THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



as the quality of a thing," and this regard 

 is a sort of psychic illusion; — ^the thing itself 

 does not really possess any quality which 

 may be properly called beauty. Although 

 modern psychologists nearly all take this 

 view of beauty, it is radically different 

 from the popular feeling on the subject 

 which holds beauty to be a sensible ob- 

 jective quality. 



Some old-time attempts at a definition 

 of beauty ought to be noticed in passing, 

 if only for their curious interest. Beauty 

 has been said to be "the objectification of 

 the Deity," "the expression of the ideal to 

 sense," "the sensible manifestation of the 

 good," "the union of the real and the 

 ideal," and many more equally sonorous 

 and inconceivable things. Schopenhauer 

 has called music "the objectification of the 

 will." If it is, so is sculpture and landscape 

 gardening. 



But none of these definitions helps us 

 to any further understanding of the sub- 

 ject. We may find it a curious and pleasant 

 occupation to compare these dicta with our 

 own experiences of the facts; but after 

 such a comparison we find ourselves still 

 wondering what the objectification of Deity 



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