auty of the lower animals, or
resulting from degradation, as in man himself; and although in
considering the beauty of human form, we arrived at some conception of
restoration, yet we found that even the restoration must be in some
respect imperfect, as incapable of embracing all qualities, moral and
intellectual, at once, neither to be freed from all signs of former evil
done or suffered. Consummate beauty, therefore, is not to be found on
earth, though often such intense measure of it as shall drown all
capacity of receiving; neither is it to be respecting humanity
legitimately conceived. But by certain operations of the imagination
upon ideas of beauty received from things around us, it is possible to
conceive respecting superhuman creatures (of that which is more than
creature, no creature ever conceived) a beauty in some sort greater than
we see. Of this beauty, however, it is impossible to determine anything
until we have traced the imaginative operations to which it owes its
being, of which operations this much may be prematurely said, that they
are not creative, that no new ideas are elicited by them, and that their
whole function is only a certain dealing with, concentrating or mode of
regarding the impressions received from external things, that therefore,
in the beauty to which they will conduct us, there will be found no new
element, but only a peculiar combination or phase of those elements that
we now know, and that therefore we may at present draw all the
conclusions with respect to the rank of the theoretic faculty, which the
knowledge of its subject matter can warrant.

Sec. 4. The four sources from which the pleasure of beauty is derived are
all divine.

We have seen that this subject matter is referable to four general
heads. It is either the record of conscience, printed in things
external, or it is a symbolizing of Divine attributes in matter, or it
is the felicity of living things, or the perfect fulfilment of their
duties and functions. In all cases it is something Divine, either the
approving voice of God, the glorious symbol of him, the evidence of his
kind presence, or the obedience to his will by him induced and
supported.

All these subjects of contemplation are such as we may suppose will
remain sources of pleasure to the perfected spirit throughout eternity.
Divine in their nature, they are addressed to the immortal part of men.

Sec. 5. What objections may be made to this co