282 THE FACT OF BEAUTY 



man's joyous drawing towards the beautiful, when we trace 

 it back far enough, may be an expression of the same, or 

 of a harmony further back stilh 



§ 11. The Significance of the Pervasive Beauty of Animate 



Nature. 



The recognition of the pervasiveness of beauty in the realm 

 of organisms is important. First, because its enjoyment may 

 mean much to man — part of the salt of life. And though 

 its enjoyment may not be brought nearer by any cold-blooded 

 assertions on the subject, man is susceptible to indirect edu- 

 cation in reference to the beautiful as well as in relation 

 to the true and the good. Various in£uences which may 

 be typified by Gilbert White, Wordsworth, Ruskin, Whit- 

 man, and Meredith have done much to increase appreciation. 

 Second, to those who agree with our position that the scien- 

 tific view of the realm of organisms is not exhaustive, it 

 will not seem far-fetched that we are inclined to dwell on 

 the fact of beauty, regarding aesthetic emotion as another 

 right-of-way path towards reality. It is thus that the beauti- 

 ful has been thought of by many philosophers, such as 

 Schiller and Schelling, " not as a casual and fanciful at- 

 tribute of certain things or mental states, but as an inde- 

 pendent revelation of the essence of reality of the truly 

 real" (Merz, 1914, p. 25). Their suggestion is that the 

 beautiful in Nature may be a key to her deeper significance. 

 As Lotze put it, '^ It was of high value to look upon beauty, 

 not as a stranger in the world, not as a casual aspect afforded 

 by some phenomena under accidental conditions, but as the 

 fortunate revelation of that principle which permeates all 

 reality with its living activity " (quoted by Merz, 1914, 

 p. 25). Third, in reference to the triad of human ideals — 



