artist has felt in the presence
of this spectacle. He, the artist, more than I or another, has thrilled to
its mystery, its tumult, its power. It is this effect, received as a unity
of impression, that he wants to communicate. This power of the
object over him, and consequently the content of his work, is beauty.

In the experience of us all there are objects and situations which can
stir us,--the twilight hour, a group of children at play, the spectacle
of the great human crowd, it may be, or solitude under the stars, the
works of man as vast cities or cunningly contrived machines, or
perhaps it is the mighty, shifting panorama which nature unrolls for
us at every instant of day and night, her endless pageant of color and
light and shade and form. Out of them at the moment of our contact
is unfolded a new significance; because of them life becomes for us
larger, deeper. This power possessed by objects to rouse in us an
emotion which comes with the realization of inner significance
expressed in harmony is beauty. A brief analysis of the nature and
action of beauty may help us in the understanding and appreciation
of art, though the value to us of any explanation is to quicken us to a
more vivid sensitiveness to the effect of beauty in the domain of
actual experience of it.

Because the world external to us, which manifests beauty, is
received into consciousness by the senses, it is natural to seek our
explanation in the processes involved in the functioning of our
organism. Our existence as individual human beings is conditioned
by our embodiment in matter. Without senses, without nerves and a
brain, we should not _be._ Our feelings, which determine for us
finally the value of experience, are the product of the excitement of
our physical organism responding to stimulation. The rudimentary
and most general feelings are pleasure and pain. All the complex
and infinitely varied emotions that go to make up our conscious life
are modifications of these two elementary reactions. The feeling of
pleasure results when our organism "functions harmoniously with
itself;" pain is the consequence of discord. In the words of a recent
admirable statement of the psychologists' position: "When rhythm
and melody and forms and colors give me pleasure, it is because the
imitating impulses and movements that have arisen in me are such
as suit, help, heighten my physical organization in general and in
particular. . . . The basis, in short,