Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/280

 BURKE. 269 which approaches nearest to what we may be allowed to call the average form of the species to which it belongs. " It may be objected," says he, "that in every parti- cular species there are various central forms, which are separate and distinet from each other, and yet are unde- niably beautiful; that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another; which makes so many different ideas of beautys "It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfeet in their kind, though of different characters and proportions; but still none of them is the representation of an indivi- dual, but of a class. And as there is one general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at large, so in each of these classes there is one common idea and central form, which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to that class.Thús, though the forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in age, which is the more perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiari- ties. Bat. I must add further, that though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any individual form of that class; yet the highest perfection of the human figüre is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo; but in that form which is taken from them all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one to the exclusion of the rest: no one, therefore, must be predominant, that no one may be de- ficient." The discourse from which the foregoing extract has been taken, was delivered in the year 1770. Perhaps it might be objected, that Burke may have revised his theory