Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true, for works of art that are failures, that the beautiful presents itself as _unity,_ the ugly as _multiplicity._ Hence we hear of _merits_ in relation to works of art that are more or less failures, that is to say, of _those parts of them that are beautiful,_ which is not the case with perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate the merits or to point out what parts of the latter are beautiful, because being a complete fusion they have but one value. Life circulates in the whole organism: it is not withdrawn into the several parts. [Sidenote: _Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful nor ugly._] Unsuccessful works may have merit in various degrees, even the greatest. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for there is no conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is more expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on the other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete,_ that is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very reason cease to be ugly, because it would be without the contradiction in which is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become non-value; activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not at war, save when activity is really present to oppose it. And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the ugly is based on the conflicts and contradictions in which æsthetic activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest instances of expression. Hence the illusion that there are expressions neither beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without sensible effort and appear easy and natural being considered such. [Sidenote: _True æsthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental feelings._]