Place yourself before an object of nature, wherein men recognize beauty, and observe what takes place within you at the sight of this object. Is it not certain that, at the same time that you judge that it is beautiful, you also feel its beauty, that is to say, that you experience at the sight of it a delightful emotion, and that you are attracted towards this object by a sentiment of sympathy and love? In other cases you judge otherwise, and feel an opposite sentiment. Aversion accompanies the judgment of the ugly, as love accompanies the judgment of the beautiful. And this sentiment is awakened not only in presence of the objects of nature: all objects, whatever they may be, that we judge to be ugly or beautiful, have the power to excite in us this sentiment. Vary the circumstances as much as you please, place me before an admirable edifice or before a beautiful landscape; represent to my mind the great discoveries of Descartes and Newton, the exploits of the great Conde, the virtue of St. Vincent de Paul; elevate me still higher; awaken in me the obscure and too much forgotten idea of the infinite being; whatever you do, as often as you give birth within me to the idea of the beautiful, you give me an internal and exquisite joy, always followed by a sentiment of love for the object that caused it. The more beautiful the object is, the more lively is the joy which it gives the soul, and the more profound is the love without being passionate. In admiration judgment rules, but animated by sentiment. Is admiration increased to the degree of impressing upon the soul an emotion, an ardor that seems to exceed the limits of human nature? this state of the soul is called enthusiasm: "Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo." The philosophy of sensation explains sentiment, as well as the idea of the beautiful, only by changing its nature. It confounds it with agreeable sensation, and, consequently, for it the love of beauty can be nothing but desire. There is no theory more contradicted by facts. What is desire? It is an emotion of the soul which has, for its avowed or secret end, possession. Admiration is in its nature respectful, whilst desire tends to profane its object. Desire is the offspring of need. It supposes, then, in him who experiences it, a want, a defect, and, to a certain point, suffering. The sentiment of the beautiful is to itself its own satisfaction.