ur gain, at our
deterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note
or a discordant arrangement of colours.

But there is something more important than conscious choice, and
something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious
choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I
mean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which,
in the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the
complexion or habit of the soul.

This is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it
undoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more
what we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way
of feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the
universe. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is
capable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or
the reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously
towards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to
me the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the aesthetic
activities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely
specialised and made publicly manifest.

VIII.

The habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our
nature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of _life_ in our
surroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I
believe scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show
us--of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play
of perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure
of our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the
particular emotion associated with the quality _beautiful_, we are
adding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life
of all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves
of emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one
unsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker
will be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot
co-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable
fact that great emotion of a really and purely aesthetic nature has a
morally elevating quality, that as long as it endures--and in finer
organisations its effect is never entirely lost--the soul is more
clean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All
understa