The poverty of language, however, makes it rather difficult to describe with any exactness the scope of such an inquiry. Beauty is an ill-defined attribute of certain members of an ill-defined class; and for the class itself there is no very convenient name. We might describe its members as “objects of æsthetic interest” always bearing in mind that this description (as I use it) applies to objects of the most varying degrees of excellence—to the small as well as the great, the trifling as well as the sublime: to conjuring and dancing; to literature, art, and natural beauty. It follows from this description that, while all things of beauty possess æsthetic interest, not all things of æsthetic interest would in common parlance be described as beautiful.[3] They might, for example, display wit, or finish, or skill. They might, therefore, properly excite admiration. But beauty is a term whose use may well be confined to the qualities which excite only the highest forms of æsthetic interest, and it is thus I propose to employ it. Now what are the characteristics which distinguish objects of æsthetic interest from interesting objects generally? I will mention two. In the first place, the value of æsthetic objects depends on the intrinsic quality of the emotions they arouse, and not upon the importance of any ulterior purpose which they may happen to subserve. In the second place, the emotions themselves, whatever be their value, must be _contemplative_. They must not prompt to action or reach forward to any end. They must be self-sufficient, and self-contained. Of course, I do not suggest that works of art are useless. A building may be beautiful, although it is also convenient. A sword most delicately damascened may be an admirable engine of destruction. We may even go further and admit that utility unadorned may have about it an æsthetic flavour. Nice adjustment and fitness exquisitely accomplished are without doubt agreeable objects of contemplation. But, in the first two of these cases, beauty is deliberately added to utility, not organically connected with it. An ill-proportioned building might have been equally fitted for its purpose; a plain sword might have been equally lethal. In the third case the connection between utility and æsthetic interest is organic, yet undesigned. From the very nature of the case it forms no part of the purpose for which the mechanism was contrived.