_Intimate Relation between the Mind and the Object._--While I maintain, however, the existence of beauty as an absolute and independent quality of objects, and not merely as relative to the mind that perceives and enjoys it, I would, by no means, overlook the very intimate relation which subsists, in the present case, between the perceiving mind and the object perceived. Beauty makes its appeal primarily to the senses. It pleases and charms us, because we are endowed with senses and a nature fitted to receive pleasure from such objects. In the _adaptation_ of our physical and mental constitution to the order and constitution of material things as they exist without, lies the secret of that power which the beautiful exerts over us. _Might have been otherwise constituted._--We might have been so constituted, doubtless, that the most beautiful objects should have been disgusting, rather than pleasing: the violet should have seemed an ugly thing, and the sweetest strains of music harsh and discordant. There are disordered senses, and disordered minds, to which, even now, those things, which we call beautiful, may so appear. For that adaptation of our sensitive nature to external objects, and of these objects to our sensitive nature, by virtue of which, the percipient mind recognizes and feels the beauty of the object perceived, and takes delight in it, we are indebted wholly to the wisdom and benevolence of the great Creator. _The Doctrine maintained._--Still, _given_, the present constitution and mutual adaptation of mind and matter, and we affirm the independent existence of the beautiful as an object _per se_, and not merely as an affection of the percipient mind. The perception and enjoyment of the beauty are subjective, relative, dependent; the beauty itself not so. _The second Question._--If beauty be, then, as we find reason to believe, not wholly a subjective affair, but a quality or property of external objects, the question now arises, II. What is it in the object, that constitutes its beauty? _Theory of Novelty._--And first, is it the _novelty_ of the thing? Is the novel the beautiful? Doubtless, novelty pleases us. It has this in common with the beautiful. Yet some things that are novel, are by no means beautiful. A mill for grinding corn is a great curiosity to one who has never seen such a machine before, but it might not strike him as particularly beautiful.