A few samples of the many definitions that have been set forth by various authors will not be without interest. Vallet(208) defines beauty as _the splendour of perfection_. Other authors define it as _the splendour of order_. These definitions sacrifice clearness to brevity. Beauty is _the splendour of the true_. This definition, commonly attributed to Plato, but without reason, is inadequate and ambiguous. Cousin(209) defines beauty as _unity in variety_. This leaves out an essential element, the _clarity_ or _clear manifestation_ of order. Kant defines beauty as _the power an object possesses of giving free play to the imagination without transgressing the laws of the understanding_.(210) This definition emphasizes the necessary harmony of the beautiful with our cognitive faculties, and the fact that the esthetic sentiment is not capricious but subject to the laws of the understanding. It is, however, inadequate, in as much as it omits all reference to the objective factors of beauty. 57. CLASSIFICATIONS. THE BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE.—All real beauty is either _natural_ or _artificial_. Natural beauty is that which characterizes what we call the “works of Nature” or the “works of God”. Artificial beauty is the beauty of “works of art”. Again, just as we can distinguish the _real_ beauty of the latter from the _ideal_ beauty which the human artist conceives in his mind as its archetype and exemplar cause, so, too, we can distinguish between the real beauty of natural things and the ideal beauty of their uncreated archetypes in the Mind of the Divine Artist.