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



horrors we can pride ourselves so much as formerly on our moral 

 and aesthetic progress. 



Possibly the " Lord of Love " of the Theosophists takes a still 

 more gloomy view of the near prospect of his being received on earth, 

 now that the storm raised by " the Four Winds of Heaven " is still 

 raging — and so he must be content with the role of an Angel of Light, 

 and postpone yet awhile any further attempt to pose as an Angel 

 of Love. 



Grod is Spirit, and God is Light, and God is Love — these are essential 

 and absolute attributes of the Holy Trinity. 



Mr. W. E. Leslie said : — The term " expression " is fundamental 

 to Croce's theory, but it is not adequately defined. In ordinary 

 usage it implies an agent, a medium or vehicle, and a percipient. 

 Mr. McDowall speaks of the mind as an agent expressing something 

 to the self. The psychological unreality of this distinction is 

 emphasized when we are told that the act of expression and the 

 thing expressed are identical. Is not Croce's "expression" simply 

 the vivid image produced by the contemplation of a simple object, or 

 the prolonged concentration of the attention upon the details of a 

 more complicated object. An artist can portray a face upon which 

 he gazes long in the same way that a boy scout can describe the 

 contents of a shop window which he has studied. " Internal 

 meditation " does not afiect the process. 



Beauty is said to be the act of expression (= awareness) of an 

 object. Ugliness being indistinct expression (= awareness). It 

 follows that all clear perceptions are beautiful, even if the object or 

 idea contemplated be vile. Does this not divorce Beauty and 

 Goodness ? To escape from the difficulty by defining reality as 

 personal relation, or love, is to explain evil by ignoring it. 



At the bottom of page 223 we have several allusions to beautiful 

 things or persons. Is not this inconsistent ? If beauty is a purely 

 peisonal subjective act, how can external creation be beautiful ? 

 Even if the universe is " a relation that is not reciprocal " we cannot 

 intuit it as such. 



On page 224 the loved object gives us of his or her beauty, " for the 

 gift cannot be withheld." In the same way we cannot withhold 

 the gift of our beauty, whether it is accepted or not. Does a mother 

 give her babe nothing beyond its simple physical requirements ? 



Our conception of the relations eternally subsisting between the 



