it is a mark of intellectual
emancipation to abandon moral standards altogether when dealing with
the fine arts. Life itself, they remind us, is only the greatest of
the fine arts; and if life can be called beautiful, the last word has
been said. The man of taste and delicate sensibility is thus empowered
to overrule the moralist, and replace with his ideal of grace and
symmetry the harsh and clumsy scruples of conscience. Now it is
doubtless true that when life is good, it is also beautiful; a life in
which every activity is true, in which the medium of opportunity is
formed to accord with the most noble purpose, may well exhibit a
superlative grace and symmetry. But to be beautiful, life must be good
_in its own way_; and the principles which define that way are the
principles of morality. Furthermore, in order that life shall be
beautiful it must be made an object of perception or contemplation;
while, in order to be good, it must be lived. And the principles which
define the living of life are moral.

The confusion of goodness with beauty is, therefore, doubly
stultifying. On the one hand, it substitutes for the moral conception
of value conceptions that morally are indeterminate. For {173} grace
and symmetry may be exhibited by life on any plane whatsoever, provided
only that it acquires stability. Indeed, one who aims above all things
to make his life beautiful, ought consistently to abandon the moral
effort to bring life to its maximum of fulfilment, and cultivate
perfection of form within the sphere of least resistance. It is
proverbial that many lower forms of life are more beautiful than man,
but it is not always seen that these are the stationary forms of life,
wholly lacking in that principle of rational reconstruction which is
the condition of moral goodness. On the other hand, the confusion of
goodness with beauty tends to substitute appreciation for action, and
thus to make of life a spectacle rather than an enterprise. Thus to
replace ethical with aesthetic conceptions is to take the heart out of
morality. Beauty is precisely as relevant to moral goodness as it is
to truth; and if investigators were taught to devise the prettiest
theory imaginable, the result would be no more fatal to knowledge than
is aesthetic sentimentalism to life. To think conformably with reality
is knowledge, and to act conformably with all interests is life. If
beauty is to be added unto truth and goodness, it mus