primitive and fundamental, and the most
universal. There is no effect of form which an effect of material
could not enhance, and this effect of material, underlying that of
form, raises the latter to a higher power and gives the beauty of the
object a certain poignancy, thoroughness, and infinity which it
otherwise would have lacked. The Parthenon not in marble, the
king's crown not of gold, and the stars not of fire, would be feeble
and prosaic things. The greater hold which material beauty has
upon the senses, stimulates us here, where the form is also sublime,
and lifts and intensifies our emotions. We need this stimulus if our
perceptions are to reach the highest pitch of strength and acuteness.
Nothing can be ravishing that is not beautiful pervasively.

And another point. The wider diffusion of sensuous beauty makes
it as it were the poor man's good. Fewer factors are needed to
produce it and less training to appreciate it. The senses are
indispensable instruments of labour, developed by the necessities
of life; but their perfect development produces a harmony between
the inward structure and instinct of the organ and the outward
opportunities for its use; and this harmony is the source of
continual pleasures. In the sphere of sense, therefore, a certain
cultivation is inevitable in man; often greater, indeed, among
rude peoples, perhaps among animals, than among those whose
attention takes a wider sweep and whose ideas are more abstract.
Without requiring, therefore, that a man should rise above his
station, or develope capacities which his opportunities will seldom
employ, we may yet endow his life with aesthetic interest, if we
allow him the enjoyment of sensuous beauty. This enriches him
without adding to his labour, and flatters him without alienating
him from his world.

Taste, when it is spontaneous, always begins with the senses.
Children and savages, as we are so often told, delight in bright and
variegated colours; the simplest people appreciate the neatness of
muslin curtains, shining varnish, and burnished pots. A rustic
garden is a shallow patchwork of the liveliest flowers, without that
reserve and repose which is given by spaces and masses. Noise and
vivacity is all that childish music contains, and primitive songs add
little more of form than what is required to compose a few
monotonous cadences. These limitations are not to be regretted;
they are a proof of sincerity. Such simplicity is not