper to children; and the texture of her organs never loses all its original softness.

At the near approach to puberty, woman becomes daily more perfect.

We observe a predominance of the action of the lungs and the arteries; the pelvis enlarges; the haunches are rounded; and the figure acquires elegance.

There is in particular a remarkable increase of the capacity of the pelvis, of which the circumference at last presents the circular form; it being no longer, as in the little girl and in man, the an