THE MEANING OP THE ESTHETIC IMPULSE. 



233 



measure the Infinite — a process which in Divine things constantly 

 fails us, or lands us in error. 



On the other hand, the sentence on page 226, " to grant to others 

 freedom, is to limit your own," seems a profound truth. 



On page 228 we get the Good, the True and the Beautiful, which 

 is surely Love, and therefore God. I have often pointed out that 

 while to see man we are equipped with two eyes, to see God we have 

 three — ^the eye of the conscience or moral sense which sees the Good ; 

 the mind or intellect which sees the True ; and the heart or ^Esthetic 

 sense which sees the Beautiful. 



There is no doubt that the narrative shows that the devil in Eden 

 destroyed this triple vision : for men's condition became such 

 that " There was no fear of God before their eyes." The Good 

 vanished. The wisdom of God was foolishness unto them. 

 The True was denied, and they saw no beauty that they should 

 desire Him. The Esthetic disappeared. 



If not straying too far from the paper, I should like to say that 

 I regard Christianity as an operation for cataract, as indeed, it is 

 said by Christ to be " the recovery of sight to the blind," and by 

 St. Paul " to open the eyes of the blind." When the triple spiritual 

 vision of the three abstract senses is restored by Christ, the man 

 " walks in the fear of the Lord all the day long " — he sees the Good ; 

 he cries, " 0 the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the 

 knowledge of God " — thus seeing the True ; and "He is the chief est 

 among ten thousand and the altogether lovely," thus once more 

 perceiving the Beautiful — the Esthetic. 



By Reality on page 229, 1 take it the author means God. 



The foot of page 230 must be read cum grano salis, 



Man as man, blinded by sin, can only fulfil what is there said 

 through the new birth, and the " must he horn again " is an essential 

 postulate to a true vision of the Beautiful. To see this is of the first 

 importance. 



On page 231, in the middle, while agreeing on the value of Beauty, 

 we must be very careful not to worship the Beautiful as such. The 

 object of our worship is not " the holiness of Beauty," but the Lord 

 is to be worshipped in " the heauty of holiness which is a very 

 different thing ; and it is well to mark that the beauty of the worship 

 does not consist in its accessories, but in its holiness. There is no 

 doubt the lecturer is right when he tells us that God teaches beauty 



