vellous beauty in his poetry. Free activity, which is truly at home
only in Olympus, was introduced by him even into the domain of sense, and
it is a further reason for not attaching blame to him if reciprocally he
transported the affections of the sense into Olympus. Thus, this
delicate sense of the Greeks, which never suffered the material element
unless accompanied by the spiritual principle, recognizes in man no
voluntary movement belonging only to sense which did not at the same time
manifest the moral sentiment of the soul. It follows that for them grace
is one of the manifestations of the soul, revealed through beauty in
voluntary movements; therefore, wherever there is grace, it is the soul
which is the mobile, and it is in her that beauty of movement has its
principle. The mythological allegory thus expresses the thought, "Grace
is a beauty not given by nature, but produced by the subject itself."

Up to the present time I have confined myself to unfolding the idea of
grace from the Greek myth, and I hope I have not forced the sense: may I
now be permitted to try to what result a philosophical investigation on
this point will lead us, and to see if this subject, as so many others,
will confirm this truth, that the spirit of philosophy can hardly flatter
itself that it can discover anything which has not already been vaguely
perceived by sentiment and revealed in poetry?

Without her girdle, and without the Graces, Venus represents the ideal of
beauty, such as she could have come forth from the hands of nature, and
such as she is made without the intervention of mind endowed with
sentiment and by the virtue alone of plastic forces. It is not without
reason that the fable created a particular divinity to represent this
sort of beauty, because it suffices to see and to feel in order to
distinguish it very distinctly from the other, from that which derives
its origin from the influence of a mind endowed with sentiments.

This first beauty, thus formed by nature solely and in virtue of the laws
of necessity, I shall distinguish from that which is regulated upon
conditions of liberty, in calling it, if allowed, beauty of structure
(architectonic beauty). It is agreed, therefore, to designate under this
name that portion of human beauty which not only has as efficient
principle the forces and agents of physical nature (for we can say as
much for every phenomenon), but which also is determined, so far as it is
beauty