to
the passive sensibility, the latter to the active judgment. The
agreeable--because of the non-calculable differences in our sensuous
inclinations, which are in part conditioned by bodily states--possesses no
universality whatever, the good possesses an objective, and the beautiful
a subjective universality. The judgment concerning the agreeable has an
empirical, that concerning the beautiful an _a priori_, determining ground:
in the former case, the judgment follows the feeling, in the latter, it
precedes it.

An object is considered beautiful (for, strictly speaking, we may say only
this, not that it is beautiful) when its form puts the powers of the human
mind in a state of harmony, brings the intuitive and rational faculties
into concordant activity, and produces an agreeable proportion between the
imagination and the understanding. In giving the occasion for an harmonious
play of the cognitive activities (that is, for an easy combination of the
manifold into unity) the beautiful object is purposive for us, for our
function of apprehension; it is--here we obtain a determination of the
judgment of taste from the standpoint of relation--_purposive without a
definite purpose_. We know perfectly well that a landscape which attracts
us has not been specially arranged for the purpose of delighting us, and we
do not wish to find in a work of art anything of an intention to please.
An object is perfect when it is purposive for itself (corresponds to its
concept); useful when it is purposive for our desire (corresponds to a
practical intention of man); beautiful when the arrangement of its parts
is purposive for the relation between the fancy and understanding of
the beholder (corresponds in an unusual degree to the conditions of our
apprehension). Perfection is internal (real, objective) purposiveness, and
utility is external purposiveness, both for a definite purpose; beauty,
on the other hand, is purposiveness without a purpose, formal, subjective
purposiveness. The beautiful pleases by its mere form. The satisfaction in
the perfect is of a conceptual or intellectual kind, the satisfaction in
the beautiful, emotional or aesthetic in character.

The combination of these four determinations yields an exhaustive
definition of the beautiful: The beautiful is that which universally and
necessarily arouses disinterested satisfaction by its mere form
(purposiveness without the representation of a purpose).

Since the pleasu