Excerpt from The History of Human Marriage, Vol. 2 of 3 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.