ustifies the habit of
conventionalizing natural forms, and the tendency of some kinds of
hieratic art, like the Byzantine or Egyptian, to affect a rigid
symmetry of posture. We can thereby increase the unity and force
of the image without suggesting that individual life and mobility,
which would interfere with the religious function of the object, as
the symbol and embodiment of an impersonal faith.

_Form the unity of a manifold._

Sec. 23. Symmetry is evidently a kind of unity in variety, where a
whole is determined by the rhythmic repetition of similars. We
have seen that it has a value where it is an aid to unification. Unity
would thus appear to be the virtue of forms; but a moment's
reflection will show us that unity cannot be absolute and be a form;
a form is an aggregation, it must have elements, and the manner in
which the elements are combined constitutes the character of the
form. A perfectly simple perception, in which there was no
consciousness of the distinction and relation of parts, would not be
a perception of form; it would be a sensation. Physiologically these
sensations may be aggregates and their values, as in the case of
musical tones, may differ according to the manner in which certain
elements, beats, vibrations, nervous processes, or what not, are
combined; but for consciousness the result is simple, and the value
is the pleasantness of a datum and not of a process. Form, therefore,
does not appeal to the unattentive; they get from objects only a
vague sensation which may in them awaken extrinsic associations;
they do not stop to survey the parts or to appreciate their relation,
and consequently are insensible to the various charms of various
unifications; they can find in objects only the value of material or
of function, not that of form.

Beauty of form, however, is what specifically appeals to an
aesthetic nature; it is equally removed from the crudity of formless
stimulation and from the emotional looseness of reverie and
discursive thought. The indulgence in sentiment and suggestion, of
which our time is fond, to the sacrifice of formal beauty, marks an
absence of cultivation as real, if not as confessed, as that of the
barbarian who revels in gorgeous confusion.

The synthesis, then, which constitutes form is an activity of the
mind; the unity arises consciously, and is an insight into the
relation of sensible elements separately perceived. It differs from
sensation in the conscious