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The Evolution of Beauty. 
[July, 
perceived in order that the group may appear beautiful is, 
that all those phenomena belong to that group, all take a 
necessary part in its formation, are bound together by a 
common bond, and form one unity. There may be many 
aspedts of unity in a single group of concrete phenomena, — 
as unity of form, unity of colour, unity of motion, unity of 
purpose, &c., — and the vividness with which the idea of 
Beauty is presented will be intensified as both variety and 
unity are perceived in a larger number of such aspects. 
As different minds vary in their sensitiveness to differences 
between the adts of attention, so they vary also in their 
sensitiveness to relationship among those adts. A group of 
phenomena may appear to one mind to be closely related, 
while to another no element of identity among the varied 
parts can be perceived, so that the group appears a chaos, 
and the idea of Beauty is not evolved. Every objedt in 
Nature is a group of parts related to each other in ways 
more or less complex and subtle. If any mind were abso- 
lutely sensitive to all degrees of relationship, in all its 
aspedts, nothing would appear chaotic. A mind absolutely 
sensitive to all shades of difference, and to all degrees of 
relationship at the same time, would see everywhere 
throughout creation variety bound up in unity, would find 
neither monotony nor chaos, discord nor ugliness, but only 
a universal Beauty. 
The human mind, however, as it adtually exists, has no 
such absolute sensitiveness. It is, in fadt, sensitive either 
to variety or to unity only within narrow limits. Whatever 
groups of phenomena present variations or similarities 
within the range of those limits may be recognised as beau- 
tiful, but no others. To the naked eye no differences can 
be recognised among the minute grains which constitute 
the seed of the common musk-plant ; and to the ordinary 
mind there appears at first to be no relationship between 
four such numbers as 264, 330, 396, 462 ; while the simplest 
of us can see that the stones on a gravel-walk are not all 
alike, and that the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 are related to each 
other by a common law. 
There is no doubt that culture increases the sensitiveness 
of the mind both to difference and to similarity, and it is 
certain that the cultured mind perceives more beauty in the 
Universe than the savage or the untaught. But the uni- 
versal Beauty which exists throughout every corner of 
creation may be brought within the sphere of man’s 
recognition by changes in the grouping of material forms, as 
well as by education of the mind. 
