History of Human Marriage

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Alexander von Humboldt observed long ago Nations attach the idea of beauty to everything which particularly characterises their own physical conformation, their natural physiognomy. Thence 'it results that, if nature have bestowed very little beard, a narrow forehead, or a brownish red skin, every individual thinks himself beautiful in pro portion as his body is destitute Of hair, his head flattened, his skin more covered with annotto,' or chica,' or some other coppery - red colour.3 This View has been accepted by several later writers 4 but, as it has been disputed by others,5 it may be well to bring together some fresh evidence, as an addition to that collected by Darwin.