uty
be asked _why_ he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to
give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought,
to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the
thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be
able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives
in the object any expression of distinct thought, he has received more
than an idea of beauty--it is an idea of relation.

Sec. 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.

Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the
human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their
degree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be
constantly under their influence, because there is not one single object
in nature which is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the
rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number
of beautiful than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely
anything, in pure, undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only
degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast
as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition, spots
of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt.

Sec. 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."

But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every
species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in
their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any,
individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species
is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily
coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects,
is the ideal of the object.

Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but
not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be
led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.

CHAPTER VII.

OF IDEAS OF RELATION.

Sec. 1. General meaning of the term.

I use this term rather as one of convenience than as adequately
expressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be comprehended
under it, namely, all those conveyable by art, which are the subjects of
distinct intellectual perception and action, and which are therefore
worthy of the name of thoughts. But as every thought, or defini