e is categorical, and the standard evoked by our judgment is
for that case intrinsic and ultimate. But at the next moment, when
the mind is on another footing, a new ideal is evoked, no less
absolute for the present judgment than the old ideal was for the
previous one. If we are then expressing our feeling and confessing
what happens to us when we judge, we shall be quite right in
saying that we have always an absolute ideal before us, and that
value lies in conformity with that ideal. So, also, if we try to define
that ideal, we shall hardly be able to say of it anything less noble
and more definite than that it is the embodiment of an infinite good.
For it is that incommunicable and illusive excellence that haunts
every beautiful thing, and

like a star
Beacons from the abode where the eternal are.

For the expression of this experience we should go to the poets, to
the more inspired critics, and best of all to the immortal parables of
Plato. But if what we desire is to increase our knowledge rather
than to cultivate our sensibility, we should do well to close all
those delightful books; for we shall not find any instruction there
upon the questions which most press upon us; namely, how an
ideal is formed in the mind, how a given object is compared with it,
what is the common element in all beautiful things, and what the
substance of the absolute ideal in which all ideals tend to be lost;
and, finally, how we come to be sensitive to beauty at all, or to
value it. These questions must be capable of answers, if any
science of human nature is really possible. -- So far, then, are we
from ignoring the insight of the Platonists, that we hope to explain
it, and in a sense to justify it, by showing that it is the natural and
sometimes the supreme expression of the common principles of
our nature.

PART I

THE NATURE OF BEAUTY

_The philosophy of beauty is a theory of values._

Sec. 1. It would be easy to find a definition of beauty that should give
in a few words a telling paraphrase of the word. We know on
excellent authority that beauty is truth, that it is the expression of
the ideal, the symbol of divine perfection, and the sensible
manifestation of the good. A litany of these titles of honour might
easily be compiled, and repeated in praise of our divinity. Such
phrases stimulate thought and give us a momentary pleasure, but
they hardly bring any permanent enlightenment. A definition that
sho