The beautiful, then, is not subject to the intellect. We cannot
demonstrate or coldly discover it; we cannot weigh or measure it.
Further to illustrate this position: we do not see with our outward
eye any more than we do with spectacles. The apparent ocular apparatus
is but the passive, unconscious instrument to transmit images thrown
through it upon a fine interior fibre, the optic nerve; and even this
does not take cognizance of the object, but is only another conductor,
carrying the image still farther inward, to the intellectual nerves of
the brain; and not until it reaches them do we see the object, not
until then is its individuality and are its various physical
qualities, size, shape, etc., apprehended. And now the intellect
itself becomes a conductor, transmitting still deeper inward to the
seat of emotion the image of the object; and not until it reaches that
depth is its beauty recognized.
In all her structures and arrangements Nature is definite, precise,
and economical. In subdivision of labor she is minute and absolute,
providing for every duty its special exclusive agent. In the mind
there is as severe a sundering of functions as in the body, and the
intellect can no more encroach upon or act for the mental
sensibilities than the stomach can at need perform the office of the
heart, or the liver that of the lungs. True, no ripe results in the
higher provinces of human life can be without intimate alliance
between the mental sensibilities and the intellect; nevertheless they
are in essence as distinct from one another as are the solar heat and
the moisture of the earth, without whose constant cooeperation no grain
or fruit or flower can sprout or ripen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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