We know that the beauty of the human artist’s ideal is superior to, and never fully realized in, that of the actually achieved product of his art. Is the same true of the natural beauty of God’s works? That the works of God in general are beautiful cannot be denied; His Wisdom “spreads beauty abroad” throughout His works; He arranges all things according to weight and number and measure:_cum pondere, numero et mensura_; His Providence disposes all things strongly and sweetly: _fortiter et suaviter_. But while creatures, by revealing their own beauty, reflect the Uncreated beauty of God in the precise degree which He has willed from all eternity, it cannot be said that they all realize the beauty of their Divine Exemplars according to His primary purpose and decree. Since there is physical and moral evil in the universe, since there are beings which fail to realize their ends, to attain to the perfection of their natures, it follows that these beings are not beautiful. In so far forth as they have real being, and the goodness or perfection which is identical with their reality, it may be admitted that all real beings are _fundamentally_ beautiful; for goodness or perfection is the foundation of beauty.(211) But in so far as they fail to realize the perfection due to their natures they lack even the foundation of beauty. Furthermore, in order that a thing which has the full perfection due to its nature be _formally_ beautiful, it must actually show forth by the clearness of its proportions and the harmony of its activities the fulness of its natural perfections. But there is no need to prove that this is not universally verified in nature—or in art either. And hence we must infer that formal beauty is not a transcendental attribute of reality.(212)