(_a_) It is, then, in the first instance only in this bond of union which reveals itself as a necessary adjunct of vitality from the objectivity of Nature, in so far as the same is presented in forms adequate to the notion, that we have before us the beauty of Nature. With this coalescence the _materia_ is wholly identical; the form is immediately at home in the matter, as its true essence and its conforming energy[237]. This description may in fact stand for us, so far as beauty at this stage is concerned, as a general definition of it. We admire, for example, the natural form of a crystal on account of the law of uniformity it manifests, a law which through no mere action of forces external to it, but by virtue of its own specific definition and free activity, free in all its aspects as itself an object, is manifested there. For although an activity external to it could as such equally be free, yet in crystals the conformative activity is not extraneous to the object; rather it is a form operative as belonging to the mineral's innate character. We may define it as the free force of its substance, which out of its own resources informs itself and is not merely passively receptive of its environment. Consequently we find here the constituent material in its realized form as a free and independent creation. In still higher and more concrete mode the immanent form projects itself through the living organism and all its parts, in the articulate form and, above all, in its motion and its vital expression as feeling. For in this last case we have the inward vitality pregnant itself as living.