whole in question is or is not truly good, and does not depend upon
the question whether it would or would not excite particular feelings
in particular persons. This definition has the double recommendation
that it accounts both for the apparent connection between goodness
and beauty and for the no less apparent difference between these two
conceptions. It appears, at first sight, to be a strange coincidence,
that there should be two _different_ objective predicates of value,
‘good’ and ‘beautiful,’ which are nevertheless so related to one
another that whatever is beautiful is also good. But, if our definition
be correct, the strangeness disappears; since it leaves only one
_unanalysable_ predicate of value, namely ‘good,’ while ‘beautiful,’
though not identical with, is to be defined by reference to this,
being thus, at the same time, different from and necessarily connected
with it. In short, on this view, to say that a thing is beautiful
is to say, not indeed that it is _itself_ good, but that it is a
necessary element in something which is: to prove that a thing is truly
beautiful is to prove that a whole, to which it bears a particular
relation as a part, is truly good. And in this way we should explain
the immense predominance, among objects commonly considered beautiful,
of _material_ objects--objects of the external senses; since these
objects, though themselves having, as has been said, little or no
intrinsic value, are yet essential constituents in the largest group of
wholes which have intrinsic value. These wholes themselves may be, and
are, also beautiful; but the comparative rarity, with which we regard
them as themselves _objects_ of contemplation, seems sufficient to
explain the association of beauty with external objects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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