228 REV. STEWART A. MCDOWALL, M.A., B.D., ON 



the sesthetic activity for its very existence ; but each has its 

 own sphere of activity. Art has its economic and its ethical 

 side, as any practical activity must, but it is primarily concerned 

 with the technical embodiment of the intuition itself, the intuition 

 being subjected to little logical development. It is nearest 

 to the intuition. Keason is concerned with theoretical deductions 

 and inductions from the intuition, through logical processes. 

 Morals are concerned with the higher forms of the practical 

 activity, through conduct, but they are ultimately dependent 

 on the theoretic activity. All alike deal with Keality ; each 

 in fact involves the others in some degree, though artificially 

 capable of isolation from them in argument, yet none is sus- 

 ceptible of definition but in terms of one of the others, in the 

 last resort — as how should it be, since Keality has these three 

 aspects — ^the Good, the True, the Beautiful — when men's minds 

 turn upon it. Yet Keality is not comprehended in any one of 

 these three terms. It is True, it is Good, it is Beautiful ; but 

 it is these because it is the Relation we call Love. 



All we can demand of Art, whatever form it take, is then, 

 that it shall be true to itself — and that means, express its in- 

 tuitions truly, remembering that it is in touch with Keality, 

 and is therefore concerned with relationship. 



Let me again sum up what we have been saying, in order 

 that, assuming that we have not been altogether astray from 

 the true path, we may see the meaning of the aesthetic impulse 

 more clearly, and perhaps suggest to ourselves some practical 

 consequences. The conclusion we have really come to is rather 

 an odd one. It is this. A thing may be beautiful, and equally 

 it may be true, and good, while yet it is not wholly Keal. Now 

 this actually comes straight out of our statement that God 

 is Love, for love is essentially a reciprocal relation. But we 

 have said that Beauty is the expression — and that means that 

 is the w^ork, so far, of the percipient — that Beauty is the 

 expression of our intuition of a relation which is not reciprocal. 

 Beauty is first of all the index of God's creative activity, which 

 itself is the necessary consequence of the fact that He is Love. 

 Further, I think that we may say that His creation is beautiful 

 for Him, pre-eminently, since it is the expressive activity of 

 His love which is Keality, but is not yet itself Love, since it is 

 not conscious of Him. To us this objective creation — selves 

 and things — is, or gradually becomes, beautiful as we come to 

 see in it a reality only to be explained in terms of relationship. 



