The most important forms of beauty have as the physical conditions of their existence light and sound, and as the ideal conditions of their existence space and time. The names man gives to these forms of beauty, when he expresses them, or re-expresses them, are painting and music. For no element of man’s nature has more marvelous provision been made than for the æsthetic element. The objective conditions of the beauty, which correspond to the subjective æsthetic sense, are contained in sound and light. Sound and light are the invisible physical forces which play upon the objects of nature, and call from them the responses of melody and vision which the æsthetic nature appropriates for ecstasy and delight. Capacity for sound is lodged in well-nigh all created objects. Minerals, woods, gases, and liquids even, contain the notes of the musical scale. Builders of pianos, harps, put no notes in the elements they use in the construction of these instruments. They simply comply with conditions necessary to bring them out. The music we get out of wood and steel and brass, as we find them arranged in the piano, the organ, the harp, by striking them at regular intervals, is the melody breathed into them when they were created. Beethoven, Handel, and Mozart created no music. Their genius was manifested simply in the power to bring out of forest and mine and cane-brake what God put into them. As to what note a body shall give up under tension and pressure, is owing to its ultimate structure, and the elements which compose it; and also the note latent in the object by which it is struck, or pressed. Sing into a piano and the same notes respond which are used in the execution of the song. A storm, howling through a forest, makes a loud noise, but no music. Its notes do not synchronize with those contained in the limbs and leaves of the trees. But when the low, sad murmur of the evening winds gently strike the needles of the long-leaf pine there is music. The notes of the one are related to the notes of the other. As all things have capacity for sound, so well-nigh all created things have capacity for color. The color which an object takes on in the presence of light is determined also by its ultimate structure and the elements which constitute it. Nearly every object absorbs a portion of the light and throws back to the eye of the beholder a portion. Bodies absorb those rays which are synchronous with their constituent elements. When the particles which compose a body are not capable of vibrating at the rate of any portion of the light particles, then they are all thrown back, and the body is pronounced white. It is to be observed that no body has color or sound of its own, but only the capacity for these. The note of a body is discovered by striking it, and its color by stimulating it with a light ray.