Croce gives the clue when he shows that aesthetic is the first stage of the spirit’s activity. Bergson strikes a note that wakes an answering harmony when he urges that intuition brings us nearer to Reality than does intellect directed toward practical aims, even though some of his deductions displease; Kant and Hegel indicate the eternal value of aesthetic when they urge that it belongs to the highest and last stage. But Croce gives no reason for the longing that beauty forces upon us; nor indeed for the activity of spirit at all; he merely assumes spirit as a datum, and is defined by its activity. But if we regard beauty as the expression of a perceived relationship, almost as one-sided love, the whole falls into place. Through beauty we get into touch with Reality, which Reality is, in its completeness, the mutual activity of Love. The basis of Love’s activity is Love’s freedom, even its freedom to limit itself. Mankind is winning freedom out of determined conditions; which conditions are the creation, the expression, of God’s love, through self-limitation. Because they are the expression of God’s knowledge of the Reality of Love, they are beautiful. The winning of freedom by man is achieved through adaptative relation to the environment. As this adaptation becomes conscious--as we gain intuitive knowledge of the environment--the sense of beauty is born, for we express our knowledge of this relation to ourselves; and make efforts towards further adaptation. These efforts are creative; and as we progress our creation becomes more and more altruistic; a creation for others with our relationship to them held consciously before us. These few words will suffice to show how perfectly our thesis fits in with the evolutionary views we have previously enunciated. The development of this side of the argument may be left for the present.