Appetence and Emotion. 4 1 1 



together with perceptions of symmetry, of diversity and 

 contrast, and of proportion, with a basis of unity. It is 

 rich in suggestions and associations. It is heightened by 

 sympathy. A beautiful scene is doubly enjoyable if a 

 congenial companion is by our side. 



" The whole effect of a beautiful object, so far as we 

 can explain it," says Mr. Sully,* "is an harmonious con- 

 fluence of these delights of sense, intellect, and emotion, in 

 a new combination. Thus a beautiful natural object, as a 

 noble tree, delights us by its gradations of light and colour, 

 the combination of variety with symmetry in its contour or 

 form, the adaptation of part to part, or the whole to its 

 surroundings ; and, finally, by its effect on the imagination, 

 its suggestions of heroic persistence, of triumph over the 

 adverse forces of wind and storm. Similarly, a beautiful 

 painting delights the eye by supplying a rich variety of 

 light and shade, of colour, and of outline ; gratifies the 

 intellect by exhibiting a certain plan of composition, the 

 setting forth of a scene or incident with just the fulness of 

 detail for agreeable apprehension ; and, lastly, touches the 

 many-stringed instrument of emotion by an harmonious 

 impression, the several parts or objects being fitted to 

 strengthen and deepen the dominant emotional effect, 

 whether this be grave or pathetic on the one hand, or 

 light and gay on the other. The effect of beauty, then, 

 appears to depend on a simultaneous presentment in a 

 single object of a well-harmonized mass of pleasurable 

 material or pleasurable stimulus for sense, intellect, and 

 emotion." 



This, too, is what I understand by an aesthetic sense of 

 beauty ; and if a hen bird has her sexual appetence evoked 

 by the bright display of her mate, the emotional state she 

 experiences is something very different from what we know 

 as a sense of beauty. The adjective " aesthetic " should in 

 any case, I think, be resolutely excluded in any discussion 

 of sexual selection. 



Esthetics, like conceptual thought, accompany the sup- 



* " Outlines of Psychology," p. 537. 



