I. ARCHITECTURE 29

allowing yourselves to think them the most beautiful persons in the world: you acknowledge that the real beauty of the human countenance depends on fixed laws of form and expression, and not on the affection you bear to it, or the degree in which you are familiarised with it: and so does the beauty of all other existences.

11. Now, therefore, I think that, without the risk of any farther serious objection occurring to you, I may state what I believe to be the truth,-that beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the elements by which the human soul is continually sustained; it is therefore to be found more or less in all natural objects, but in order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in the case of singularly beautiful scenery, or a beautiful countenance. On the other hand, absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.¹

12. This being so, you see that when the relative beauty of any particular forms has to be examined, we may reason, from the forms of Nature around us, in this manner:-what Nature does generally, is sure to be more or less beautiful; what she does rarely, will either be very beautiful,² or absolutely ugly. And we may again easily determine, if we are not willing in such a case to trust our feelings, which of these is indeed the case, by this simple rule, that if the rare occurrence is the result of the complete fulfilment of a natural law, it will be beautiful; if of the violation of a natural law, it will be ugly. For instance, a sapphire is the result of the complete and perfect fulfilment of the laws of aggregation in the earth of alumina, and it is therefore

¹ [Here, again, compare Modern Painters, vol. ii. chs. xii.-xiv., “Of Vital Beauty.”]

² [On this subject, compare Vol. III. p. 156, Vol. IX. p. 61 n.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]