THE FACT OF BEAUTY 271 



of their movements. There is sensory pleasure and there is 

 imaginative sympathy. But the delight is subtly heightened 

 by an appreciation of the fitness of the birds to this mastery 

 of the air, — an appreciation that steals into the mind rather 

 as an aroma than as a cold-blooded scientific reflection. 



By the objectivity of the beauty of Animate Nature we 

 mean that there is in the ^ form ' of plants and animals a 

 positive quality which excites the aesthetic emotion. Speak- 

 ing of tragic poetry, Mr. Bertrand Russell says: " it becomes 

 possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious 

 universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, 

 that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of 

 clay. In all the multiform facts of the world — in the visual 

 shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of 

 the life of man, even in the omnipotence of Death — the 

 insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a 

 beauty which its own thoughts first made." This is splen- 

 didly said, and that man's mind should be able to assert 

 " its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of Nature " 

 is something to ponder over, but our concern is with simpler 

 things than the triumph of imaginative idealisation. We 

 are pleading for the reality of a beauty which man's thoughts 

 did not first make. 



§ 7. Aspects of Beauty in Animate Nature. 



Another question arises : Of what elements does the beauty 

 of plants and animals consist? The general answer must 

 be : In combinations and arrangements of lines and colours, 

 and, in the case of animals, in movements as well. 



It has been known for centuries that certain forms are 

 much more pleasing than others. This has been borne out 

 by experiments with children and other unsophisticated per- 



