al and only occasionally abutting in conscious resultants.
Similarly, lack of space and the need for clearness have obliged me
to write as if shape-preference invariably necessitated the detailed
process of ocular perception, instead of being due, as is doubtless
most often the case, to every kind of associative abbreviation and
equivalence of processes.

VERNON LEE
Maiano _near_ Florence,_
Easter_ 1913.

CHAPTER I

THE ADJECTIVE "BEAUTIFUL"

THIS little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it
is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public
and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with
_ought_ but with _is,_ leaving to Criticism the inference from the
latter to the former. It does not pretend to tell how things can be
made beautiful or even how we can recognise that things _are_
beautiful. It takes Beauty as already existing and enjoyed, and seeks
to analyse and account for Beauty's existence and enjoyment. More
strictly speaking, it analyses and accounts for Beauty not inasmuch
as existing in certain objects and processes, but rather as calling
forth (and being called forth by) a particular group of mental
activities and habits. It does not ask: What are the peculiarities of the
things (and the proceedings) which we call _Beautiful?_ but: What
are the peculiarities of our thinking and feeling when in the presence
of a thing to which we apply this adjective? The study of single
beautiful things, and even more, the comparison of various
categories thereof, is indeed one-half of all scientific aesthetics, but
only inasmuch as it adds to our knowledge of the particular mental
activities which such "Beautiful" (and vice versa "Ugly") things
elicit in us. For it is on the nature of this active response on our own
part that depends the application of those terms _Beautiful_ and
_Ugly_ in every single instance; and indeed their application in any
instances whatsoever, their very existence in the human vocabulary.

In accordance with this programme I shall not start with a formal
definition of the word _Beautiful,_ but ask: on what sort of
occasions we make use of it. Evidently, on _occasions when we feel
satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction,_ satisfaction meaning
willingness either to prolong or to repeat the particular experience
which has called forth that word; and meaning also that if it comes
to a choice between two or