Hogarth Restored Author:William Hogarth Subtitle: The Whole Works of the Celebrated William Hogarth, as Originally Published : With a Supplement, Consisting of Such of His Prints as Were Not Published in a Collected Form General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1808 Original Publisher: Printed for John Stockdale ... and G. Robinson Notes: This is a black and... more » white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: And what sufficient reason can be given why the same may not be said of the rest of the body? CHAPTER XL OF PROPORTION. IF any one should ask, what it is , that constitutes a fine proportioned human figure? how ready and seemingly decisive is the common answer: a just symmetry and harmony of parts with respect to the whole. But as probably this vague answer took its rise from doctrines not belonging to form, or idle schemes built on them, I apprehend it will cease to be thought much to the purpose after a proper inquiry has been made. Preparatory to which, it becomes necessary in this place, to mention one reason more, which may be added to those given in the introduction, for my having persuaded the reader to consider objects scooped out like thin shells; which is, that, partly by this conception, he may be the better able to separate and keep asunder the two following general ideas, as we will call them, belonging to form; which are apt to coincide and mix with each other in the mind, and which it is necessary (for the sake of making each more fully and particularly clear) should be kept apart, and considered singly. First, the general ideas of what hath already been discussed in the foregoing chapters, which only comprehends the surface, of form, viewing it in no other light than merely as being ornamental or not. Secondly, that general idea, now to ...« less