The Beauty of ExpressioiL 23 



is there ground for deuying that it is the very fsame lines in form and 

 direction (though not in their limitations) which give expression to the 

 forest tree and to the objects of landscape gardening generally, as 

 impart expression to the human form and figure. Nor this only : 

 the same lines, when they agree in form and direction, impart the 

 same expression in both fields of observation. 



The entire theory of the beautiful, whatever its field, is told in this, that 

 all features in any objects of sense which are simple, and as we might 

 say triumphant, displays of the operation of the laws of nature, are beau- 

 tiful, and when beheld, awake a pleasing state of mind in the beholder. 

 Nor is there anything mysterious in the fact that it should be so ; for 

 the embodied mind itself, when acting in a state of well-being, that is 

 in a state of enjoyment, must act in harmony with the laws of nature ; 

 and therefore that the spectacle of those laws triumphant in external 

 nature should awaken a state of enjoyment in die beholder is merely a 

 case of harmony such as is to be expected. But may it not be said with 

 truth, that all forms and movements in external nature are, without 

 exception, in accordance with, and in fact wholly due to the operation 

 of the laws of nature, and that therefore, according to the theory pro- 

 pounded, they ought all to be beautiful ? Yes, this is true. But with 

 a-egard to many objects, the laws which have determined their forms 

 and movements are so manifold, that the mind in simply beholding 

 the objects cannot take in all that they silently bespeak; and 

 therefore is not touched by their beauty. And therefore it is that 

 in propounding my theory of the beautiful I have introduced the 

 word simple. Besides, there are many objects in nature which we 

 cannot look at simply as they are, and in the first instance. We look 

 at ourselves first, and then at them, and immediately comparing them 

 with ourselves, we legitimately disparage them in this point of view, 

 and vote them to be ugly. Such is the character we assign to the 

 agile monkey, which, in consequence of his restless, suspicious, 

 bounding, destructive disposition, and his snub nose, seems a devilish 

 little manikin ; while the barrel-shaped toad displeases us as suggesting 

 to us the image of a gourmand or a dropsical individual. 



But it is time to ask, what are those lines or contours on which 

 the beauty of expression depends ? Now to find this we must go to 

 those realms where Nature accomplishes her laws most simply, and 

 -with the fewest complications, as, for instance, where the only force 

 opposing her elect movements is the non-resisting ether ; that is, we 

 must look to the lines which she develops in the movements of 

 the heavenly bodies and of light. These, it has been found, are 

 without exception that series of continuous lines, all of which may be 

 obtained by various sections of a cone, and which consequently are 

 usually named the conic sections. The most simple are the circle, the 



