rds, but is felt; conveyed by the senses, it
at last reaches the emotions. Where the spirit of man comes into
harmony with a harmony external to it, there is beauty.

The elements of beauty are design, wholeness, and significance.
Significance proceeds out of wholeness or unity of impression; and
unity is made possible by design. Whatever the flower into which it
may ultimately expand, beauty has its roots in fitness and utility;
design in this case is constituted by the adaptation of the means to
the end. The owner of a saw-mill wanted a support made for a
shafting. Indicating a general idea of what he desired, he applied to
one of his workmen, a man of intelligence and skill in his craft, but
without a conventional education. The man constructed the support,
a triangular framework contrived to receive the shafting at the apex;
where there was no stress within the triangle, he cut away the timber,
thus eliminating all surplusage of material. When the owner saw the
finished product he said to his workman, "Well, John, that is a really
beautiful thing you have made there." And the man replied, "I don't
know anything about the beauty of it, but I know it's strong!" The
end to be reached was a support which should be strong. The strong
support was felt to be beautiful, for its lines and masses were
apprehended as _right._ Had the man, with the "little learning" that
is dangerous, attempted embellishment or applied ornament, he
would have spoiled the effect; for ornateness would have been out of
place. The perfect fitness of means to end, without defect and
without excess, constituted its beauty; and its beauty was perceived
aesthetically, as a quality inherent in the form, a quality which apart
from the practical serviceableness of the contrivance was capable of
communicating pleasure. So in general, when the inherent needs of
the work give shape to the structure or contrivance, the resulting
form is in so far forth beautiful. The early "horseless carriages," in
which a form intended for one use was grafted upon a different
purpose, were very ugly. Today the motor-car, evolved out of
structural needs, a thing complete in and for itself, has in its lines
and coherence of composition certain elements of beauty. In his
"Song of Speed," Henley has demonstrated that the motorcar,
mechanical, modern, useful, may even be material for poetry. That
the useful is not always perceived as beautiful is due to the fact that
the design