[131] "It is likely that all visible parts of the organism, even those with a definite physiological meaning, appeal to the æsthetic sense of the opposite sex," Poulton remarks, speaking primarily of insects, in words that apply still more accurately to the human species. E. Poulton, _The Colors of Animals_, 1890, p. 304. [132] "The Arabs in general," Lane remarks, "entertain a prejudice against blue eyes--a prejudice said to have arisen from the great number of blue-eyed persons among certain of their northern enemies." [133] _Nature_, April 14, 1898, p. 55. II. Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the Sexual Characters--The Sexual Organs--Mutilations, Adornments, and Garments--Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices--The Religious Element--Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs--Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters--The Pelvis and Hips--Steatopygia--Obesity--Gait--The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty--The Ideals of the Renaissance--The Breasts--The Corset--Its Object--Its History--Hair--The Beard--The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty--The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes--The General European Admiration for Blondes--The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of Beauty--The Love of the Exotic. In the constitution of our ideals of masculine and feminine beauty it was inevitable that the sexual characters should from a very early period in the history of man form an important element. From a primitive point of view a sexually desirable and attractive person is one whose sexual characters are either naturally prominent or artificially rendered so. The beautiful woman is one endowed, as Chaucer expresses it, "With buttokes brode and brestës rounde and hye"; that is to say, she is the woman obviously best fitted to bear children and to suckle them. These two physical characters, indeed, since they represent aptitude for the two essential acts of motherhood, must necessarily tend to be regarded as beautiful among all peoples and in all stages of culture, even in high stages of civilization when more refined and perverse ideals tend to find favor, and at Pompeii as a decoration on the east side of the Purgatorium of the Temple of Isis we find a representation of Perseus rescuing Andromeda, who is shown as a woman with a very small head, small hands and feet, but with a fully developed body, large breasts, and large projecting nates.[134]