264 THE FACT OF BEAUTY 



domesticated and the cultivated, in favour of which man 

 should be prejudiced, that we find the best examples of the 

 uglj; and (3) that for many people the most beautiful 

 things — that is to say, the things which evoke the keenest 

 aesthetic delight — are not natural objects, but queer creations 

 which bear no resemblance to anything in the heavens above, 

 or in the earth beneath, or even in the waters under the 

 earth where strange beings abound. Yet the beautiful thing 

 — a decoration, a piece of pottery, a tile — thrills us through 

 and through, and we never tire of it. 



Another objection is based on the capriciousness of taste. 

 In his well-known Romanes Lecture on '' Criticism and 

 Beauty ", Mr. Arthur J. Balfour laid emphasis on the con- 

 spicuous absence of common agreement as to what is beauti- 

 ful. There is no accepted body of sesthetic doctrine. Taste 

 differs with race, age, and degree of culture. Greece had 

 apparently in ancient days values very different from ours 

 as to music, and in pictorial art what is one man's food is 

 another man's poison. Even among the aristocracy of taste, 

 what agreement is there among the various schools and 

 critics ? Mr. Balfour maintains that there is no standard 

 of the beautiful to be found (a) by critical analysis, or 

 (h) in the consensus of experts, or (c) in the general suffrage 

 of pleased mankind. So he concludes that just as that is 

 for every man most lovable which he most dearly loves, so 

 that is for every man most beautiful which he most deeply 

 admires. 



Perhaps we may evade the force of this argument by 

 remembering that Mr. Balfour was discussing art, while 

 our theme is Nature, which makes a great difference. More- 

 over, while there is discrepancy of view among experts as 

 regards the merits of subtle expressions of art, there is usu- 



