the organ of smell. See ANATOMY. The uses of the nose are, its giving us the sense of smelling; its serving in the great office of respiration, and in modelling the voice; in receiving the abundant humours from the eyes, and in adding to the beauty of the face.
The nose was by the augurs particularly attended to in forming conjectures concerning future good or ill success. The tingling of the right or left side of it, for instance, was thought to have different significations as it happened to different sexes, or persons in different conditions.
In Tartary, the greatest beauties are those who have the least noses. Ruybrock mentions the wife of the great Jenghiz Khan as a celebrated beauty, because she had only two holes for a nose. The Crim Tartars break the noses of their children while young, as thinking it a great piece of folly to have their noses stand before their eyes. In most other countries, China excepted, great noses are an honour.
In what the beauty of the nose consists, different nations have different opinions; and the following reflections of Sir Joshua Reynolds on this subject, are perhaps the most philosophical account of the beauty of form that is to be found in any language. "I Adler, suppoze (says Sir Joshua) it will be easily granted, vol. ii. that no man can judge whether any animal be beautiful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of that species: that is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; to that if a man born blind was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; nor, if the most beautiful and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that species. If it is asked, how is more skill acquired by the observation of greater numbers? I answer, that, in consequence of having seen many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences, which are continually varying the surface of Nature's works, and the invariable general form which Nature most frequently produces, and always seems to intend in her productions.
"Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of the same tree, though no two can be found exactly alike, yet the general form is invariable: a naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many, since, if he took the first that occurred, it might have, by accident or otherwife, such a form as that it would scarce be known to belong to that species; he selects, as the painter does, the most beautiful, that is, the most general form of nature.
"Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which nature is continually inclining, like various lines terminating in the centre; or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions over one central point; and as they all cross the centre, though only one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect beauty is oftener produced by nature than deformity: I do not mean than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To instance in a particular part of a feature: the line that forms the ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this then is the central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or any other irregular form that shall be proposed. As we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it: and I have no doubt, but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree that yes and no should change their meanings, yes would then deny, and no would affirm.
"Whoever undertakes to proceed further in this argument, and endeavours to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different species, or to show why one species is more beautiful than another, it will be required from him first to prove that one species is really more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from some association of ideas of innocence that he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other, by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he shall fix on as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great mother Nature will not be subjected to such narrow rules. Among the various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the most general, I believe, is habit and custom: custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white; it is custom alone determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians; and they, for the same reason, prefer their own colour to ours. I suppose nobody will doubt, if one of their painters was to paint the goddess of beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair; and it seems to me he would act very unnaturally if he did not; for by what criterion will any one dispute the propriety of his idea? We indeed say, that the form and colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian: but I know of no other reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it. It is absurd to say, that beauty is possessed of attractive powers, which irrefutably seize the corresponding mind with love and admiration, since that argument is equally conclusive in favour of the white and the black philosopher.
"The black and white nations mult, in respect of beauty, be considered as of different kinds, at least a different species of the same kind; from one of which to the other, as I observed, no inference can be drawn.
"Novelty is said to be one of the causes of beauty: that novelty is a very sufficient reason why we should admire, is not denied; but because it is uncommon, is it therefore beautiful? The beauty that is produced by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, though of the same form, on account of its colour, has nothing to do with this argument, which reaches only to form. I have here considered the word beauty as being properly applied to form alone. There is a necessity of fixing this confined sense; for there can be no argument, if the sense of the word is extended to every thing that is approved. A rose may as well be said to be beautiful, because it has a fine smell, as a bird because of its colour. When we apply the word beauty, we do not mean always by it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its rarity, usefulness, colour, or any other property. A horse is said to be a beautiful animal; but had a horse as few good qualities as a tortoise, I do not imagine that he would be then esteemed beautiful.
"A fitness to the end proposed is said to be another cause of beauty; but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in an animal to constitute strength or fitness, we always determine concerning its beauty before we exert our understanding to judge of its fitness.
"From what has been said, it may be inferred, that the works of nature, if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful; and that preference is given from custom, or some association of ideas; and that in creatures of the same species, beauty is the medium or centre of all various forms. See the article Beauty, towards the end.