Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/58

22 more, an occurrence will always take place which seems to prove the rule.

Custom and beauty.—To do justice to custom we must own that the organs of attack and defence—of body and mind—of every one who, with all his heart and from the very beginning, entirely conforms to custom, are apt to degenerate that is, he grows more and more beautiful. For by the exercise of those organs and the corresponding dispositions ugliness is both pre-served and increased. For this reason the old baboon is uglier than the young one, and the young female baboon comes nearest in appearance to a human being, and is thus the best looking. Hence you may draw your own conclusions as to the origin of feminine beauty.

Animals and morality.—The finesses required in polite society, such as careful avoidance of everything ridiculous, incommon, presumptuous, the suppressing of virtues and our most cager desires, the immediate resignation, self-adaptation, self-depreciation—all these are, roughly speaking, to be found as social custom even in the lowest animal world—and only in this low depth are we able to discover the after-purpose of these uniable pre-cautions: one wishes to escape from one's pursuers and to be aided in the search after one's prey. For this