allowing yourselves to think them the most
beautiful persons in the world: you acknowledge that the real beauty of
the human countenance depends on fixed laws of form and expression, and
not on the affection you bear to it, or the degree in which you are
familiarized with it: and so does the beauty of all other existences.

11. Now, therefore, I think that, without the risk of any farther
serious objection occurring to you, I may state what I believe to be the
truth,--that beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the
elements by which the human soul is continually sustained; it is
therefore to be found more or less in all natural objects, but in order
that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely
granted to us in its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost
degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in
the case of singularly beautiful scenery or a beautiful countenance. On
the other hand, absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect
beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with
whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated
with what has the nature of virtue and of life.

12. This being so, you see that when the relative beauty of any
particular forms has to be examined, we may reason, from the forms of
Nature around us, in this manner:--what Nature does generally, is sure
to be more or less beautiful; what she does rarely, will either be
_very_ beautiful, or absolutely ugly. And we may again easily determine,
if we are not willing in such a case to trust our feelings, which of
these is indeed the case, by this simple rule, that if the rare
occurrence is the result of the complete fulfillment of a natural law,
it will be beautiful; if of the violation of a natural law, it will be
ugly. For instance, a sapphire is the result of the complete and perfect
fulfillment of the laws of aggregation in the earth of alumina, and it
is therefore beautiful; more beautiful than clay, or any other of the
conditions of that earth. But a square leaf on any tree would be ugly,
being a violation of the laws of growth in trees,[5] and we ought to
feel it so.

[Footnote 5: I am at present aware only of one tree, the tulip tree,
which has an exceptional form, and which, I doubt not, every one will
admit, loses much beauty in consequence. All other leaves, as far as I
know, have the round or pointed arch in the form of th